By the Pricking of My ThumbsMovies like By the Pricking of My Thumbs
- Key Features:
- Mystery, Investigation, Supernatural, Old age, Small town, Secrets, Deception, Hidden past, Unsolved crime
- Tone:
- suspense-driven, serious
- Target Audience:
- Mystery lovers, Fans of Agatha Christie, Suspense enthusiasts, Senior citizens
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Suspense → Revelation
By the Pricking of My Thumbs

The Beresfords investigate mysterious deaths at an old people's home.
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
They are the perfect French haute bourgeois couple: Paul is a respected surgeon and Lucie cooks and gardens exquisitely. But now, in the autumn of his life, Paul can’t resist the lure of an ambiguous and dangerous relationship with a mysterious young woman. Might there be something sinister behind the roses delivered to his office and the “chance” meetings?

Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.

A policeman takes his family on a holiday, and after almost hitting a wild hog, the car won't start. They get hike with a guy scrutinizing his pretty wife. Shortly after, she disappears.

After Linda inherits a retirement home, she witnesses a series of strange events which seem connected to a dark and unspeakable evil.

Paul Braconnier and his wife Blandine only have one thing in mind: to find a way to kill each other without risk. After listening to a radio show, Paul decides to go to Paris to meet a famous lawyer in the acquittal of the murderers. He tells the lawyer that he killed his wife. The lawyer asks Paul to reconstruct the circumstances of the drama. Without knowing it, he explains, in spite of himself, the way for Paul to murder his wife by putting the odds on his side to avoid death penalty or even be released...

After suffering a stroke, Judith moves into a historic nursing home, where she begins to suspect something supernatural is preying on the residents. With no one willing to believe her, Judith must either escape the confines of the manor, or fall victim to the evil that dwells within it.

Four women were murdered, each was knifed and, though they had their clothes torn, they weren't molested. As the famed police inspector Jules Maigret pieces the clues together, he comes to realize that for the elusive man that he suspects to be unmasked, he has to set him a trap.

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

Maria, who's not as young as she used to be and who helps people older than her, is living from hand to mouth. She can't quite accept her precarious situation and steals a few euros here and there from all those lovely people she looks after with such devotion, and who adore her for it… But after an accusation of abuse of a vulnerable person, Maria winds up in police custody.

Miss Marple and Mr. Stringer are witnesses to the death by heart attack of elderly, rich Mr. Enderby. Yet they have their doubts about what happened. The police don't believe them, thus leading Miss Marple to yet again investigate by herself.

A provincial chemist in the throes of a mid-life crisis must choose between burying his dearly departed grandmother and cremating her in this quirky comedy of manners starring Valerie Lemercier, Denis Podalydes, and Isabelle Candelier.

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

Retired Englishman George Hall's hypochondria worsens and takes its toll on his family.

A small New Mexican village discovers a severed hand that is considered a miracle of God, when it actually belongs to a murdered spouse with a husband in search of it.

Ralf Milan, a hitman, arrives in Montpellier to kill an important witness. He checks in a hotel without knowing that his neighbour has become neurotic after his wife left him.

A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.

A woman grows suspicious of her controlling husband after she discovers secrets about the women in his past.

The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed scheme to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The psychological strain starts to weigh on the two women when a retired police investigator begins looking into the man's disappearance on a whim.

After being diagnosed with dementia, an elderly war veteran is forced by his estranged family to hire a live-in nurse, only to find she harbors a sinister secret.

A couple on holiday on a remote South Pacific island awaken one morning with a hang over and no recollection of what transpired. When playing back a video of the previous night, they see they participated in a local ritual that somehow ends with him murdering her.

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

Jane Marple solves the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.

An actor's world comes crashing down after he learns that his wife has left him.

A police chief in northern France tries to solve a case where an old woman was brutally murdered on Christmas Eve. However, in a neighborhood rife with crime, everyone seems to be a suspect.

The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.

When her American lover visits London, a wealthy woman’s jealous husband hatches a plan to murder her and inherit her fortune.

A story of friendship between a young convict who is forced to work in a retirement home and a group of crazy old people. Together they organize their escape.

In a wealthy and isolated desert community, a sound expert is targeted as the prime suspect of a series of brutal murders of local suburban housewives who were attacked and mutilated in their homes. As he desperately tries to prove his innocence, his wife starts to uncover startling truths...

A wealthy wife's affair with her daughter's guitar tutor is threatened when the tutor is attacked and rescued by a hired killer, leading him to suspect their secret is out.

The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother's discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister's suicide attempt and sadomasochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband. And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat.

Emily Boynton, the stepmother to three children, blackmails the family lawyer into destroying a second will of her late husband that would have freed the children from her dominating influence. She takes herself, the children, and her daughter-in-law on holiday to Europe and the Holy Land. At a dig, Emily is found dead and Hercule Poirot investigates.

A middle-aged couple suspects foul play when their neighbor's wife suddenly drops dead.

A young man travels to an isolated farm for his lover's funeral where he's quickly drawn into a twisted, sexually charged game by his lover's aggressive brother.

Two, very different, brothers are reunited for their father's funeral. But, when they arrive at the crematorium nobody is there, not even the corpse, except for Chloe who introduces herself as their sister.

A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.

A divorced teacher suddenly becomes jealous of everyone, including her daughter, friends and neighbors.

Summer, 1910. Inspectors Machin and Malfoy investigate the mysterious disappearances of several tourists on the beautiful beaches of Slack Bay, where a strange community of fishermen lives.

Eight women gather to celebrate Christmas in a snowbound cottage, only to find the family patriarch dead with a knife in his back. Trapped in the house, every woman becomes a suspect, each having her own motive and secret.

A cop investigates whether the man convicted of murdering his daughter is really guilty.

The members of a family come to say goodbye to the recently deceased patriarch. But what should have been a heartfelt wake turns into a crazy gathering when one of the attendees reveals the deceased's best kept secret.

Mathias Gold is a down-on-his-luck New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father. But when he arrives in France to sell the vast domicile, he's shocked to discover a live-in tenant who is not prepared to budge. His apartment is a viager—an ancient French real estate system with complex rules pertaining to its resale—and the feisty Englishwoman Mathilde Girard, who has lived in the apartment with her daughter Chloé for many years, can by contract collect monthly payments from Mathias until her death.

A troubled man starts working at a retirement home and realizes its residents and caretakers harbor sinister secrets. As he investigates the building and its forbidden fourth floor, he starts to uncover connections to his own past and upbringing as a foster child.

A dying woman is fighting to choose a new family to keep her four children together, after she's gone.

A scheming widow hatches a bold plan to acquire her late husband's inheritance, unaware that she is being targeted by an ax murderer who lurks in the family's estate.

A woman appeared to have a fairy-tale life, but six years into her marriage, the fairytale crumbles when her husband is found buried in the backyard of their home with numerous stab wounds.

Eccentric and full of manias, Michele is a young high school professor who defines himself as “not used to happiness”. He realizes his life is meaningless if he doesn’t have a woman by his side but, after a series of rather disastrous experiences, he feels more alone than ever. Then, out of the blue, a new French teacher called Bianca arrives at school. Amongst uncertainties and contradictions, the two start dating. In the meantime, a series of homicides take place and a police officer begins to suspect that Michele is involved. Bianca will save him providing an alibi at the right moment, but then, everything goes wrong again.

A group of residents begins to suspect that their strange neighbor might be hiding something dark.

Commissioner Beffrois waits for retirement with mixed enthusiasm when a theft of paintings catches his attention.

An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.

At 40, Molina is the most famous radio host in France: she hosts a nightly call-in show where she answers questions from callers with sexual and emotional problems. When she decides to look for her mother whom she never knew, she discovers her living in the suburbs.

Star-crossed lovers Thérèse and Laurent think they've gotten away with murder after Thérèse's weakling husband "falls" from a speeding train. But when forced to contend with a blackmailer's demands and the mute accusations of Thérèse's mother-in-law, it's only a matter of time before the law, their passion or blind chance trips them up.

Jeanne, a brilliant architect has a new assignment: renovate the sumptuous Daguerre mansion owned by an eccentric family, head of a Board Game empire. When the landlord and patriarch Cesar is found dead, everyone present becomes a suspect. Suddenly Jeanne’s mission turns intoa life-size investigation to expose the murderer...

Michel and Cathy, wed for longer than they can remember, lead a quiet but monotonous life in the mountains. When a bear bursts out in front of Michel’s car, accidentally killing two drug dealers and revealing a €2 million loot in the process, their life takes an unpredictable turn, especially when they decide to cover up the incident and keep the money! But their plan leads them to stumble upon an unexplained trail of dead bodies. More used to being honest than crooked, Michel and Cathy’s clumsy cover-up efforts soon put an interfering inspector hot on their trail.

Suave antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli is picked up by the police with no justification. At the precinct, Martelli realizes what the investigation is all about-- that he is the main suspect in the killing of his wealthy ex-lover. Is he guilty, or is he just a sleaze?

Marilou and Philippe prepare for their future retirement in Portugal. But their daughter separates and a whole procession of solicitations falls on them.

Painful memories arise when Kai Koss inherits his dead mother's house and goes back to his childhood home after 19 years.

The investigations of a private eye shake up the almost broken marriage of a middle aged couple.

Tenacious homicide detective Cassie Mayweather and her still-green partner are working a murder case, attempting to profile two malevolently brilliant young men: cold, calculating killers whose dark secrets might explain their crimes.

A group of friends think they found the perfect easy score - an empty house with a safe full of cash. But when the elderly couple that lives there comes home early, the tables are suddenly turned. As a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, the would-be thieves must fight to save themselves from a nightmare they could never have imagined.

A private investigator helps a former flame solve the murder of her wealthy grandfather, who lived in a sprawling estate surrounded by his idiosyncratic family.

Housemaid Georgette loves to gossip and this causes major trouble to people around her.

A woman at the age of 50 moves back in with her parents after her husband leave her for a younger woman.

The lives of two siblings are completely upended when they discover a dead body, long buried in their parent’s basement, sending them down a rabbit hole of crime and murder.

The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.

A French man spies on a lovely younger woman across the way. When he's spotted by the woman shortly after being questioned by the police about a local murder, the man's simple life becomes more complicated.

Since his wife's death, Andrew Blake is depressed. In an ultimate impetus, he leaves London to go back to France, in the house he met her. This journey through happy days memories won't go as planned.

Lea and her husband Marc have known Francis and his wife Karine for a very long time. Over the years, each one of them has been assigned a specific role. The balance and dynamic of the group is blown up when Lea decides to write a novel, which turns into an immediate bestseller…

While on a joyride with the headlights turned off, two men hit and kill another man carrying a satchel full of money. The two men decide to take the money and throw the body into a pond and bury the money in a coal hill. The next morning the police discover the body of a kidnapped 12-year blind girl, Melody, in a warehouse near the site of the hit-and-run. They determine that the kidnapper saw the girl's father bringing the ransom to him and also witnessed the hit-and-run and the men stealing the ransom.

Since his wife died, Inspector Louis Baroni (Philippe Noiret) has become a virtual recluse, preferring the solitude of his quiet house to the company of others. His period of mournful contemplation is broken when he is called out to look into the suspicious death of Madame Morlaix who, according to her husband Edouard (Michel Serrault), fell from an upstairs window. Curious to find out more, Baroni begins his inquiry.

FBI Agents Bullit and Riper investigate the murder of a young dancer called Pamela Rose, found dead in her motel room in Bornsville, a small american town. Despite their differences, they must team up: the local police is hostile and they can only count on themselves to solve the crime. They meet Ginger, Pamela's best friend, and discover soon enough she knows more than she says.

A young couple purchase their new home to start a life together, only to find out the elderly couple next door have other plans for them.

Harry knew Michel in high school; they meet again by accident, Harry inserts himself in Michel's life... and things take a sinister turn.

Lui, a struggling author with a heart condition, and his wife Elle, a retired psychiatrist, find their idyllic life shattered when Elle begins to succumb to the effects of dementia.

In the aftermath of her husband's death, widow Ramona's struggle to raise her two kids is hindered by the arrival of a mysterious woman with supernatural abilities.

A man accused of murder discovers a trail of corruption leading to the powerful family of his former love. Going underground, he seeks allies in a town where trust is scarce.

After 25 years together, married life has taken its toll on Xavier and Sophie, so when Sophie decides to invite their neighbours over for dinner, Xavier is less than enthusiastic to say the least! He can’t stand how obviously still in love they are and their lack of discretion… especially at night! On coming face-to-face with the uninhibited couple, Xavier and Sophie will be forced to confront their own, sad reality, before finding themselves pushed into a corner by a somewhat… indecent proposal.

Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.

When hitchhiker Jack rescues Véronique from a road rage altercation, the twosome decide to travel together for safety’s sake after learning a serial killer is cutting a murderous swathe through the region. Tired and hungry, they decide against their better judgment to take up an offer to stay the night at a mysterious elderly couple’s mansion…

Following the death of her wealthy husband, American widow Kathryn West migrates to Italy and takes up a reclusive existence in a luxurious villa. After quickly succumbing to the charms of a local man, she lets him move into the villa and the two are later joined by his sister, which soon leads to complications.

As a heat wave brings a Marseille neighbourhood to the boil, three roommates gleefully meddle in the lives of their neighbours from their balcony. Until a late night drink turns into a bloody affair.

François Marsault, a war veteran, makes the most of his retirement alongside his wife Annie. Authoritarian and ruthless, François rules his family with an iron fist — but when he discovers that his esteemed wife cheated on him 40 years ago, he files for divorce and confronts her former lover, who lives in the French Riviera.

When a school girl disappears, suicide is suspected, and one of her classmates is suspected of having goaded her into it.

When Todd takes his girlfriend Cammie up to the family cottage for a reclusive proposal, the last thing he expected to be doing was dealing with was his slacker brother and his hippie girlfriend. But in this comedy of errors, Todd and Cammie, have to deal with his accidentally murdered brother in order to live happily ever after.

When their daughter decides to get a divorce, Coline and Andre can’t come to terms with it as they are very fond of their son-in-law. The only way to keep seeing him is in secret. But for how long can they lead a double life?

After a doctor kills his mistress and himself while researching the mysterious previous owner of his Boston home, his colleague, Dr. Norman Boyle, takes over his studies and moves his family into the Boston mansion. Soon after, Boyle's young son Bob becomes plagued by visions of a young girl, who warns him of the danger within the house.

After suffering a family tragedy, a widower named Thanh moves his two daughters to a centuries-old ancestral home. Both daughters fall prey to sleep paralysis and night terrors. Their father seeks the help of a local psychologist, but chilling secrets and visions eventually prove that all is not what it seems in the old family house.

When a daughter becomes concerned about her mother's well-being in a retirement home, private investigator Romulo hires Sergio, an 83-year-old man who becomes a new resident—and a mole inside the home, who struggles to balance his assignment with becoming increasingly involved in the lives of several residents.

Robert, a fan of three French actresses is a bald-headed, potbellied man on the fifties, but fully devotes himself to them, and sometimes works for them without being recognized. But those star actresses find him a simple stalker fan and make fun of him, but later recognize he is sincere and genuine.

Best friends Marie and Alexia decide to spend a quiet weekend at Alexia's parents' secluded farmhouse. But on the night of their arrival, the girls' idyllic getaway turns into an endless night of horror.

Jennifer Shannon can always find a diamond in the rough, when it comes to garage sales, that is. Whether it's a new antique to sell at her consignment shop, an Atari game for her son or a piece of furniture for her handy husband Jason to refurbish, she has made a career out of her treasure hunting prowess. When a string of burglaries hits her town, Jennifer's keen eye for detail and her natural problem solving instincts even help her see the connection between these burglaries and local garage sales! Jennifer works with Detective Adam Iverson to investigate her theory that the perpetrators of the burglaries are fellow garage sale regulars. The case escalates to dangerous levels when Jennifer discovers the dead body of her friend. Even though the deceased's husband, Ben Douglas, finds nothing missing in their house, and the police label the death as accidental, Jennifer suspects that the death may be related to the burglaries.

Saint Tropez. Julie Wormser and her lover, writer and neighbour Jeff Marle, plan the murder of her wealthy husband Louis, an alcoholic impotent. She hits him, and leaves the rest of the task to Jeff. Julie finds herself alone the following day, and becomes therefore the prime suspect. Where is Louis' body? Where is Jeff? Is there any secret beyond a door?

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.

Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

In their blue hotel room, a clandestine couple of two married lovers plan an impossible future, as death shutters their already frail tranquillity. Now, the noose tightens more and more around innocents and sinners; but, was there a crime?

After World War I, a young ex-soldier, Sébastien Monge, returns to his home village. Ignorant of his past, he learns that, 24 years before, his entire family was slain in their home one stormy night. Only Sébastien, then a four-month old baby, was spared. Whilst Sébastien is being seduced by Charmaine, Dupin is killed by someone else. Sébastien’s next victim, the miller Didon Pujol, is also murdered before he has a chance to take his revenge. Sébastien realises that someone is watching his every move and is going to extraordinary lengths to protect him. But who, and why..?




