Best movies like The Element of Crime

Similar in 82%

He Died with His Eyes Open (1985)

Plot Summary:

On Ne Meurt Que Deux Fois, a French murder mystery based upon a novel of the same name, is an unusual, involving film with excellent performances by its entire cast. Police Inspector Staniland (Michel Serrault) is investigating the death of a pianist. While conducting his investigation and looking through the victim's apartment, he meets Barbara (Charlotte Rampling), the mistress of the murder victim. Barbara confesses to the crime, but Staniland, based on his observations and experience, does not believe her. He then sets out to find the truth, with surprising results. Both Serrault and Rampling are outstanding in this well-directed, well-paced film. On Ne Meurt Que Deux Fois was also released as He Died With His Eyes Open and won the Jury Prize at the 1985 Montreal World Film Festival.

Similar in 78%

Terribly Happy (2008)

Plot Summary:

Robert Hansen, 34, a young police officer from Copenhagen, is transferred against his will to the small town of Skarrild in Southern Jutland as a substitute Marshall. The transfer is Robert’s chance to start over. Whether he is allowed to return to his job in Copenhagen, all depends on how well he performs in this frontier town.

Similar in 90%

Europa (1991)

Plot Summary:

An American, Leopold Kessler, goes to post-war Germany in 1945 to work as a railroad conductor for the Zentropa Rail Line instead of going into the Army because he feels its a more valuable thing to do for the state of the world. He meets Katharina Hartmann, the daughter of the railroad owner and they fall in love.

Similar in 79%

Jack the Ripper (1976)

Plot Summary:

A serial killer whose mother was a prostitute starts killing streetwalkers as a way of paying back his mother for her abuse.

Similar in 77%

The Detective 2 (2011)

Plot Summary:

Mysteries keep revolving around Tam’s life.

Similar in 84%

Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009)

Plot Summary:

After 6 years of brutal murders the West Yorkshire Police fear that they may have already interviewed The Ripper and let him back into the world to continue his reign of terror upon the citizens of Yorkshire, but things become more difficult for the Police when they discover they not only have The Ripper to catch, but a copycat killer is also at large. Assistant Chief Constable of the Manchester Police, Peter Hunter, is called in to oversee the West Yorkshire Police's Ripper investigation, with the help of John Nolan and Helen Marshall, both detectives from the Manchester Police, they decide to go back and look at the crime reports from the Rippers victims to see what they could have missed.

Similar in 90%

The Hypnotist (2012)

Plot Summary:

After a young woman and her parents are murdered by a killer determined to wipe out the entire family, Detective Inspector Joona Linna works with a psychiatrist to hypnotize the son who narrowly escaped death in order to find the one surviving daughter before the murderer does.

Similar in 76%

A Pure Formality (1994)

Plot Summary:

Onoff (Depardieu,) is a famous writer, now a recluse. The Inspector (Polanski,) is suspicious when Onoff is brought into the station one night, disoriented and suffering a kind of amnesia. In an isolated, rural police station, the Inspector tries to establish the events surrounding a killing, to reach a startling resolution.

Similar in 75%

Under Suspicion (2000)

Plot Summary:

A lawyer is asked to come to the police station to clear up a few loose ends in his witness report of a foul murder. "This will only take ten minutes", they say, but it turns out to be one loose end after another, and the ten minutes he is away from his speech become longer and longer.

Similar in 83%

Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974 (2009)

Plot Summary:

It's Yorkshire in 1974, and fear, mistrust and institutionalised police corruption are running riot. Rookie journalist Eddie Dunford is determined to search for the truth in an increasingly complex maze of lies and deceit surrounding the police investigation into a series of child abductions. When young Clare Kemplay goes missing, Eddie and his colleague, Barry, persuade their editor to let them investigate links with two similar abductions in the last decade. But after a mutilated body is found on a construction site owned by a local property magnate, Eddie and Barry are drawn into a deadly world of secrecy, intimidation, shocking revelations and police brutality.

Similar in 87%

I Stand Alone (1998)

Plot Summary:

The Butcher (known from Noe's short film Carne) has done some time in jail after beating up the guy who tried to seduce his teenage mentally-handicapped daughter. Now he wants to start a new life. He leaves his daughter in an institution and moves to Lille suburbs with his mistress. She promised him a new butcher shop. She lied. The butcher decides to go back to Paris and find his daughter.

Similar in 79%

Night Game (1989)

Plot Summary:

A police detective tracks a serial killer who is stalking young women on a beach front after each game that a baseball pitcher wins.

Similar in 78%

The Lost (2006)

Plot Summary:

A charismatic psycho suspected of killing two innocent campers in a cold-blooded double homicide grows increasingly unstable as his suburban empire starts to crack at the foundations.

Similar in 80%

The Fifth Woman (2002)

Plot Summary:

The 5th woman unfolds autumn 1994. An elderly man found in a gillrad pitfall impaled to death on the sharp sharpened bamboo poles, ecstatic praise of crows. Shortly afterwards disappears a florist without a trace and he also found executed in the forest. Kurt Wallander and his colleagues will soon understand that the attacks is all about revenge.

IMDB Rating: 6.7

IMDB Votes: 620

Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Country: Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland

Duration: 229 min

Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, suspenseful, detective, bleak, realistic, gloomy