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Collateral poster

Movies that feel likeCollateral (2004)

Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin.

If you loved Collateral, the closest films we have are The Yellow Sea (2010), Layer Cake (2004) and Irreversible (2002). All three share Collateral's contemplative and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is 36th Precinct (2004).

🍅 86% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Michael Manncontemplativegrittytense
8 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If Collateral hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: Collateral Beauty (2016)

The Yellow Sea poster
The Yellow Sea
2010 · dir. Na Hong-jin
🍅 88%★ 7.3drama · thriller · crime

The same two preoccupations: police, and taxi driver

A Korean man in China takes an assassination job in South Korea to make money and find his missing wife. But when the job is botched, he is forced to go on the run from the police and the gangsters who paid him.

Layer Cake poster
Layer Cake
2004 · dir. Matthew Vaughn
🍅 81%★ 7.2drama · thriller · crime

Both are built on the same subject: hitman

When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...

Irreversible poster
Irreversible
2002 · dir. Gaspar Noé
🍅 60%★ 7.3drama · thriller · crime

Common ground: police

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

Memories of Murder poster
Memories of Murder
2003 · dir. Bong Joon Ho
★ 8.1crime · drama · thriller

Both land stillness and grit at once

A sadistic serial rapist and murderer of young women terrorizes a small province in 1980s South Korea. To prevent further crimes, three increasingly desperate detectives with conflicting methods race against time to unravel the violent mind of the killer in a futile effort to solve the case.

We Own the Night poster
We Own the Night
2007 · dir. James Gray
🍅 57%★ 6.8drama · crime · thriller

The same preoccupation in both: nightclub

A New York nightclub manager tries to save his brother and father from Russian mafia hitmen.

Lord of War poster
Lord of War
2005 · dir. Andrew Niccol
🍅 62%★ 7.6crime · drama · thrillerPrime Video

Both lean on tension more than on drama

Yuri Orlov is a globetrotting arms dealer and, through some of the deadliest war zones, he struggles to stay one step ahead of a relentless Interpol agent, his business rivals and even some of his customers who include many of the world's most notorious dictators. Finally, he must also face his own conscience.

A History of Violence poster
A History of Violence
2005 · dir. David Cronenberg
🍅 88%★ 7.4drama · thriller · crimeMax

Contemplative crime, and it commits to that

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

36th Precinct poster
36th Precinct
2004 · dir. Olivier Marchal
🍅 100%★ 7.1crime · drama · thriller

Gritty thriller in both cases

In Paris, two cops are competing for the vacant job of chief of police, in the middle of the search for a gang of violent thieves. The movie is directed by Olivier Marchal, a former police officer who spent 12 years with the French police before creating this story, taken in part from real events of the 1980s.

Traffic poster
Traffic
2000 · dir. Steven Soderbergh
🍅 93%★ 7.5thriller · drama · crime

Drama built on tension, twice over

An exploration of the United States of America's war on drugs from multiple perspectives. For the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the war becomes personal when he discovers his well-educated daughter is abusing cocaine within their comfortable suburban home. In Mexico, a flawed, but noble policeman agrees to testify against a powerful general in league with a cartel, and in San Diego, a drug kingpin's sheltered trophy wife must learn her husband's ruthless business after he is arrested, endangering her luxurious lifestyle.

John Q poster
John Q
2002 · dir. Nick Cassavetes
🍅 26%★ 7.1drama · thriller · crimeStarz

Crime with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

Infernal Affairs poster
Infernal Affairs
2002 · dir. Alan Mak Siu-Fai
🍅 94%★ 8drama · thriller · crimeMax

Thriller built on grit, twice over

Chan Wing Yan, a young police officer, has been sent undercover as a mole in the local mafia. Lau Kin Ming, a young mafia member, infiltrates the police force. Years later, their older counterparts, Chen Wing Yan and Inspector Lau Kin Ming, respectively, race against time to expose the mole within their midst.

Law Abiding Citizen poster
Law Abiding Citizen
2009 · dir. F. Gary Gray
🍅 26%★ 7.4drama · crime · thrillerNetflix

Another one that scratches it

A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.

In the mood for more contemplative?

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