Best movies like Mad City

Similar in 90%

Music Box (1989)

Plot Summary:

A lawyer defends her father accused of war crimes, but there is more to the case than she suspects.

Similar in 81%

Money Monster (2016)

Plot Summary:

Financial TV host Lee Gates and his producer Patty are put in an extreme situation when an irate investor takes over their studio.

Similar in 90%

Kill the Messenger (2014)

Plot Summary:

A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.

Similar in 81%

Blow Out (1981)

Plot Summary:

Jack Terry is a master sound recordist who works on grade-B horror movies. Late one evening, he is recording sounds for use in his movies when he hears something unexpected through his sound equipment and records it. Curiosity gets the better of him when the media become involved, and he begins to unravel the pieces of a nefarious conspiracy. As he struggles to survive against his shadowy enemies and expose the truth, he does not know whom he can trust.

Similar in 88%

True Crime (1999)

Plot Summary:

Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.

Similar in 84%

John Q (2002)

Plot Summary:

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

Similar in 83%

Dark Blue (2002)

Plot Summary:

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

Similar in 77%

The China Syndrome (1979)

Plot Summary:

A modern nightmare nearly becomes reality in this tension-filled story about an "incident" at a nuclear power plant. Jane Fonda stars as Kimberly Wells, an ambitious TV reporter covering a story on energy sources, who is present at the nuclear plant when a startling accident occurs that nearly causes the meltdown of the reactor. A newsreel cameraman accompanying Wells (Michael Douglas) captures the incident on film but the television station won't air the footage. Though the plant's corporate heads are quick to deny the possibility of any real danger, Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon), the plant's veteran engineer, discovers faulty equipment at the plant. Attempting to tell others about his findings, an attempt is made on his life. In desperation, he forcibly takes control of the power plant and invites the media to hear his ceremony. But the corporation is determined to stop him in a taut and shocking climax!.

Similar in 80%

Red Corner (1997)

Plot Summary:

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

Similar in 77%

The General's Daughter (1999)

Plot Summary:

When the body of Army Capt. Elizabeth Campbell is found on a Georgia military base, two investigators, Warrant Officers Paul Brenner and Sara Sunhill, are ordered to solve her murder. What they uncover is anything but clear-cut. Unseemly details emerge about Campbell's life, leading to allegations of a possible military coverup of her death and the involvement of her father, Lt. Gen. Joseph Campbell.

Similar in 83%

Absence of Malice (1981)

Plot Summary:

A prosecutor leaks a false story that liquor warehouse owner Michael Gallagher is involved in the murder of a union head, and as newspaper reporter Megan Carter picks up the story and attempts to find the real truth, Gallagher's life begins to unravel.

Similar in 81%

The Pelican Brief (1993)

Plot Summary:

Two Supreme Court Justices have been assassinated. One lone law student has stumbled upon the truth. An investigative journalist wants her story. Everybody else wants her dead.

Similar in 75%

Marathon Man (1976)

Plot Summary:

A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.

Similar in 76%

Nightcrawler (2014)

Plot Summary:

When Lou Bloom, desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.

Similar in 78%

All the President's Men (1976)

Plot Summary:

In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.

Similar in 80%

The Ides of March (2011)

Plot Summary:

Dirty tricks stand to soil an ambitious young press spokesman's idealism in a cutthroat presidential campaign where 'victory' is relative.