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Body Heat poster

Movies that feel likeBody Heat (1981)

During an extreme heatwave, a beautiful Florida woman and a seedy lawyer engage in an affair while plotting the murder of her rich husband.

If you loved Body Heat, the closest films we have are The Long Good Friday (1980), Night Moves (1975) and One False Move (1992). All three share Body Heat's tense and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Blast of Silence (1961).

🍅 96% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.4 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Lawrence Kasdantensegrittyatmospheric
6 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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If Body Heat hit the spot, these will too

The Long Good Friday poster
The Long Good Friday
1980 · dir. John Mackenzie
🍅 97%★ 7.5crime · thriller · dramaMax

Both are built on the same subject: neo-noir

The difference: Leans harder into drama than Body Heat does

In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand, a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.

Night Moves poster
Night Moves
1975 · dir. Arthur Penn
🍅 78%★ 7.1thriller · crime · drama

Common ground: neo-noir

Private detective and former football player Harry Moseby gets hired on to what seems a standard missing person case - a former Hollywood actress wants Moseby to find and return her daughter. Harry travels to Florida to find her, but he begins to see a connection between the runaway girl, the world of Hollywood stuntmen, and a suspicious mechanic when an unsolved murder comes to light.

One False Move poster
One False Move
1992 · dir. Carl Franklin
🍅 93%★ 7.1crime · drama · thriller

Both land tension and grit at once

Following a series of drug deals and murders, three criminals -- Fantasia, Ray Malcolm and Pluto -- travel from Los Angeles to Houston, finally arriving in a small Arkansas town to go into hiding. Two detectives from the LAPD, who are already on the case, contact the town's sheriff, Dale Dixon, to alert him of the fugitives' presence in the area. Underestimating Dixon, the criminals have no idea what they are about to face.

Deep Cover poster
Deep Cover
1992 · dir. Bill Duke
🍅 87%★ 7action · thriller · crime

The same preoccupation in both: murder

Black police officer Russell Stevens applies for a special anti-drug squad which targets the highest boss of cocaine delivery to LA—the Colombian foreign minister's nephew. Russell works his way up from the bottom undercover, until he reaches the boss.

The Narrow Margin poster
The Narrow Margin
1952 · dir. Richard Fleischer
🍅 100%★ 7.6thriller · crime

Both keep coming back to the same thing: murder

The difference: 29 years apart, and the 1950s show

A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster's widow on a train journey from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Key Largo poster
Key Largo
1948 · dir. John Huston
🍅 97%★ 7.7crime · thriller

One thread runs through both: florida

A hurricane swells outside, but it's nothing compared to the storm within the hotel at Key Largo. There, sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco holes up - and holds at gunpoint hotel owner James Temple, his widowed daughter-in-law Nora, and ex-GI Frank McCloud.

Blast of Silence poster
Blast of Silence
1961 · dir. Allen Baron
🍅 83%★ 7.4crime · drama · thriller

Atmospheric thriller in both cases

A hired killer from Cleveland has a job to do on a second-string mob boss in New York. But a special girl from his past and a fat gun dealer with pet rats get in his way.

Shoot the Piano Player poster
Shoot the Piano Player
1960 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 90%★ 7.4drama · thriller · crimeMax

Crime built on tension, twice over

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

Out of the Past poster
Out of the Past
1947 · dir. Jacques Tourneur
🍅 87%★ 7.9crime · thriller

One thread runs through both: femme fatale

The peaceful life of a gas station owner is disrupted when a man from his past arrives in town and forces him to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.

The Big Clock poster
The Big Clock
1948 · dir. John Farrow
🍅 100%★ 7.6crime · thriller

Thriller with a pulse of grit, in both cases

George Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor, has to postpone a vacation with his wife - again - when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence that he is the killer.

Criss Cross poster
Criss Cross
1949 · dir. Robert Siodmak
🍅 86%★ 7.4crime · thriller

Atmospheric crime, and it commits to that

An armored-car guard must join a robbery after being caught with his ex-wife by her gangster husband.

The Stranger poster
The Stranger
1946 · dir. Orson Welles
🍅 97%★ 7.3thriller · crimePrime VideoStarz

Both lean on tension more than on thriller

An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi, who may be hiding out in a small town in the guise of a distinguished professor engaged to the Supreme Court Justice’s daughter.

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The best-reviewed films that share Body Heat’s defining feeling.