Best movies like Mystic River

Similar in 75%

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Plot Summary:

Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece.

Similar in 80%

The Boston Strangler (1968)

Plot Summary:

Boston is being terrorized by a series of seemingly random murders of women. Based on the true story, the film follows the investigators path through several leads before introducing the Strangler as a character. It is seen almost exclusively from the point of view of the investigators who have very few clues to build a case upon.

Similar in 81%

Winter's Bone (2010)

Plot Summary:

17 year-old Ree Dolly sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods. Challenging her outlaw kin's code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth.

Similar in 84%

Blue Velvet (1986)

Plot Summary:

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Similar in 82%

Edge of Darkness (2010)

Plot Summary:

As a seasoned homicide detective, Thomas Craven has seen the bleakest side of humanity. But nothing prepares him for the toughest investigation of his life: the search for his only daughter Emma's killer. Now, he is on a personal mission to uncover the disturbing secrets surrounding her murder, including corporate corruption, government collusion and Emma's own mysterious life.

Similar in 85%

Irreversible (2002)

Plot Summary:

Events over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in the underpass. Her boyfriend and ex-lover take matters into their own hands by hiring two criminals to help them find the rapist so that they can exact revenge. A simultaneously beautiful and terrible examination of the destructive nature of cause and effect, and how time destroys everything.

Similar in 86%

Secret in Their Eyes (2015)

Plot Summary:

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Similar in 78%

The Brave One (2007)

Plot Summary:

A woman struggles to recover from a brutal attack by setting out on a mission for revenge.

Similar in 88%

Sleepers (1996)

Plot Summary:

Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.

Similar in 81%

Narc (2002)

Plot Summary:

An undercover narc dies, the investigation stalls, so the Detroit P.D. brings back Nick Tellis, fired 18-months ago when a stray bullet hits a pregnant woman. Tellis teams with Henry Oak, a friend of the dead narc and an aggressive cop constantly under the scrutiny of internal affairs. They follow leads and informants turn up dead.

Similar in 85%

The Drop (2014)

Plot Summary:

Bob Saginowski finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighborhood's past where friends, families, and foes all work together to make a living - no matter the cost.

Similar in 75%

Changeling (2008)

Plot Summary:

Christine Collins is overjoyed when her kidnapped son is brought back home. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her isn't her child, the police captain has her committed to an asylum.

Similar in 88%

Blue Ruin (2013)

Plot Summary:

The quiet life of a beach bum is upended by dreadful news. He sets off for his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance but proves an inept assassin and finds himself in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.

Similar in 79%

Side Effects (2013)

Plot Summary:

A woman turns to prescription medication as a way of handling her anxiety concerning her husband's upcoming release from prison.

Similar in 77%

Chinatown (1974)

Plot Summary:

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.

Similar in 84%

Fracture (2007)

Plot Summary:

A husband is on trial for the attempted murder of his wife, in what is seemingly an open/shut case for the ambitious district attorney trying to put him away. However, there are surprises for both around every corner, and, as a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse is played out, each must manipulate and outwit the other.

Similar in 75%

Kiss the Girls (1997)

Plot Summary:

Forensic psychologist Alex Cross travels to North Carolina and teams with escaped kidnap victim Kate McTiernan to hunt down "Casanova," a serial killer who abducts strong-willed women and forces them to submit to his demands. The trail leads to Los Angeles, where the duo discovers that the psychopath may not be working alone.

Similar in 79%

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Plot Summary:

This English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson follows a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, as he investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.

Similar in 86%

8MM (1999)

Plot Summary:

A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.

Similar in 87%

Memories of Murder (2003)

Plot Summary:

1986 Gyunggi Province. The body of a young woman is found brutally raped and murdered. Two months later, a series of rapes and murders commences under similar circumstances. And in a country that had never known such crimes, the dark whispers about a serial murderer grow louder. A special task force is set up in the area, with two local detectives Park Doo-Man and Jo Young-Goo joined by a detective from Seoul who requested to be assigned to the case.

Similar in 82%

Zodiac (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of the investigation of the "Zodiac Killer", a serial killer who terrified the San Francisco Bay Area, taunting police with his ciphers and letters. The case becomes an obsession for four men as their lives and careers are built and destroyed by the endless trail of clues.

Similar in 77%

Primal Fear (1996)

Plot Summary:

An arrogant, high-powered attorney takes on the case of a poor altar boy found running away from the scene of the grisly murder of the bishop who has taken him in. The case gets a lot more complex when the accused reveals that there may or may not have been a 3rd person in the room. The intensity builds when a surprise twist alters everyone's perception of the crime.

Similar in 89%

Prisoners (2013)

Plot Summary:

When Keller Dover's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue multiple leads and the pressure mounts. But just how far will this desperate father go to protect his family?.

Similar in 83%

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Plot Summary:

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

Similar in 76%

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Plot Summary:

When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons - they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Kenzie and Gennaro face drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they are about to solve the case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that tears them apart.

Similar in 85%

The Lovely Bones (2009)

Plot Summary:

After being brutally murdered, 14-year-old Susie Salmon watches from heaven over her grief-stricken family -- and her killer. As she observes their daily lives, she must balance her thirst for revenge with her desire for her family to heal.

Similar in 79%

Gone Girl (2014)

Plot Summary:

With his wife's disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.

Similar in 85%

Insomnia (2002)

Plot Summary:

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

Similar in 84%

The Pledge (2001)

Plot Summary:

A police chief about to retire pledges to help a woman find her daughter's killer. Based on a story by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

Similar in 81%

Se7en (1995)

Plot Summary:

Two homicide detectives are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on the "seven deadly sins" in this dark and haunting film that takes viewers from the tortured remains of one victim to the next. The seasoned Det. Sommerset researches each sin in an effort to get inside the killer's mind, while his novice partner, Mills, scoffs at his efforts to unravel the case.