Movies Like The Desperate Man

If you liked The Desperate Man (1959), a crime and drama movie directed by Peter Maxwell, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Plunder Road (1957)
★ 6.9/10Also crime and drama
A spectacular heist starts to unravel as the crooks take it on the lam.
2
5 Against the House (1955)
★ 5.9/10Also crime and drama
Former war-time Army buddies now students in college decide to rip off a Reno casino.
3
The Quiller Memorandum (1966)
★ 5.9/10Also drama and crime
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
4
House of Bamboo (1955)
★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.
5
Each Dawn I Die (1939)
★ 6.9/10Also crime and drama
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
6
Little Caesar (1931)
★ 6.9/10Also drama and crime
A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?
7
They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
★ 6.6/10Also drama and crime
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
8
Cigarettes & Coffee (1993)
★ 6.6/10Also drama and crime
At a desert diner, the lives of five strangers become linked through a single twenty-dollar bill. Shot for $20,000 and starring Philip Baker Hall, the short premiered at Sundance and later inspired Anderson’s debut…
9
Nightfall (1956)
★ 6.9/10Also crime
An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.
10
Oscar Shaw (2026)
★ 6.6/10Also crime
After retiring from the police force, a relentless detective haunted by the tragic loss of his closest friend sets out on a perilous quest for vengeance, seeking redemption and fighting to restore justice to the…
11
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019)
★ 6.3/10Also crime
Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set…
12
Time Without Pity (1957)
★ 6.5/10Also crime and drama
Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a…
13
The Blue Gardenia (1953)
★ 6.5/10Also crime
Upon waking up to the news that the man she’d gone on a date with the previous night has been murdered, a young woman with only a faint memory of the night’s events begins to suspect that she murdered him while…
14
Force of Evil (1950)
★ 6.7/10Also crime and drama
Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring…
15
Murder in Three Acts (1986)
★ 6/10Also crime and drama
In Acapulco, Hercule Poirot attends a dinner party in which one of the guests clutches his throat and suddenly dies. The causes seem to be natural until another party with most of the same guests produces another corpse.
16
Odd Man Out (1947)
★ 7.3/10Also crime and drama
Belfast police conduct a door-to-door manhunt for an IRA gunman wounded in a daring robbery.
17
The Young Savages (1961)
★ 6.5/10Also crime and drama
A district attorney investigates the racially charged case of three teenagers accused of the murder of a blind Puerto Rican boy.
18
The Locket (1946)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and crime
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
19
The Interview (1998)
★ 6.8/10Also crime and drama
A duel between a suspected murderer and a detective pressed by people who want results. But whose skin is really wanted?
20
Nancy (2018)
★ 5.8/10Also drama
Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief.