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Bad Times at the El Royale poster

Movies that feel likeBad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.

If you loved Bad Times at the El Royale, the closest films we have are A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014), Drishyam (2015) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). All three share Bad Times at the El Royale's tense and twisty feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Colors of Evil: Red (2024).

🍅 75% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.1 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Drew Goddardtensetwistygrittycontemplative
10 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Hulu

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See it on the Mood Map

If Bad Times at the El Royale hit the spot, these will too

A Walk Among the Tombstones poster
A Walk Among the Tombstones
2014 · dir. Scott Frank
🍅 68%★ 6.5crime · drama · mystery

Tense and twisty in the same breath

Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.

Drishyam poster
Drishyam
2015 · dir. Nishikant Kamat
🍅 64%★ 8.2mystery · thriller · drama

Both land grit and stillness at once

When his family stares down the barrel of criminal charges, a commoner channels his street smarts and knowledge of action films to tie the long arm of the law into an investigative Gordian knot.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo poster
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2009 · dir. Niels Arden Oplev
🍅 85%★ 7.8drama · thriller · crimePrime Video

Tense thriller, and it commits to that

Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece

Lucky Number Slevin poster
Lucky Number Slevin
2006 · dir. Paul McGuigan
★ 7.7drama · thriller · crime

Mystery with a pulse of twists, in both cases

Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.

The Girl in the Fog poster
The Girl in the Fog
2017 · dir. Donato Carrisi
🍅 75%★ 6.8mystery · thriller · crime

Gritty crime in both cases

The difference: Less contemplative, more its own thing

A gripping and chilling thriller that brings us to a hazy mountain village where an enigmatic detective is investigating the sudden disappearance of fifteen-year-old girl.

The Secret in Their Eyes poster
The Secret in Their Eyes
2009 · dir. Juan José Campanella
🍅 89%★ 8.2mystery · thriller · dramaHulu

Drama built on stillness, twice over

Hoping to put to rest years of unease concerning a past case, retired criminal investigator Benjamín begins writing a novel based on the unsolved mystery of a newlywed’s rape and murder. With the help of a former colleague, judge Irene, he attempts to make sense of the past.

Marshland poster
Marshland
2014 · dir. Alberto Rodríguez
🍅 91%★ 7.2crime · mystery · thriller

Both lean on tension more than on thriller

The Spanish Deep South, 1980. A series of brutal murders of adolescent girls in a remote and forgotten town bring together two disparate characters – both detectives in the homicide division – to investigate the cases.

The Bone Collector poster
The Bone Collector
1999 · dir. Phillip Noyce
🍅 30%★ 6.7crime · thriller · dramaPrime VideoStarz

Another one that scratches it

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

Lincoln Rhyme was the department's top homicide detective and leading expert in criminal forensics until an injury left him paralyzed, depressed, and incapable of working. But when a gruesome murder in Manhattan leaves detectives baffled, they call on Rhyme to help solve the mystery. Amelia Donaghy, a rookie cop whose quick thinking preserved a gruesome murder scene, is enlisted by Rhyme to be his on-the-scene forensics expert. With Amelia reluctantly acting as Rhyme's able-bodied go-between, the pair piece together cryptic clues the killer leaves behind at the scene of the crime, hoping to catch the grisly serial killer.

Colors of Evil: Red poster
Colors of Evil: Red
2024 · dir. Adrian Panek
🍅 80%★ 6.4crime · thriller · mysteryNetflix

Crime built on grit, twice over

When a girl's body is found on a beach in Poland's Tricity, a prosecutor teams up with the victim's mother on an impassioned quest for the truth.

Death on the Nile poster
Death on the Nile
2022 · dir. Kenneth Branagh
🍅 62%★ 6.3mystery · crime · thrillerHulu

Both working the same thriller territory

Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot's Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple's idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short.

Bacurau poster
Bacurau
2019 · dir. Juliano Dornelles
🍅 93%★ 7.3mystery · western · thrillerRent or buy

Mystery in the same key

The difference: Played as western first

Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.

Eastern Promises poster
Eastern Promises
2007 · dir. David Cronenberg
🍅 89%★ 7.6thriller · crime · mysteryPrime Video

Both play crime straight

A Russian teenager living in London dies during childbirth but leaves clues in her diary that could tie her child to a rape involving a violent Russian mob family.

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The best-reviewed films that share Bad Times at the El Royale’s defining feeling.