DeathtrapMovies like Deathtrap
- Key Features:
- Playwright, Murder plot, Broadway, Student, Writers block, Art theft, Suspense, Thriller, Plot twist, Dark humor, Manipulation, Betrayal, Obsession, Cat and mouse game
- Tone:
- suspense-driven, humorous, witty
- Target Audience:
- Fans of thrillers, Viewers interested in dark humor, Those who enjoy suspenseful plots, Lovers of stage adaptations
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Suspense → Shock
Deathtrap

A Broadway playwright puts murder in his plan to take credit for a student's script.
Deathtrap
Actor Lester Blaine has all but landed the lead in Myra Hudson's new play when Myra vetoes him because, to her, he doesn't look like a romantic leading man. On a train from New York to San Francisco, Blaine sets out to prove Myra wrong...by romancing her. Is he sincere, or does he have a dark ulterior motive?

When a young stage hopeful is found dead, suspicion falls on her mentor, a successful Broadway producer.

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 man who loves games and theater invites his wife's lover to meet him, setting up a battle of wits with potentially deadly results.

While a group of young actors rehearse a new musical about a mass murderer, a notorious psychopath escapes from a nearby insane asylum.

A homicide detective teams up with a criminal profiler to catch a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by the children's game, Hangman.

A playwright of note, Darius developed a drinking problem after his first major hit, and has taken time out from writing his follow-up to go to a clinic and dry out. After his release, Darius finds his producer has hired a leading lady for his next show, booked the theater and advertised the starting date -- all without Darius writing so much as a word of this new play. Darius desperately tries to come up with ideas, but nothing comes to mind, with an inflexible deadline staring him in the face. One day, Darius kills a neighbor's cat by accident; terribly depressed, he swallows some sedatives and falls asleep at his computer -- only to awake with the beginning of his play glowing on the screen. Darius is now convinced he must kill in order to create, and starts murdering an ever-expanding variety of creatures in order to satisfy his now bloodthirsty muse.

Charley Varrick robs a bank in a small town with his friends, but instead of obtaining a small amount of money, they discover they stole a very large amount of money belonging to the mob. Charley must now come up with a plan to not only evade the police but the mob as well.

Young businessman Thomas Crown is bored and decides to plan a robbery and assigns a professional agent with the right information to the job. However, Crown is soon betrayed yet cannot blow his cover because he’s in love.

Larry Donner, an author with a cruel ex-wife, teaches a writing workshop in which one of his students, Owen, is fed up with his domineering mother. When Owen watches a Hitchcock classic that seems to mirror his own life, he decides to put the movie's plot into action and offers to kill Larry's ex-wife, if Larry promises to murder his mom. Before Larry gets a chance to react to the plan, it seems that Owen has already set things in motion.

Two thieves, who travel in elegant circles, try to outsmart each other and, in the process, end up falling in love.

A struggling actress tries to help a friend prove his innocence when he's accused of murdering the husband of a high-society entertainer.

A dentist finds himself a murder suspect after a sexy patient seduces him into prescribing her drugs.

A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected - but which one?

A law student takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue and begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect in a series of murders.

Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.

Ten years after he brutally murdered two girls, a killer escapes from a mental institution and returns to his turf, the theme park attraction called Dark Ride. About to crash his path are a group of college kids on a road trip who stumble across the park.

Bored billionaire executive Thomas Crown entertains himself by stealing a Monet from a reputed museum with an elaborate diversion. When Catherine Banning, the insurance company's investigator, takes an interest in Crown, he may have met his match, and a complicated back-and-forth game with seductive undertones begins between them.

An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.

A psychological thriller based on the concept of anamorphosis, a painting technique that manipulates the laws of perspective to create two competing images on a single canvas.

After young playwright, David Shayne obtains funding for his play from gangster Nick Valenti, Nick's girlfriend Olive miraculously lands the role of a psychiatrist—but not only is she a bimbo who could never pass for a psychiatrist—she's a dreadful actress. David puts up with the leading man who is a compulsive eater, the grand dame who wants her part jazzed up, and Olive's interfering hitman/bodyguard—but, eventually he must decide whether art or life is more important.

A high-end musical theater camp is terrorized by a bloodthirsty killer who hates musical theater.

Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.

A Shakespearean actor takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition.

Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.

A Lothario, in trouble for fooling around with a Senator's wife, becomes an unwitting witness to a mob murder. Police Lieutenant Parker tries to solve the case in enough time to take his long-suffering family on vacation.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

Expert thief Parker gets a shot at a major heist, but to pull it off he and his team must outsmart a South American dictator, the New York mob, and the world's richest man.

After winning the lottery, a convict must chase down the warden who has his winning ticket.

Two kids find themselves in the centre of a deadly game of cat and mouse after taking a sheriff's cruiser for a joy ride.

After witnessing a mysterious woman brutally slay a homemaker, prostitute Liz Blake finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation. While the police thinks she is the murderer, the real killer is intent on silencing her only witness.

Soon after his insufferably arrogant father wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Barkley Michaelson is kidnapped by Thaddeus James, a young genius who claims to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother. Motivated not so much by money as revenge, Thaddeus tries to convince Barkley to help him carry out a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against their patriarch.

A hit man and his partner try to find out why their latest victim, a former race-car driver, did not try to get away.

An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

On his birthday, a hitman reluctantly takes on the easy task of killing a writer, only to find the job a lot more difficult than expected.

A mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy -- full of obsession, deceit and jealousy with dangerous and deadly consequences.

The working class twin sister of a callous wealthy woman impulsively murders her out of revenge and assumes the identity of the dead woman. But impersonating her dead twin is more complicated and risky than she anticipated.

A mild-mannered secretary discovers that she has a talent for murder as she ascends the corporate ladder.

An eccentric, if not charming Southern professor and his crew pose as a band in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting landlord – a sharp old woman.

A gifted high school student steals plutonium from the secret nuclear weapons facility in his home town in order to construct his own nuclear bomb, win a national science fair, and expose the government's secrets.

A charming psychopath tries to coerce a tennis star into his theory that two strangers can commit the perfect crime by exchanging murders—each killing the other’s most-hated person.

Arthur and Anatole are two little robbers. They want to rob money, money that will travel in a special train from Paris to Bruxelles. They don't know that other people have planned to do the same thing.

A bank security expert plots with a call girl to rob the safety deposit boxes of three very different criminals from a high-tech bank in Hamburg.

When shadowy U.S. intelligence agents blackmail a reformed computer hacker and his eccentric team of security experts into stealing a code-breaking 'black box' from a Soviet-funded genius, they uncover a bigger conspiracy. Now, he and his 'sneakers' must save themselves and the world economy by retrieving the box from their blackmailers.

Broadway producer Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom, plan to make money by charming wealthy old biddies to invest in a production many times over the actual cost, and then put on a sure-fire flop, so nobody will ask for their money back – and what can be a more certain flop than a tasteless musical celebrating Hitler.

Two detectives observe an escaped convict's ex-girlfriend, but complications set in when one of them falls for her.

After his wife is murdered by street punks, a pacifistic New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad, prowling the streets for would-be muggers after dark.

Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.

In a prep-class for year-end exams, a sadistic killer puts the students through mind-games in order to save each other.

After a colleague is murdered, insurance worker Kafka gets embroiled in an underground group who are attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society.

A thief makes a disturbing discovery in the house where he breaks in. Later, when he returns to the same house with his partner in crime, things are no longer how he expected.

An aging thief hopes to retire and live off his ill-gotten wealth when a young kid convinces him into doing one last heist.

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...

Joe Moore has a job he loves. He's a thief. His job goes sour when he gets caught on security camera tape. His fence, Bergman, reneges on the money he's owed, and his wife may be betraying him with the fence's young lieutenant. Moore and his partner, Bobby Blane, and their utility man, Pinky Pincus, find themselves broke, betrayed, and blackmailed. Moore is forced to commit his crew to do one last big job.

A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.

Criminology student Chloe fakes her own death to break into a morgue, in order to retrieve a piece of evidence that ties her younger brother to a crime gone wrong. Once inside, she discovers that a sadistic coroner is using the corpses for his sick and twisted business, and when he realises that Chloe still has a pulse, a terrifying game of cat and mouse ensues.

20 years after a horrific accident during a small town school play, students at the school resurrect the failed show in a misguided attempt to honor the anniversary of the tragedy - but soon discover that some things are better left alone.

A savings-and-loan bank is robbed; later, a police wiretap identifies meek bank teller Leon Poole as the inside man. In capturing him, detective Sam Wagner accidentally kills Poole's young wife, and at his trial Poole swears vengeance against Wagner. Poole begins his plans to get revenge when he escapes his captors.

A married woman and her lover plot to kill her husband to make off with the insurance money. However, their attempt to murder him using poisonous fish toxins backfires in surprising ways.

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 violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.

Broadway producer Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom plan to make money by charming wealthy old biddies to invest in a production many times over the actual cost, and then put on a sure-fire flop, so nobody will ask for their money back – and what can be a more certain flop than a tasteless musical celebrating Hitler.

Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookies, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewellers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.

A plastic surgeon and his nurse join a bizarre circus to escape from the police. Here he befriends deformed women and transforms them for his "Temple of Beauty". However, when they threaten to leave, they meet with mysterious accidents.

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

Sam Stone hates his wife Barbara so much that he wants her dead. He's ecstatic when she's taken by a duo of kidnappers who want $500,000 ransom in exchange for her life. Fully intending to ignore every one of the kidnappers' demands in the hopes that they do him a favor and murder her for him, the two confused kidnappers have to figure out how they're going get their money, and what they're going to do with the overbearing Barbara.

Carlo, a former mobster, is abducted by five privileged young men desperate to raise a $2 million ransom to save the sister of a friend. As Carlo plays mind games, however, his captors splinter -- each wondering whether one of their own had a hand in the crime.

A man in a high stakes celebrity death pool quickly loses everything - his business, his bank account, his home, his fiancé. He snaps, then realizes the only way to get his life back on track. He'll have to murder his own celebrity. He'll have to kill Hasselhoff.

A recently released ex-convict and his loyal wife go on the run after a heist goes wrong.

A bounty hunter pursues a former Mafia accountant who is also being chased by a rival bounty hunter, the F.B.I., and his old mob boss after jumping bail.

Billy, once the coolest kid in high school, comes back to his hometown 15 years later to find he’s no longer cool and the girl he still has feelings for now dates the former class outcast. Billy becomes obsessed with proving the outcast is a murderer.

A nerdy film student and lifelong voyeur begins to believe that two lovely young strangers may have conspired to commit a brutal murder.

A master thief coincidentally is robbing a house where a murder—in which the President of the United States is involved—occurs in front of his eyes. He is forced to run, while holding evidence that could convict the President.

Terminal Island, New York: 2020. Overcrowding in the US penal system has reached a breaking point. Prisons have been turned over to a monolithic Weyland Corporation, which sees jails full of thugs as an opportunity for televised sport. Adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for violence and a spectacular, enclosed arena come together to form the 'Death Race', the biggest, most brutal event.

A criminal duo learns of Charlie Chaplin's death and decides to steal his coffin to hold for a ransom.

Liberal district attorney decides to seek the death penalty for a man who slaughtered a family at Christmastime, then drank their blood. He escapes, though, and starts killing again.

Two 19th-century opportunists become serial killers so that they can maintain their profitable business supplying cadavers to an anatomist.

An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.

After he accidentally kills his father, Mike, during a sting, Joe tries to carry out Mike's dying wish by recovering valuables that Mike's twin brother Lou stole from him years earlier. But Uncle Lou is also a confidence artist, and Joe is soon drawn into his increasingly dangerous schemes.

In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal member of the crew is murdered. When world-weary Inspector Stoppard and eager rookie Constable Stalker take on the case, the two find themselves thrown into a puzzling whodunit within the glamorously sordid theater underground, investigating the mysterious homicide at their own peril.

A Dickens classic brought thrillingly up to date in the teeming heartland of modern London, where a group of street smart young hustlers plan the heist of the century for the ultimate payday.

Three criminals plan to break out of prison the day before their release in order to carry out a daring jewel robbery, intending to establish the perfect alibi by returning to jail afterwards. First however they must get out, a task made more difficult by a new, stricter prison officer.

A jaded homicide detective has been put on the case of a ruthless killer in the city of Chicago, who leaves a trail of horribly mutilated and dismembered corpses along with perversely ironic biblical quotes.

Millionaire industrialist Steven Taylor is a man who has everything but what he craves most: the love and fidelity of his wife. A hugely successful player in the New York financial world, he considers her to be his most treasured acquisition. But she needs more than simply the role of dazzling accessory.

An escaped murderer is in pursuit of his ex-girlfriend, who has fled to start a new life in a small town.

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

The Dynamic Duo faces four super-villains who plan to hold the world for ransom with the help of a secret invention that instantly dehydrates people.

Lee Ray Oliver, a death row inmate, is given a second chance at life if he agrees to undergo a new chemical treatment used to modify behavior.

In this deadly game of cat and mouse, Roland Wolf is writing a book on the life of game show host Christian Legagneur--or is he?

The wife of a psychoanalyst falls prey to a devious quack hypnotist when he discovers she is an habitual shoplifter. Then one of his previous patients now being treated by the real doctor is found murdered, with her still at the scene, and suspicion points only one way.

A young, inexperienced public defender is assigned to defend an inmate accused of committing murder while behind bars.

Tadek, a Polish detective, becomes suspicious of a controversial author when the incidents described in his unpublished novel resemble the inner workings of an unsolved murder.

Dressed as a clown, the clever rascal Grimm holds up the most secure bank of Montreal and takes 30 hostages. While confusing and ridiculing the police with his strange behavior, he calmly manages to rid the bank of a fortune. But then an unsatisfied companion arouses trouble...

Fans flock to a festival celebrating the most iconic horror movies, only to discover that the charismatic showman behind the event has a diabolical agenda.

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.

When top hitman Joe Flood is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he decides to take matters into his own hands – by taking a hit out on himself. But when the very hitmen he hired also target his ex-girlfriend, he must fend off an army of assassin colleagues and win back the love of his life before it's too late.


