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Movies Like The Defiant Ones

If you liked The Defiant Ones (1958), a crime and drama movie directed by Stanley Kramer, 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. 1In the Heat of the Night

    In the Heat of the Night (1967)

    ★ 7.7/10Also crime and drama

    African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but…

  2. 2A Perfect World

    A Perfect World (1993)

    ★ 7.5/10Also drama and crime

    A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.

  3. 3Brute Force

    Brute Force (1947)

    ★ 7.3/10Also crime and drama

    Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's…

  4. 4The Company You Keep

    The Company You Keep (2012)

    ★ 6.2/10Also drama and thriller

    A former Weather Underground activist goes on the run from a journalist who discovers his identity.

  5. 5The Night of the Hunter

    The Night of the Hunter (1955)

    ★ 7.8/10Also crime and drama

    In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.

  6. 6White Heat

    White Heat (1949)

    ★ 7.7/10Also crime and drama

    A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.

  7. 7Rosewood

    Rosewood (1997)

    ★ 6.5/10Also drama and thriller

    Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923.

  8. 8The Caveman's Valentine

    The Caveman's Valentine (2001)

    ★ 5.9/10Also drama and thriller

    Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim…

  9. 9The Adventures of Huck Finn

    The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993)

    ★ 6.2/10Also adventure and drama

    Mischievous Huck Finn is unnerved when his father, reemerging after years away, kidnaps him in an attempt to take away a $600 inheritance from his late mother. Fearing for his life, Huck fakes his own death and…

  10. 10The Way Back

    The Way Back (2010)

    ★ 7/10Also drama and adventure

    A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.

  11. 11Rooster Cogburn

    Rooster Cogburn (1975)

    ★ 6.4/10Also adventure and drama

    After a band of drunken thugs overruns a small Indian Nation town, killing Reverend Goodnight and raping the women folk, Eula Goodnight enlists the aid of US Marshal Cogburn to hunt them down and bring her father's…

  12. 12The Parts You Lose

    The Parts You Lose (2019)

    ★ 6.7/10Also drama and crime

    An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.

  13. 13Riot in Cell Block 11

    Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)

    ★ 7.1/10Also crime and drama

    A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.

  14. 14The Great Escape

    The Great Escape (1963)

    ★ 7.9/10Also adventure and drama

    The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war…

  15. 15Devil's Knot

    Devil's Knot (2013)

    ★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama

    The savage murders of three young children sparks a controversial trial of three teenagers accused of killing the kids as part of a satanic ritual.

  16. 16Just Mercy

    Just Mercy (2019)

    ★ 7.8/10Also drama and crime

    The powerful true story of Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned — including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despite evidence…

  17. 17Surviving the Game

    Surviving the Game (1994)

    ★ 6.2/10Also thriller and adventure

    A homeless man is hired as a survival guide for a group of wealthy businessmen on a hunting trip in the mountains, unaware that they are killers who hunt humans for sport, and that he is their new prey.

  18. 18Cave Rescue

    Cave Rescue (2019)

    ★ 6/10Also adventure and drama

    When a youth football team of 12 boys, aged 11-16, and their 25-year-old coach is trapped deep inside a cave in Northern Thailand, thousands of volunteers and soldiers from around the world unite in a race against time…

  19. 19The Count of Monte Cristo

    The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)

    ★ 6.8/10Also drama and adventure

    Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.

  20. 20Remember

    Remember (2015)

    ★ 7.3/10Also drama and thriller

    With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.

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