Nightmare DetectiveMovies like Nightmare Detective
- Key Features:
- Detective, Suicide, Dreams, Investigation, Psychological thriller, Mystery, Supernatural, Nightmares, Crime, Surrealism, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, stylized
- Target Audience:
- Horror fans, Mystery lovers, Thriller enthusiasts, Cult film aficionados
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Dread → Revelation
Nightmare Detective

When a number of suicide victims slash themselves in their sleep, detective Keiko Kirishima is called to investigate.
Nightmare Detective
A detective investigates a series of murders. A possible serial killer might be on a rampage, since they all are in the same vicinity and by the same method, but as the evidence points toward the detective as the prime suspect, a ghost in red follows him, and he begins to question his identity. His realization of what seems to have really happened results in something much more sinister and larger in scope, and it leaves his psyche scarred.

After having narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of a psychopath, detective inspector Takakura quits active service in the police force and takes up a position as a university lecturer in criminal psychology. But his desire to get to the bottom of criminals’ motives remains, and he does not hesitate long when former colleague Nogami asks him to reopen an old case.

A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances is sweeping Tokyo.

When 54 high school girls throw themselves in front of a subway train it appears to be only the beginning of a string of suicides around the country. Detective Kuroda tries to find the answer to this mystery, which isn't as simple as he had hoped.

In Tokyo, Japan, several grotesque murders take place on rainy days. Detective Sawamura, who is in charge of the case, soon discovers that his own family is connected to the crimes.

A young student is haunted by recurring dreams of her mother murdering her father, but her nightmare is just beginning as she tries to prove to her loved ones that she is not insane.

Neurosurgeon Koichi uses an experimental technique to enter the brain of his beloved Atsumi, who is in a coma after attempting suicide. In his quest, Koichi drifts steadily further into the sweltering marshes of the spirit. It is soon no longer clear what is real and what is not.

In the aftermath of a car crash, a man discovers his dreams are tied to a stranger's sleepwalking.

Bun, a schizophrenic, former police inspector comes out of retirement to help a rookie detective solve a complex murder case involving a missing colleague and a suspected policeman suffering from a multiple personality disorder.

When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient's dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop it and recover it before damage is done: Paprika.

A male corpse is discovered with a smashed face and burned hands. Strangely, the cause of death is determined to be strangulation. When Detective Kaoru Utsumi attempts to corroborate the victim’s ex-wife’s alibi she discovers the mysterious neighbor and only a few small clues to help her disprove a seemingly "airtight" alibi...

A vicious sniper has appeared in Tokyo, rendering the people too scared to go outside, once again it's up to Conan to figure out the meaning behind the killings and capture the mysterious sniper before more lives are lost.

After a massive party one evening, 17-year-old Tina begins experiencing nightmares in which she is haunted by an unusual creature.

A psychotic executive triggers a journalist's dark side, and they begin to form a strange bond through the internet.

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

An unnamed doctor has always had everything he's ever wanted, but that has only made him develop more extreme and depraved needs. He kidnaps a young couple in the prime of their life together and forces them into a game of torment that slowly extinguishes their hopes for survival.

A private detective is drawn into a complex murder mystery when he is hired to track down a missing young woman.

A young pathologist seeks answers to the mysterious death of a friend and soon comes into contact with the same cursed videotape that caused the death of the friend's wife and son, which is haunted by the curse of Sadako, a relentless spirit.

Mitsuko, a young student, encounters a series of horrifying incidents set in alternate realities where people wind up dead in the most horrendous fashion.

In order to diagnose the psychic traumas suffered by his patients, Dr. Paul Novotny gets young Alex Gardner to enter their dreams.

A psychologist connects her missing brother to the strange case of a mysterious little girl believed to be Sadako reincarnated.

A Japanese actress begins having strange visions and experiences after landing a role in a horror film about a real-life murder spree that took place over forty years ago.

Dae-ho, an investigative journalist, seeks to track down the whereabouts of his son who was abducted three years ago. With the help of a detective and a psychiatrist friend, he will retrace his memory of the incident through the use of lucid dreaming techniques.

Not long after they cross paths at an art gallery, architect Ray Reardon and hypnotically sensual Lena are married with children. But as strange incidents occur, Ray begins to realize he may not really know the woman he married.

One day a mysterious box arrived and a curse began to spread all over. The source of the box is 'Jukai Village'. The village is hidden in Jukai Forest, a suicide spot that once you enter it, you can never come out.

After his girlfriend commits suicide, a man becomes embroiled in gang warfare attempting to obtain a gun in hopes to kill himself.

Minami mistakenly kills a gangster associate of his named Brother. Almost as soon as the murder takes place, the body of the deceased man is gone, prompting Minami to conduct a search. While looking, he finds a mysterious isolated hotel where he decides to take a rest. Not only are the front desk clerks a bit strange, but even the ambiance feels unusual. Minami soon realizes he may have gotten more than he bargained for.

A big-city detective investigates a series of gruesome murders along the Indonesia-Malaysia border — forcing her to confront ghosts from her past.

A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruckus-raising Kenzo.

The story starts following an incident: a young girl jumps from the top of a building. The image provokes a certain dread, as the girl appears to have been a corpse even before she jumped. The case is dismissed, yet more and more of these suicides occur, and all from the same building. Thus began the rumour, that a ghost inhabited the rooftop of the building.

A suburban housewife learns that she has psychic connections to a serial killer, and can predict this person's motives through her dreams.

Akane is a high school teacher who hears a rumor from her students that there is actual footage on the Internet of someone's suicide. The footage is said to drive anyone who sees it to also commit suicide. Akane does not believe the rumor at first, but when one of her female students dies after viewing the footage, she and her boyfriend Takanori are fatefully drawn into the horror that has been created by the man who appears in the suicide footage, Kashiwada. Kashiwada's intention is to create chaos in the world by bringing back Sadako and the power of her curse. Now Akane has to fight against Sadako and Kashiwada to save the lives of herself and Takanori.

In dreamlike mountain scenery, Toshiko makes a daring escape from her sexually warped Uncle Sonezaki. Fortunately, she met Samehada as she runs for her life, which is also escaping from some slayers. What follows is a wild chase that leads the audience into a comically violent world.

Synopsis Kogoro and Conan came to Yokohama according to a request from a mysterious man. But that was a trap of this man. Ran and the Detective Boys will be taken as hostages. If they don't solve the request of the man within 12 hours, the bombs attached to the hostages will explode. Furthermore, the man know that Conan`s true identity is Kudo Shinichi. Also Hattori Heiji, the High School Detective of the West, and Kaito Kid enter the stage. Will they be able to solve the mystery within the time limit and save Ran and the others? And who in the world is the client?

Following some trauma in her past that has since been repressed, a young woman is trying to recover her memories with the help of a psychiatrist. During her hypnosis sessions, she repeats the name "Tomie" but is unable to recall where she knows it from. Meanwhile, a police detective is investigating a string of brutal murders, where he also runs across the name "Tomie." How are the two connected?

A simple funeral turns a man's world Topsy turvy. He wakes up in a posh hotel room, totally clueless about how he got there. Slowly, he recalls what happened a day before.

Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.

When Dr. Pieter Fales' patients start receiving ominous letters and getting murdered by an unknown black-clad assailant, he and his daughter both come under suspicion.

Since her childhood, Jessica has been haunted by recurrent nightmares whose meaning escapes her. This peculiarity has led her to study the psychophysiology of dreams and to follow a therapy with Sean, her mentor and boyfriend, to try and understand the origin of her nightmares. Following the death of her maternal grandmother she hardly knew, Jessica reluctantly returns to the family home. Jessica then begins to wander in a nightmarish world inhabited by twisted versions of her family members. She gradually improves her skills as a lucid dreamer and investigates to solve the mystery that gnaws her and haunts the family home...

Traumatized since childhood by her brother's accidental death, Danika Merrick hallucinates a bank robbery and quits her job. Despite support from her three children and loving husband, Danika continues to experience unnerving visions. She seeks help from therapist Evelyn Harris but pervasive reports of violent incidents involving children make Danika fear for her own family, and she grows increasingly paranoid, worrying she may be going insane.

A series of down-on-their-luck individuals enter the decrepit and spine-chilling Rialto theater, only to have their deepest and darkest fears brought to life on the silver screen by The Projectionist – a mysterious, ghostly figure who holds the nightmarish futures of all who attend his screenings.

Koji Shiraishi interviews the survivors of an indiscriminate attack at a sightseeing resort and starts investigating the strange events that have been happening to them.

A detective investigates the disappearance of a woman's corpse from a morgue and tries to uncover the cause of her death.

A woman will go to whatever lengths necessary to obtain her dream home with a view of the sea. This includes driving down the property value and decreasing the occupancy rate by killing her potential neighbors.

A frustrated Boston detective searches for the maniac responsible for mutilating a number of university coeds.

Adele is suffering from a terrifying recurring dream; a dream that often borders on reality, and even enters it in the form of horrible visions which climax during an evening stroll in the center of Rome. The medical findings don't reveal anything noteworthy and her brother, who was with her that evening, is diagnosed with a simple seizure. Faced with a general skepticism, Adele has no other choice but to turn to the unconventional, so she decides to seek out Dylan Dog - a paranormal investigator

A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and Yakuza activities.

Veteran detective Cham works with rookie cop Will to hunt down the city's serial killer. The investigation leads them to a lair littered with dismembered female limbs, and an ex-con who killed Cham's wife and child years ago...

A recently widowed detective still grieving over his wife's death discovers a shocking connection between himself and the suspects in a serial killing spree linked to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Three female idols appear on a television show to investigate an exorcism. An exorcist with psychic powers named Unsui claims that the show’s subjects, the Kaneda family, are cursed by a demon that’s too powerful for him to banish on his own, so he calls in a fellow exorcist to help. Soon, a reckless ghost hunter enters the fray as the three idols witness a series of terrifying events.

Criminal psychologist Kate Fuller is assigned to the murder of a man who has seemingly been strangled in his sleep by his wife and the only witness is their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie. As Kate digs into the mystery of an ancient demon which kills people in their sleep, she experiences the same petrifying symptoms as all previous victims and spirals through a chilling nightmare to save herself and Sophie before she dares fall asleep again.

Ran’s secret past revealed! Ten years ago, something happened between her mom and dad. Now, plagued by nightmares, Ran is starting to remember… Meanwhile, a murderous card dealer breaks out of jail to seek revenge. His target: Ran’s father. Can Conan stop him in time and save his girlfriend’s family?

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

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

An outwardly normal schoolteacher preys on suicidal women to slake his overwhelming thirst for human blood.

A working single mother comes home one day to find that her daughter and the nanny have disappeared -- and this is just the beginning of her nightmare.

When his mother's untimely death quickly follows his father's, a doctor begins to believe a killer may be targeting him and his amnesiac wife.

A group of boys and girls, twelve in total, gather at an abandoned hospital to die for various different reasons. There, they find the body of a dead boy. The group of twelve attempt to find the person who killed the boy. During their search, the reasons why they want to die are revealed.

A girl, Yūri Kurahashi, after watching a cursed videotape together with her friend in a haunted house, becomes trapped in a conflict between the two murderous ghosts: Sadako Yamamura and Kayako Saeki

On a dark night, the Japanese police is raided by a spy. Different countries' intelligence agencies - such as England's MI6, Germany's BDN, and America's CIA - as well as the FBI's secret files are going to be taken, but public safety officers lead by Tooru Amuro arrive just in time. The spy steals a car and escapes. The spy and Amuro are then locked in a dead heat on the highway, and just as it is about to cause an accident with multiple cars, the spy's car is hit by FBI agent Shuichi Akai's rifle bullet and falls of the roadway. The next day, Conan and his friends go to a newly-remodeled aquarium in Tokyo. Under the main attraction, a Ferris wheel, Conan finds an attractive woman alone and injured. Her left and right eyes are different colors.

A schizophrenic rock musician, is convinced that his parents were murdered by three men. Taking the support of a journalist, he sets out to find the culprits. Will he succeed in his mission, and in the process, what will he learn about his own roots?

A man suffering from insomnia is tricked into buying a drug, Lucia, that makes his desires come true in his dreams, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.

Ernesto lives in depression and decides to hire a hit-man to end his own life. However, his plan takes an unexpected turn when he meets Rita, whose love gives him a new reason to live.

When a gloomy, God-fearing island community is rocked by the assault of an infant, a psychiatrist is called in to examine Dorothy Mills, the teenager accused of the crime. Despite the villagers' hostility to her inquiry, she soon comes to suspect that Dorothy suffers from multiple personality disorder...

When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.

Rising pop star Mima quits singing to pursue a career as an actress. After she takes up a role on a popular detective show, her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima's reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia.

Publisher Will Atenton quits a lucrative job in New York to relocate his wife, Libby, and their daughters to a quaint town in New England. However, as they settle into their home the Atentons discover that a woman and her children were murdered there, and the surviving husband is the town's prime suspect. With help from a neighbor who was close to the murdered family, Will pieces together a horrifying chain of events.

A psychology student who experienced night terrors as a child must face the chilling realization that her nightmares were not all in her head.

Fifteen years ago in a barren stretch of the Pacific, a cruise ship collided with an iceberg and was lost at sea. More than a decade later, Hideto Yashiro—a ship engineer—died in a fatal car accident. The unlikely connection between these events only comes to light on the luxury liner St. Aphrodite during her maiden voyage. Aboard it on a much needed vacation, Kogorou Mouri, his daughter Ran, Conan Edogawa, and the Detective Boys enjoy a trip provided by Sonoko Suzuki's family. But their fun is soon cut short when a game of hide-and-seek leads to Sonoko's disappearance.

A college professor wakes up to find his wife has not returned home, then struggles to understand her disappearance.

A young man awakens in the hospital after an accident wipes his memory. Fascinated by a textbook full of drawings of dissections, Hiroshi is drawn to medical school. There he catches the eye of a fellow student, but it's another who becomes his obsession: the dead woman on the cadaver table.

Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.

A mysterious diver hiding in Amsterdam's canal system embarks on a rampage of gruesome murders, terrifying city officials and leaving few clues for the city's best detective, who doesn't suspect that both his new girlfriend and twelve-year-old daughter may be closer than he is to finding the killer.

In different parts of Tokyo, four young and seemingly healthy people suddenly die of heart failure at exactly the same moment. Reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa decides to investigate the deaths, and discovers that the four had stayed at a rural inn together just a week earlier. At the inn, he comes across a strange video that ends with a message saying that anyone who watches it will die exactly seven days later. Now the clock is ticking for Asakawa. Can he break the curse in time?

When Hong Kong is rocked by multiple gruesome murders, the police forms a task force to investigate.

A collection of short stories. In one a woman who leaves her house late at night to drive to the store while a killer is loose encounters some problems. In the second an arcade whiz kid's obsession with a game leads to deadly consequences. In the third a small town priest loses his faith and decides to leave town, but in the desert is stalked by a mysterious black pick-up truck. In the final story, a family's problem with a rat is larger than they think.

People mysteriously start receiving voicemail messages from their future selves, in the form of the sound of them reacting to their own violent deaths, along with the exact date and time of their future death, listed on the message log. The plot thickens as the surviving characters pursue the answers to this mystery which could save their lives.

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.

After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.

Detective Cho, a cop on the edge, is mourning his mother's recent death while under investigation for graft; on top of that he is suddenly put in charge of a seemingly-impenetrable mystery.

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

A disillusioned psychologist tries to commit suicide until he strikes up a friendship with an unlikely saviour who teaches him a new way of living.

Shibuya, Tokyo, is bustling with the Halloween season. A wedding is being held at Shibuya Hikarie, where Detective Miwako Sato of the Metropolitan Police Department is dressed in a wedding dress. While Conan and the other invited guests are watching, an assailant suddenly bursts in, and Detective Wataru Takagi, who was trying to protect Sato, is injured. Takagi survived and the situation was settled, but in Sato's eyes, the image of the grim reaper that she had seen when Detective Matsuda, the man she had been in love with, had been killed in a series of bombings three years ago, overlapped with Takagi's.

After botching his latest assignment, a third-ranked Japanese hit man becomes the target of another assassin.

A large scale catastrophe is occurring across the planet. Ability users are discovered after the appearance of a mysterious fog, apparently having committed suicide, so the Armed Detective Agency sets out to investigate these mysterious deaths. The case seems to involve an unknown ability user referred to as "Collector," a man who could be the mastermind behind the incident. Trust and courage are put to the test in order to save the city of Yokohama and ability users across the world from the grip of Collector where the Armed Detective Agency forms an unlikely partnership with the dangerous Port Mafia.

While celebrating with her friends in her new cheaply rented apartment on the thirteenth floor of a building, the young Sayaka unexpectedly jumps off the balcony committing suicide. Her mother goes insane and her older sister, Mariko, decides to investigate the mysterious death of her sister.

Beautiful Noriko Miki works at a cosmetic company. One day, Noriko is murdered. People begin to suspect her co-worker Miki Shirono might have killed her. Television begins to cover her story. A TV show interviews Miki Shirono's colleagues, family, people from her hometown. Rumors turn into fear. Is she a wicked a woman?

A chambermaid and a former cop meet at a speed dating event and a romance develops. But during a romantic getaway things suddenly take a turn for the worse when her mysterious past is revealed.

As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.

Six people, each of them is on the road to self-destruction. They wake up in cells in a surreal facility, without knowing how they got there or why.

"The human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die." After making the hardest decision ever, another serious case confronts L. There are only 23 days left and without his best partner Watari, L has to solve the case all by himself for the very first time.

A young policewoman slowly goes insane while tracking down an elusive serial rapist/killer through Italy when she herself becomes a victim of the brutal man's obsession.

A psychotic killer is on the prowl, who continues to slaughter young women while an innocent man is wrongly accused and sentenced for crimes he could never have committed. A determined detective arrives on the scene and soon becomes obsessed with the case while under pressure from the prosecutor to see a man hang.

Five bizarre stories with no apparent connection to one another eventually become intertwined, resulting in surreal circumstances.

A sleep doctor tries to protect a family from a demon that feeds on people in their nightmares.

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.

Shamoto runs a small tropical fish shop. When his daughter Mitsuko is caught shoplifting at a grocery store a man named Murata steps in to settle things between the girl and the store manager. Murata also runs a tropical fish shop and he and Shamoto soon become friendly. However Murata hides many dark secrets behind his friendly face.

Rei helps the woman she's been in love with for years escape her abusive husband. While on the run, their feelings for each other catch fire.

Hoping to land a role, two Japanese actresses begin a fight within their apartment that keeps escalating.
