Movies Like Heat Lightning

If you liked Heat Lightning (1934), a crime and drama movie directed by Mervyn LeRoy, 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
Winged Creatures (2009)
★ 5.9/10Also crime and 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…
2
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…
3
Panic (2000)
★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama
Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful…
4
Plunder Road (1957)
★ 6.9/10Also crime and drama
A spectacular heist starts to unravel as the crooks take it on the lam.
5
Hunting Season (2025)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
6
Siberian Education (2013)
★ 6.8/10Also drama and crime
The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against…
7
The Unforgivable (2021)
★ 7.4/10Also drama and crime
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
8
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.
9
The Enforcer (2022)
★ 7/10Also crime and drama
A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to…
10
The Bygone (2019)
★ 6.5/10Also crime and drama
When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.
11
Georgetown (2019)
★ 5.9/10Also crime and drama
Ulrich Mott is an eccentric and versatile social climber with grandiose plans to affect United States foreign policy. Encouraged in his attempts by his strategically chosen (and much older) wife, the well-connected…
12
In the Blood (2014)
★ 5.8/10Also crime
When her husband goes missing during their Caribbean vacation, a woman sets off on her own to take down the men she thinks are responsible.
13
Above the Rim (1994)
★ 7.1/10Also crime and drama
Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.
14
Rogue Agent (2022)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
15
Wire Room (2022)
★ 6/10Also crime
New recruit Justin Rosa must monitor arms-smuggling cartel member Eddie Flynn — and keep him alive at all costs. When a SWAT team descends on Flynn’s home, Rosa breaks protocol and contacts the gangster directly to…
16
Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)
★ 6.1/10Also crime and drama
The story of former Ulster Volunteer Force member Alistair Little. Twenty-five years after Little killed Joe Griffin's brother, the media arrange an auspicious meeting between the two.
17
S.W.A.T.: Under Siege (2017)
★ 5.9/10Also crime
When a D.E.A. and S.W.A.T. cartel takedown ends in a shootout, S.W.A.T. Agent Travis Hall seizes a mysterious prisoner taking him into custody. Before long, the S.W.A.T. compound is under siege by wave-after-wave of…
18
Trap House (2025)
★ 6.6/10Also crime
An undercover DEA agent and his partner embark on a game of cat and mouse with an audacious, and surprising group of thieves – their own rebellious teenagers, who have begun robbing from a dangerous cartel, using their…
19
American Murderer (2022)
★ 5.9/10Also crime and drama
The True story of how charismatic con man Jason Derek Brown bankrolls his extravagant lifestyle through a series of scams. On Brown’s trail: Lance Leising, a dogged FBI special agent determined to put Brown behind…
20
The House on Carroll Street (1988)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house…