Movies Like Nightmare Alley

If you liked Nightmare Alley (1947), a drama and thriller movie directed by Edmund Goulding, 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
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)
★ 5.9/10Also thriller
When Darren Shan is taken to a circus that's chock-full of sideshow oddities, he meets a vampire and receives a life-changing bite on the neck.
2
Croupier (1998)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and thriller
Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked…
3
Winged Creatures (2009)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an…
4
Night and the City (1950)
★ 7.5/10Also drama and thriller
Londoner Harry Fabian is a second-rate con man looking for an angle. After years of putting up with Harry's schemes, his girlfriend, Mary, becomes fed up when he taps her for yet another loan.
5
The Lost Weekend (1945)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
Longtime alcoholic Don Birnam has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a…
6
Brute Force (1947)
★ 7.3/10Also drama and thriller
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…
7
The Enforcer (1951)
★ 7.1/10Also drama and thriller
After years of investigation, Assistant District Attorney Martin Ferguson has managed to build a solid case against an elusive gangster whose top lieutenant is about to testify.
8
Cry of the City (1948)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check…
9
He Ran All the Way (1951)
★ 7.2/10Also thriller
A crook on the run hides out in an innocent girl's apartment.
10
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
★ 7.8/10Also drama and thriller
In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
11
Owning Mahowny (2003)
★ 6.8/10Also drama and thriller
Dan Mahowny was a rising star at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. At twenty-four he was assistant manager of a major branch in the heart of Toronto's financial district. To his colleagues he was a workaholic. To…
12
Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.
13
The Sound of Silence (2019)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
14
Passing (2021)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
In 1920s New York City, a Black woman finds her world upended when her life becomes intertwined with a former childhood friend who's passing as white.
15
Killer's Kiss (1955)
★ 6.3/10Also thriller and drama
Davey Gordon, a New York City boxer at the end of his career, falls for dancer Gloria Price. However, their budding relationship is interrupted by Gloria's violent boss, Vincent Rapallo, who has eyes for Gloria. The…
16
The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A mystery writer is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose dead body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, in order…
17
Don't Bother to Knock (1952)
★ 6.6/10Also drama and thriller
An airline pilot pursues a live-in babysitter at his hotel and gradually realizes she is not as stable as perhaps she should be.
18
The Pelican Brief (1993)
★ 6.6/10Also thriller and drama
A law student's theory about the recent deaths of two Supreme Court justices embroils her in a far-reaching web of murder, corruption, and greed.
19
The Best of Enemies (2019)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
Centers on the unlikely relationship between Ann Atwater, an outspoken civil rights activist, and C.P. Ellis, a local Ku Klux Klan leader who reluctantly co-chaired a community summit, battling over the desegregation…
20
6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (2017)
★ 5.8/10Also thriller and drama
An adrenaline seeking snowboarder gets lost in a massive winter storm in the back country of the High Sierras where he is pushed to the limits of human endurance and forced to battle his own personal demons as he…