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Movies like Drowning by Numbers

Key Features:
Black comedy, Murder, Revenge, Intergenerational, Solidarity, Copycat killer, Absurdity, Female relationships, Existentialism, Repetition, Nudity-moderate
Tone:
cynical, deadpan, humorous
Target Audience:
Fans of dark comedies, Art house cinema enthusiasts, Those interested in feminist themes, Viewers who appreciate the absurd
Emotional Arc:
Discontent → Conspiracy → Resolution

Drowning by Numbers

1988-09-10
Drowning by Numbers Poster - Find Similar Movies

Three generations of women who seek to murder their husbands share a solidarity for one another which brings about three copy-cat drownings.

Genres
Comedy, Crime, Drama
Cast
Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Joely Richardson, Bernard Hill, Jason Edwards, Bryan Pringle, Trevor Cooper, David Morrissey, John Rogan, Paul Mooney
Crew
Peter Greenaway, Peter Greenaway
Rating
7.016(185 votes)
Drowning by NumbersDrowning by Numbers
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Drowning Mona
5.442

The recently deceased Mona Dearly was many things: an abusive wife, a domineering mother, a loud-mouthed neighbor and a violent malcontent. So when her car and corpse are discovered in the Hudson River, police Chief Wyatt Rash immediately suspects murder rather than an accident. But, since the whole community of Verplanck, N.Y., shares a deep hatred for this unceasingly spiteful woman, Rash finds his murder investigation overwhelmed with potential suspects.



Murder by Numbers
6.2

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.



Beautiful Creatures
5.558

When Petula and Dorothy cover up the accidental murder of one jerk boyfriend, they hatch a hilarious scheme to collect a huge ransom.



Desperate Living
6.4

After killing her husband, Peggy Gravel and her murderous maid Grizelda wind up in the crazy town of Mortville, where Queen Carlotta presides over a sleazy collection of misfits.



Sex and Death 101
6.1

A guy's life is turned around by an email, which includes the names of everyone he's had sex with and ever will have sex with. His situation gets worse when he encounters a femme fatale (Ryder) who targets men guilty of sex crime.



The Hours
The Hours(2002)
7.3

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.



Burke & Hare
6.07

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



ExTerminators
5.4

Alex is a lonely accountant whose one act of rage results in her being sentenced to court-ordered therapy. There she meets Stella, the owner of a small extermination business who uses her car as a weapon, and Nikki, a dental technician with the face of an angel and the mind of a sociopath. Together these women form their own "silent revolution", wreaking havoc on the abusive men in their lives.



Straightheads
5.2

There is instant chemistry between Alice (Gillian Anderson), a businesswoman, and Adam (Danny Dyer), a younger working-class man who installs a security system in her London apartment. She takes him to a party in the country, and they end up making love. But the night turns horrific when they encounter three thugs who maim Adam and rape Alice. The incident turns them into fearful recluses until Alice spots the leader of their attackers (Anthony Calf) -- and the two victims plot a brutal revenge.



Buried Alive
6.6

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.



Murder by Death
7.2

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.



Thirst
Thirst(1979)
6.1

The descendant of Elizabeth Bathory is abducted by a cult of self-proclaimed supermen who achieve this state of superiority by drinking from the "blood cows" kept at the "dairy farm", and they try to get her to join them.



Husbands
Husbands(1970)
6.7

A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave the country together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.



Nine Dead
Nine Dead(2010)
5.26

Communication is the key to the survival for nine strangers who have been kidnapped by a masked gunman and told that one of them will die every ten minutes until they discover how they are all connected. Who of the nine lives and who dies?



Scream
Scream(1996)
7.4

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.



The Moon in the Gutter

A dockworker seeking revenge on the killer of his sister finds himself the object of desire for two women.



Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back)

William has failed to kill himself so many times that he outsources his suicide to aging assassin Leslie. But with the contract signed and death assured within a week (or his money back), William suddenly discovers reasons to live... However Leslie is under pressure from his boss to make sure the contract is completed.



The Swimmers
6.2

After falling pregnant to her boyfriend's best friend, a young woman commits suicide. She returns to haunt her unborn child's father while her friend seeks revenge on the person who drove her to her fate.



Nine to Five
6.9

Three female employees of a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot find a way to turn the tables on him.



The Ladykillers
7.3

Five oddball criminals planning a bank robbery rent rooms on a cul-de-sac from an octogenarian widow under the pretext that they are classical musicians.



Married Life
5.774

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.



Swimming Pool
6.483

A British crime novelist travels to her publisher's upmarket summer house in Southern France to seek solitude in order to work on her next book. However, the unexpected arrival of the publisher's daughter induces complications and a subsequent crime.



Femmes Fatales
6.1

Two men, fortyish, worn out by their wives, abandon everything to go and live in the back of beyond. There they meet a truculent priest, a boozer, Émile who recalls them to life's simple pleasures. Calm is what they want. But soon their example inspires thousands of disorientated males...



Shallow Grave
7

When David, Juliet, and Alex find their new roommate dead with a large sum of money, they agree to hide the body and keep the cash. However, this newfound fortune gradually corrodes their friendship.



Scream 3
Scream 3(2000)
6.001

As bodies begin dropping around the Hollywood set of STAB 3, the third film based on the gruesome Woodsboro killings, Sidney and other survivors are once again terrorized by another Ghostface killer.



A Fish Called Wanda

While a diamond advocate attempts to steal a collection of diamonds, troubles arise when he realises he’s not the only one after the collection.



The Drowning
4.5

A psychiatrist faces his past, present and future when he finds himself involved in the treatment of a young man recently released from prison for a murder committed when the boy was just 11 years old.



3 Women
3 Women(1977)
7.098

Two co-workers, one a vain woman and the other an awkward teenager, share an increasingly bizarre relationship after becoming roommates.



A Film with Me in It

A dissolute scriptwriter and a dejected actor become unwittingly drawn into a labyrinthine mess when several people experience bizarre accidental deaths in their flat. Though the men didn't deliberately cause any of the incidents, they fear that they will be unfairly pegged as murderers if they relay information to the cops, and promptly set about disposing of the corpses in gruesome ways.



Swimming with Men
6.1

A man who is suffering a mid-life crisis finds new meaning in his life as part of an all-male, middle-aged, amateur synchronised swimming team.



Hobson's Choice
7.4

A widower refuses to let his three daughters marry in order to avoid paying settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.



Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Working-class British housewife Myra Savage reinvents herself as a medium, holding seances in the sitting room of her home with the hidden assistance of her under-employed, asthmatic husband, Billy. In an attempt to enhance her credibility as a psychic, Myra hatches an elaborate, ill-conceived plot to kidnap a wealthy couple's young daughter so that she can then help the police "find" the missing girl.



Something in the Water

After lesbian couple Meg and Kayla split following a traumatic homophobic incident, their three friends are intent on mending the rift during the wedding of Lizzie at a paradise resort. But a pre-wedding boat excursion turns to disaster and the wedding breakfast is likely to be the five girls!



Better Living Through Chemistry

A straight-laced pharmacist's uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder.



Lesbian Vampire Killers

With their women having been enslaved by a pack of lesbian vampires, the remaining menfolk of a rural town send two hapless young lads out onto the moors as a sacrifice.



How to Murder Your Wife

Stanley Ford leads an idyllic bachelor life. He is a nationally syndicated cartoonist whose Bash Brannigan series provides him with a luxury townhouse and a full-time valet, Charles. When he wakes up the morning after the night before - he had attended a friend's stag party - he finds that he is married to the very beautiful woman who popped out of the cake - and who doesn't speak a word of English. Despite his initial protestations, he comes to like married life and even changes his cartoon character from a super spy to a somewhat harried husband.



The Comedy of Terrors

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.



8 Women
8 Women(2002)
6.894

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.



7 Women and a Murder
5.538

When the family patriarch is murdered, seven women find themselves trapped together in his mansion to solve the mystery.



Gosford Park
6.8

In 1930s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.



Wicked Little Letters
6.945

When the denizens of Littlehampton – including conservative Edith – begin receiving letters full of hilarious profanities, rowdy Irish migrant Rose is charged with the crime. Suspecting something amiss, the town's women band together to investigate.



Chicago
Chicago(2002)
7.125

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.



The Drownsman
4.5

After nearly drowning in a lake, a young girl develops an abnormal fear of water and is plagued by visions of a mysterious dark figure. A year later, in an attempt to cure her phobia and visions, her skeptical friends stage a séance and subject her to a bathtub experiment, unwittingly summoning the dark figure into the world.



Blood
Blood(2012)
5.851

When police discover a young girl brutally murdered, brothers Joe Fairburns and Chrissie Fairburns join their supervisor Robert to investigate main suspect Jason Buliegh, a local sex offender and social outcast. Forced to release Jason from police custody, the Fairburns take matters into their own hands in an attempt to coerce a confession.



44 Inch Chest
5.436

Colin is in agony, shattered by his wife’s infidelity, so his friends kidnap the wife's lover so he can have his revenge.



Silent Night
5.9

Nell, Simon, and their boy Art are ready to welcome friends and family for what promises to be a perfect Christmas gathering. Perfect except for one thing: everyone is going to die.



I Saw What You Did
6.2

Teenage friends Kit and Libby make prank phone calls for fun but then find themselves involved in a brutal double murder committed by one of their targets.



Playing the Victim
6.4

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.



Tragedy Girls
5.992

McKayla and Sadie, two death-obsessed teenage girls, use their online show about real-life tragedies to send their small Midwestern town into a frenzy and cement their legacy as modern horror legends.



WΔZ
WΔZ(2007)
5.558

There is something horribly wrong with the bodies found in the dark city streets. Some are mutilated while others have the Price equation (wΔz = Cov (w,z) = βwzVz) carved into their flesh. Detective Eddie Argo and his new partner Helen Westcott unearth the meaning of the odd equation and realise each victim is being offered a gruesome choice: kill your loved ones, or be killed. Before long it becomes clear that the perpetrator has suffered a similar fate and is now coping by seeking a way to solve this philosophical dilemma.



Crash Pad
Crash Pad(2017)
5.6

Hopeless romantic Stensland thinks he's found true love with an older woman, Morgan, only to learn that she's married and that their fling is merely an instrument of revenge against her neglectful husband, Grady. Initially out for blood, Grady finds himself strangely sympathetic to Stensland's plight and decides to get revenge on his wife instead.



A Zed & Two Noughts

Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.



King's Ransom
4.821

Hoping to foil his own gold-digging wife's plan, a loathsome businessman arranges his own kidnapping, only to realize that there are plenty of other people interested in his wealth as well.



68 Kill
68 Kill(2017)
5.884

Chip's problem is that he can't say no to beautiful women. This weakness gets him into a world of trouble when he agrees to help his girlfriend steal $68,000.



Murder Most Foul
7.028

A murderer is brought to court and only Miss Marple is unconvinced of his innocence. Once again she begins her own investigation.



Stiletto
Stiletto(2008)
4.697

The seemingly random killings of an assassin puzzle her former lover, a wealthy Greek crime boss whose organization is jeopardized by his love for her, and the detective following her rising body count



Pepi, Luci, Bom
6.3

After a young heiress is assaulted by a policeman, she seeks revenge by befriending the policeman’s mousy wife and introducing her to her circle of outrageous punk friends.



Amiche da morire
6.453

Gilda has long since moved to a small southern island and earns her living as a prostitute in a context suspended between retrograde traditions and modernity. During one summer, his destiny intersects with that of Olivia and Crocetta, two women from the area, the former a happy wife and the latter an ugly, unlucky wife. The three are forced by fortuitous circumstances to come together to save themselves but their behavior attracts the suspicions of Nino Malachia, a brusque police commissioner who is convinced that they are hiding something.



Playing by Heart
6.579

In a vibrant tapestry of love and longing, nine interconnected souls navigate romance and heartbreak in L.A., where passions collide and truths unfold, revealing that the heart's desires often lead us where we least expect.



Killing Daddy
7.105

When Cassie's father finds himself vulnerable and bedridden, she believes she has the perfect revenge for her mother's death.



Men
Men(2022)
6.094

In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, Harper retreats alone to the beautiful English countryside, hoping to find a place to heal. But someone — or something — from the surrounding woods appears to be stalking her, and what begins as simmering dread becomes a fully-formed nightmare, inhabited by her darkest memories and fears.



Naked
Naked(1993)
7.2

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.



Buffet Froid
7.057

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.



Harold and Maude
7.598

The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.



Novocaine
Novocaine(2001)
6

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



The Drowning Pool
6.3

Harper is brought to Louisiana to investigate an attempted blackmail scheme. He soon finds out that it involves an old flame of his and her daughter. He eventually finds himself caught in a power struggle between the matriarch of the family and a greedy oil baron, who wants their property. Poor Harper! Things are not as straight-forward as they initially appeared.



The Lobster
7.036

In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into animals and sent off into The Woods.



Just Buried
5.885

A young man inherits a nearly bankrupt funeral home from his estranged father. He falls in love with the alluring young mortician, only to find out she's offing people to keep the place in business!



Serial Mom
6.7

Beverly is the perfect happy homemaker, along with her doting husband and two children, but this nuclear family just might explode when her fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics.



I Love You to Death

Joey Boca is the owner of a pizza parlour, and has been married to Rosalie for years. When Rosalie discovers that Joey is a womanizer and has been cheating on her for a long time, she goes to extreme lengths to punish him.



The Whale
The Whale(2022)
7.794

A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.



Happiness
Happiness(1998)
7.4

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.



Deep Water
5.818

A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.



Woman Times Seven
6.24

Seven mini-stories of adultery: a widow misbehaves at her husband's funeral, a wife turns to streetwalking for revenge, a prudish girl surprises, a neglected wife vies for her husband's attention, a fight over a dress, a death pact, and a detective revealed as a jealous husband's spy.



Mother's Day
5.6

Three girls discover that two men are willing to do anything to impress Mother and what impresses Mother is watching her sons commit acts of rape and murder. Now these women are prisoners and lowered to pawns in the game of checkers between two dim wits and their Maniac Mommy and the question becomes, can any of them escape, alive?



Sibling Rivalry
5.147

Marjorie Turner is suffocating in her marriage and day to day life. An extramarital affair with a stranger seems to be the answer until her paramour has a fatal heart attack, and turns out to be less of a stranger than she could have thought...



Nothing Funny
6.8

One day, hospital orderlies, watching corpse in the morgue, recognize film director. Man, even though he died, he begins to remember his life. He made a career making movies, had numerous mistresses, but never realized their dreams. His life was interspersed with many setbacks that enfeebled him from the inside. Although he made a career in film, he was not happy with his life.



Jack & Sarah
6.718

Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.



Louise-Michel
6.125

In this radical and endearing black comedy, a group of retrenched female factory workers decide to pool their compensation money… and hire a hit man to liquidate their boss.



Miss Nobody
5.186

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



Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at Bill Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Jason Dixon, an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.



Dial M for Murder

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



Funny Games
6.6

When Ann, husband George, and son Georgie arrive at their holiday home they are visited by a pair of polite and seemingly pleasant young men. Armed with deceptively sweet smiles and some golf clubs, they proceed to terrorize and torture the tight-knit clan, giving them until the next day to survive.



The Swimming Pool

Set in a magnificent villa near a sun-drenched St. Tropez, lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne are spending a happy, lazy summer holiday. Their only concern is to gratify their mutual passion - until the day when Marianne invites her former lover and his beautiful teenage daughter to spend a few days with them. From the first moment, a certain uneasiness and tension begin to develop between the four, which soon escalates in a dangerous love-game.



Woman of Straw
6.2

Anthony Richmond schemes to get the fortune of his tyrannical, wheelchair-using tycoon uncle Charles Richmond by persuading Maria, a nurse he employs, to marry him.



Judy & Punch
6.1

In the anarchic town of Seaside, nowhere near the sea, puppeteers Judy and Punch are trying to resurrect their marionette show. The show is a hit due to Judy's superior puppeteering but Punch's driving ambition and penchant for whisky lead to an inevitable tragedy that Judy must avenge.



Harpoon
Harpoon(2019)
6.018

Rivalries, dark secrets, and sexual tension emerge when three best friends find themselves stranded on a yacht in the middle of the ocean under suspicious circumstances.



Little Murders
6.7

A young nihilistic New Yorker copes with pervasive urban violence, obscene phone calls, rusty water pipes, electrical blackouts, paranoia, and ethnic-racial conflict during a typical summer of the 1970s.



Jindabyne
Jindabyne(2006)
5.46

Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.



Ten Little Indians
6.21

Ten strangers are invited as weekend guests to a remote mountain mansion. When the host doesn't show up, the guests start dying, one by one.



Polyester
Polyester(1981)
7

Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine Fishpaw turns to the bottle as her life falls apart -- until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow. Originally screened with "Odorama" scratch and sniff cards so the audience could (at their own risk) smell along with the film.



Kill Me Three Times
5.615

While on a seemingly routine job, a jaded hit man discovers that he's not the only one with his target in the crosshairs.



Picking Up the Pieces
4.223

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.



Fun with Dick and Jane

After Dick Harper loses his job at Globodyne in an Enron-esque collapse, he and his wife, Jane, turn to crime in order to handle the massive debt they now face. Two intelligent people, Dick and Jane actually get pretty good at robbing people and even enjoy it -- but they have second thoughts when they're reminded that crime can hurt innocent people. When the couple hears that Globodyne boss Jack McCallister actually swindled the company, they plot revenge.



Shooting Fish
6.3

Two con artists hire an unwitting medical-school student as a secretary for their latest scam.



Let's Kill Ward's Wife

Everyone hates Ward’s wife and wants her dead, Ward most of all. But when his friends’ murderous fantasies turn into an (accidental) reality, they have to deal with a whole new set of problems — like how to dispose of the body and still make their 3 p.m. tee time.



A Crime in Paradise
6.606

In the 1980 French countryside, farmer Jojo and his ill-tempered wife Lulu hate each other, though their respective interests speak against divorce. The only thing that keeps the oppressed Jojo from murder is the threat of the guillotine...



Murder Ahoy
7.06

During an annual board of trustees meeting, one of the trustees dies. Miss Marple thinks he’s been poisoned after finding a chemical on him. She sets off to investigate at the ship where he had just come from. The fourth and final film from the Miss Marple series starring Margaret Rutherford as the quirky amateur detective.



Heathers
Heathers(1988)
7.3

A girl who halfheartedly tries to be part of the "in crowd" of her school meets a rebel who teaches her a more devious way to play social politics: by killing the popular kids.

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