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Movies that feel like Rashomon (1950)

If you loved Rashomon, the closest films we have are Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Stray Dog (1949) and High and Low (1963). All three share Rashomon's gritty and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 11 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Netflix, HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video and others, checked against today's data.

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

🍅 98% Rotten Tomatoes8.1 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Akira Kurosawagrittycontemplativetwisty
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If Rashomon hit the spot, these will too

Anatomy of a Murder poster
Anatomy of a Murder
1959 · dir. Otto Preminger
🍅 100%8crime · drama · mystery

Both are working the same pair: rape, court case

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

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Stray Dog poster
Stray Dog
1949 · dir. Akira Kurosawa
🍅 100%7.8crime · drama · thriller

The same hand behind both of them: Akira Kurosawa

The difference: Sits closer to thriller than Rashomon does

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

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High and Low poster
High and Low
1963 · dir. Akira Kurosawa
🍅 97%8.4drama · crime · thriller

Both are Akira Kurosawa's work, and they rhyme

A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.

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And Then There Were None poster
And Then There Were None
1945 · dir. René Clair
🍅 100%7.3crime · drama · mystery

The same mix in both: grit, then stillness

Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island and while they are waiting for the mysterious host to appear, a recording levels serious accusations at each of the guests. Soon they start being murdered, one by one. As the survivors try to keep their wits, they reach a disturbing conclusion: one of them must be the killer.

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12 poster
12
2007 · dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
🍅 76%7.5crime · drama · mystery

Both are built on the same subject: court case

The difference: Made in the 2000s, in a different era of the craft

A loose remake of “12 Angry Men”, “12” is set in contemporary Moscow where 12 very different men must unanimously decide the fate of a young Chechen accused of murdering his step-father, a Russian army officer. Consigned to a makeshift jury room in a school gymnasium, one by one each man takes center stage to confront, connect, and confess while the accused awaits a verdict and revisits his heartbreaking journey through war in flashbacks.

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High Plains Drifter poster
High Plains Drifter
1973 · dir. Clint Eastwood
🍅 91%7.4western · drama · mystery

Drama with a pulse of twists, in both cases

A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.

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The Third Murder poster
The Third Murder
2017 · dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
🍅 87%6.7drama · mystery · crime

One thread runs through both: japan

A lawyer tasked with defending a robbery-and-murder suspect begins developing doubts about what truly happened.

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Witness for the Prosecution poster
Witness for the Prosecution
1957 · dir. Billy Wilder
🍅 100%8.4drama · mystery · crime

Crime built on grit, twice over

An ailing barrister is thrust back into the courtroom in what becomes one of the most unusual and eventful murder cases of the lawyer's career when he finds himself defending a man being tried for the murder of a socialite.

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In the Heat of the Night poster
In the Heat of the Night
1967 · dir. Norman Jewison
🍅 96%7.9crime · drama · mystery

Contemplative mystery, and it commits to that

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

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Drunken Angel poster
Drunken Angel
1948 · dir. Akira Kurosawa
🍅 94%7.6drama

The same preoccupation in both: japan

The difference: None of the grit Rashomon is built on

In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.

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Ugetsu poster
Ugetsu
1953 · dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
🍅 100%8.1fantasy · drama · mystery

Both keep coming back to the same thing: samurai

The difference: Missing the grit of Rashomon

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.

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Mother poster
Mother
2009 · dir. Bong Joon Ho
🍅 96%7.7crime · drama · mystery

Both lean on twists more than on crime

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.

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