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Movies like The Informers

Key Features:
Los Angeles, 1980s, Social alienation, Moral decay, Hedonism, Wealth, Drug abuse, Violence-moderate, Short stories, Ennui, Existentialism, Nudity-moderate
Tone:
cynical, gritty, serious
Target Audience:
Indie film enthusiasts, Cynical viewers, Character-driven drama fans, Literary adaptation appreciators
Emotional Arc:
Emptiness → Disconnection → Despair

The Informers

2008-11-05
The Informers Poster - Find Similar Movies

A collection of intersecting short stories set in early 1980s Los Angeles, depicts a week in the lives of an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, violence, and drugs.

Genres
Drama, Crime, Thriller
Cast
Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Jon Foster, Amber Heard, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Rhys Ifans, Chris Isaak, Austin Nichols, Lou Taylor Pucci
Crew
Bret Easton Ellis, Nicholas Jarecki, Gregor Jordan
Rating
4.8(242 votes)
The InformersThe Informers
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The Informer
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The End of Violence
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L.A. Confidential
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Billionaire Boys Club

A group of wealthy boys in Los Angeles during the early 1980s establishes a get rich quick scam that turns deadly.



Southland Tales
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Short Cuts
7.201

Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.



Dogville
Dogville(2003)
7.759

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.



The Grifters
6.5

A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.



The Little Things
6.3

Deputy Sheriff Joe "Deke" Deacon joins forces with Sgt. Jim Baxter to search for a serial killer who's terrorizing Los Angeles. As they track the culprit, Baxter is unaware that the investigation is dredging up echoes of Deke's past, uncovering disturbing secrets that could threaten more than his case.



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The Canyons
4.4

The discovery of an illicit love affair leads two young Angelenos on a violent, sexually charged tour through the dark side of human nature.



Blindspotting
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The Independent
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It's the final weeks of the most consequential presidential election in history. America is poised to elect either its first female president or its first viable independent candidate. Reporting history as it's made, an idealistic young journalist teams up with her idol, legendary journalist Nick Booker, to uncover a conspiracy that places the fate of the election, and the country, in their hands.



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Julian Michaels has designed the ultimate resort: VICE, where anything goes and the customers can play out their wildest fantasies with artificial inhabitants who look, think and feel like humans. When an artificial becomes self-aware and escapes, she finds herself caught in the crossfire between Julian's mercenaries and a cop who is hell-bent on shutting down Vice, and stopping the violence once and for all.



American Psycho
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Nowhere
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Freaky Tales
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Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.



Less Than Zero
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A college freshman returns to Los Angeles for Christmas at his ex-girlfriend's request, but discovers that his former best friend has an out-of-control drug habit.



The Editor
5.575

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A series of interconnected short films are the backdrop for a maniac screenwriter who pitches insane storylines featuring some of Hollywood's biggest and brightest.



White Boy Rick
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Asteroid City
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In an American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.



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Two former geeks become 1980s punks, then party and go to concerts while deciding what to do with their lives.



The Whole Truth
6.5

A defense attorney works to get his teenage client acquitted of murdering his wealthy father.



The Forger
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The Adjuster
6

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6.396

When a drug heist swerves lethally out of control, a jaded cop fights his way through a corrupt city's criminal underworld to save a politician's son.



Shakedown
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5.8

When a local drug dealer shoots a dishonest cop in self-defense, lawyer and renegade undercover cop join forces to clear him. But when their investigation leads them into a maze of greed and corruption, they learn that in a town where everything is for sale, anything can happen.



Nightcrawler
7.706

When Lou Bloom, desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.



The Comedy
5.717

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Small Crimes
5.383

A disgraced former cop, fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder, returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind.



Confidential Informant

During a crack epidemic two narcotics agents hunting for a cop killer. Hoping for leads, Moran and Thorton pay off a junkie informant. To provide for his wife and son, Moran involves the stool pigeon in a deadly scheme. This causes the partners to come under the scrutiny of a suspicious internal affairs agent.



L.I.E.
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With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.



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6.012

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The Hitcher
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Hesher
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A young boy has lost his mother and is losing touch with his father and the world around him. Then he meets Hesher who manages to make his life even more chaotic.



Filth
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A bigoted junkie cop suffering from borderline personality disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way in a bid to secure promotion.



The Brotherhood of Justice

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SubUrbia
SubUrbia(1997)
6.2

A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.



The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun

The staff of an American magazine based in France puts out its last issue, with stories featuring an artist sentenced to life imprisonment, student riots, and a kidnapping resolved by a chef.



Palo Alto
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A lack of parental guidance encourages teens in an affluent California town to rebel with substance abuse and casual sex.



Busting
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Defying orders to lay-off the case, two Los Angeles vice-squad cops go after a local mobster and use unorthodox methods to achieve results.



sex, lies, and videotape

Ann, a frustrated wife, enters into counseling due to a troubled marriage. Unbeknownst to her, her husband John has begun an affair with her sister. When John’s best friend Graham arrives, his penchant for interviewing women about their sex lives forever changes John and Ann’s rocky marriage.



Sinners and Saints
5.6

In lawless storm ravaged New Orleans, eleaguered Detective Sean Riley is trying to cope with the death of his young son and the abandonment of his wife. Facing a probable suspension from the department, Riley is teamed with a young homicide Detective, Will Ganz, to help solve a series of brutal murders that have plunged the city into a major gang war. The two quickly realize there is something far more sinister going on than either could have ever imagined.



The Gift
The Gift(2000)
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Annie Wilson, young widow and mother of three, makes her living foretelling others' futures⁠—though her own has become cloudier than even she can see. Threatened by a client's violent husband and plagued by visions of a missing local woman, Annie finds herself pulled into a thicket of lies and deception in which her extraordinary gift may ultimately get her killed.



Purgatory
Purgatory(1999)
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An outlaw band flees a posse and rides into Refuge, a small town where no one carries a gun, drinks, or swears. The town is actually Purgatory, and the peaceful inhabitants are all famous dead outlaws and criminals such as Doc Holiday and Wild Bill Hickok who must redeem themselves before gaining admittance to Heaven... or screw up and go to Hell.



The Shooting
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Two miners agree to guide a mysterious woman, who has appeared in their camp from nowhere, to a nearby town; but soon, because of her erratic behavior, they begin to suspect that her true purpose is quite different.



The Punisher
6.4

When undercover FBI agent Frank Castle's wife and son are slaughtered, he becomes 'the Punisher' -- a ruthless vigilante willing to go to any length to avenge his family.



Sabotage
Sabotage(2014)
5.6

John 'Breacher' Wharton leads an elite DEA task force that takes on the world's deadliest drug cartels. When the team successfully executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they think their work is done – until, one-by-one, the team members mysteriously start to be eliminated. As the body count rises, everyone is a suspect.



The Corruptor
6.1

Danny is a young cop partnered with Nick, a seasoned but ethically tainted veteran. As the two try to stop a gang war in Chinatown, Danny relies on Nick but grows increasingly uncomfortable with the way Nick gets things done.



Tell
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Ethan Tell is a small time crook who makes a big-time score when he steals 1 million dollars. Ironically, his life radically changes for the worst when he discovers that stealing the money was the easy part and he now must keep his partner, his wife, his parole officer, and two corrupt detectives from stealing it from him.



Camouflage
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Marty Mackenzie is an unsuccessful stage actor who takes an interest in private investigating. He takes a job working with Jack Potter, a crusty private eye. They both take a case in Beaver Ridge, a seedy small town where a murder is being planned against a rich gravel pit owner. Marty realizes that private investigating is not as it seemed to be.



No Country for Old Men

Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.



Storytelling
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Bad Country
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When Baton Rouge police detective Bud Carter busts contract killer Jesse Weiland, he convinces Jesse to become an informant and rat out the South's most powerful crime ring.



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True Crime
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Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.



War on Everyone
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Killer Joe
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The Insider
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A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.



The Offence
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The Usual Suspects
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Held in an L.A. interrogation room, Verbal Kint attempts to convince the feds that a mythic crime lord, Keyser Soze, not only exists, but was also responsible for drawing him and his four partners into a multi-million dollar heist that ended with an explosion in San Pedro harbor – leaving few survivors. Verbal lures his interrogators with an incredible story of the crime lord's almost supernatural prowess.



Cheap Thrills
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Killing Them Softly

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Dirty
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5.3

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Twelve
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Sling Blade
7.534

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Havoc
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5.3

A wealthy Los Angeles teen and her superficial friends wants to break out of suburbia and experience Southern California's "gangsta" lifestyle. But problems arise when the preppies get in over their heads and provoke the wrath of a violent Latino gang. Suddenly, their role-playing seems a little too real.



The Escort
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Desperate for a good story, a sex-addicted journalist throws himself into the world of high-class escorts when he starts following a Stanford-educated prostitute.



The Rules of Attraction

The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.



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A small, wealthy family in New York City gets progressively torn apart by secrets, lies, and the theft that orchestrates all of it.



Triple 9
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6

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Entertainment
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Set in the Mojave Desert, the film follows a broken-down comedian playing clubs across the Southwest, working his way to Los Angeles to meet his estranged daughter.



The Rental
5.55

Two couples on an oceanside getaway grow suspicious that the host of their seemingly perfect rental house may be spying on them. Before long, what should have been a celebratory weekend trip turns into something far more sinister.



Casino
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7.993

In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.



8MM
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6.5

A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.



Warning
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Loneliness, death and the meaning of life, explored through vastly separate lives colliding in interweaving short stories set in future Earth.



The Infiltrator
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The Trust
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Squatters
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A wealthy couple from the Pacific Palisades discovers homeless young lovers have moved into their home.



71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance

71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.



Young People Fucking
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Reality Bites
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Clay Pigeons
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