The Night of the HunterMovies like The Night of the Hunter
- Key Features:
- Religious fanaticism, Pursuit, Psychopathic killer, Orphans, Good versus evil, Rural setting, Great Depression, Violence-brief, Black and white cinematography, Film noir, Cult classic
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Film noir enthusiasts, Fans of classic cinema, Viewers interested in suspenseful thrillers, Those seeking morally complex stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Dread → Relief
The Night of the Hunter

In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
The Night of the Hunter
A stranger comes to town looking for his estranged wife. He finds her running the local girls. He also finds a town and sheriff afraid of their own shadow, scared of a landowner they never see who rules through his rowdy sidekicks. The stranger is a town tamer by trade, and he accepts a $500 commission to sort things out.

Remake of the 1931 Fritz Lang original. In the city, someone is murdering children. The Police search is so intense, it is disturbing the 'normal' criminals, and the local hoods decide to help find the murderer as quickly as possible.

Private eye Philip Marlowe investigates a case of blackmail involving the two wild daughters of a rich general, a pornographer and a gangster.

A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.

Hollywood, 1930s. Tod Hackett, a young painter who tries to make his way as an art director in the lurid world of film industry, gets infatuated with his neighbor Faye Greener, an aspiring actress who prefers the life that Homer Simpson, a lone accountant, can offer her.

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

A man investigates the grisly crimes that occurred in a former insane asylum, unsettling the locals who all seem to have something to hide.

In the 1930s, bored European-American waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with a European-American ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.

A dispossessed, violent man's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, he descends to the level of a cave dweller and falls deeper into crime and degradation.

When an unsuspecting woman stops at a remote gas station in the dead of night, she's made the plaything of a sociopath sniper with a secret vendetta. To survive, she must not only dodge his bullets and fight for her life, but also figure out who wants her dead and why.

A notorious bank robber kills his wife and flees the police, only to be captured by a mysterious group of figures in an abandoned town. His beautiful daughter, Lila Lee, receives a letter stating that her father is near death and that he needs to see her. Sneaking away at night from her minister guardian, Lila embarks on a terrifying journey...

The tragic death of a beautiful young girl starts a tense and atmospheric game of cat and mouse between hunter John Moon and the hardened backwater criminals out for his blood.

Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Ultimately, they are hunted down by a group of old, armed home-guardists.

Kathy leaves the newspaper business to marry homicide detective Bill, but is frustrated by his lack of ambition and the banality of life in the suburbs. Her drive to advance Bill's career soon takes her down a dangerous path.

In the depression, Chaney, a strong silent streetfighter, joins with Speed, a promoter of no-holds-barred street boxing bouts. They go to New Orleans where Speed borrows money to set up fights for Chaney, but Speed gambles away any winnings.

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

American professor John Holden arrives in London for a conference on parapsychology only to discover that the colleague he was supposed to meet was killed in a freak accident the day before. It turns out that the deceased had been investigating a cult lead by Dr. Julian Karswell. Though a skeptic, Holden is suspicious of the devil-worshiping Karswell. Following a trail of mysterious manuscripts, Holden enters a world that makes him question his faith in science.

A Minnesota police officer crosses paths with a committed and tireless vigilante as he follows the trail of a ruthless predator responsible for several abductions and murders.

While passing through the town of Bannock, a bunch of drunken cattlemen go overboard with their celebrating and accidentally kill an old man with a stray shot. They return home to Sabbath unaware of his death. Bannock lawman Jered Maddox later arrives there to arrest everyone involved on a charge of murder. Sabbath is run by land baron Vince Bronson, a benevolent despot, who, upon hearing of the death, offers restitution for the incident.

Upon waking up to the news that the man she’d gone on a date with the previous night has been murdered, a young woman with only a faint memory of the night’s events begins to suspect that she murdered him while attempting to resist his advances.

A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.

A small town policeman must investigate a suspicious hunting accident. The investigation and other events result in him slowly disintegrating mentally.

After a band of drunken thugs overruns a small Indian Nation town, killing Reverend Goodnight and raping the women folk, Eula Goodnight enlists the aid of US Marshal Cogburn to hunt them down and bring her father's killers to justice.

Idealistic young attorney Adam Hall takes on the death row clemency case of his racist grandfather, Sam Cayhall, a former Ku Klux Klan member he has never met.

The wealthiest man in a Texas town decides to teach his teenage son how to hunt to make a man out of him.

Sexually abused as a young girl, Kate "Ma" Barker grows into a violent and powerful woman by the 1930s. She lovingly dominates her grown sons and grooms them into a pack of tough crooks. The boys include the cruel Herman, who still shares a bed with Ma; Fred, an ex-con who fell in love with a fellow prisoner; and Lloyd, who gets high on whatever's handy. Together they form a deadly, bizarre family of Depression-era bandits.

Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.

When hired killer John Gant rides into Lordsburg, the town's folk become paranoid as each leading citizen has enemies capable of using the services of a professional killer for personal revenge.

A bounty hunter trying to bring a murderer to justice is forced to accept the help of two less-than-trustworthy strangers.

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.

When a cynical journalist accepts a wager that he won't survive the night in a haunted castle, it unlocks an odyssey of sexual torment, undead vengeance, and a dark seductress who surrenders the gravest of pleasures.

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.

A washed-up horror novelist arrives in a sleepy town on a book tour, only to stumble into a string of eerie murders. Haunted by dreams of a ghostly girl named V and guided by the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe, he’s drawn into a nightmarish world where fiction and reality blur—and the story he’s chasing leads back to his own buried guilt.

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.

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.

An aging, reclusive Southern belle plagued by a horrifying family secret descends into madness after the arrival of a lost relative.

When several young girls are found dead, left hideously aged and void of blood, Dr. Marcus suspects vampirism. He enlists the help of the Vampire Hunter. Mysterious and powerful, Kronos has dedicated his life to destroying the evil pestilence. Once a victim of its diabolical depravity, he knows the vampire's strengths and weaknesses as well as the extreme dangers attached to confronting the potent forces of darkness.

Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. He also buys his father a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and train as a prize-fighter.

A color-blind psychiatrist is stalked by an unknown killer after taking over his murdered friend's therapy group and becomes embroiled in an intense affair with a mysterious woman who may be connected to the crime.

In the menacing inferno of the old North-American West, Liz is a genuine survivor who is hunted by a vengeful preacher for a crime she didn’t commit.

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

America is in the depths of the Great Depression. Families drift apart when faraway jobs beckon. A courageous young girl confronts overwhelming odds when she embarks on a cross-country search for her father. During her odyssey, she forms a close bond with two diverse traveling companions: a magnificent, protective wolf, and a hardened drifter.

A simple yet proud rancher conspires to murder his wife for financial gain, convincing his teenage son to participate.

Bubba, an intellectually disabled man, is falsely accused of attacking a young girl. Disguised as a scarecrow, he hides in a cornfield, only to be hunted down and shot by four vigilante men. After they are acquitted due to lack of evidence, the men find themselves being stalked one by one.

A serial killer whose mother was a prostitute starts killing streetwalkers as a way of paying back his mother for her abuse.

When a madman dubbed 'Scorpio' terrorizes San Francisco, hard-nosed cop, Harry Callahan – famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement – is tasked with hunting down the psychopath.

Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.

A high-priced call girl is forced to depend on a reluctant private eye when she is stalked by a psychopath.

A troubled young man is drawn to a mythical place called Midian where a variety of friendly monsters are hiding from humanity. Meanwhile, a sadistic serial killer is looking for a patsy.

When a car bomb explodes on the American side of the U.S./Mexico border, Mexican drug enforcement agent Miguel Vargas begins his investigation, along with American police captain Hank Quinlan. When Vargas begins to suspect that Quinlan and his shady partner, Menzies, are planting evidence to frame an innocent man, his investigations into their possible corruption quickly put himself and his new bride, Susie, in jeopardy.

James Cray watched as his wife was killed by Fargo, a hit-and-run serial murderer. After severely injuring Fargo and going to prison for several years, James is now determined to avenge his wife's death. He drives across the country looking for Fargo's 1972 Cadillac Eldorado, which the now-disabled killer has turned into a rolling death trap. James' search is helped by a state traffic officer and a singer with her own agenda.

Supernatural private eye, Dylan Dog, seeks out the monsters of the Louisiana bayou in his signature red shirt, black jacket and blue jeans.

A gang of four professional criminals kidnaps a wealthy teenage girl from an airport in Paris in a meticulous plan to extort money from the girl's wealthy father. Holding her prisoner in an isolated beach house, the gang's scheme runs perfectly until their personal demons surface and lead to a series of betrayals.

Having witnessed his parents' brutal murder as a child, millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne fights crime in Gotham City disguised as Batman, a costumed hero who strikes fear into the hearts of villains. But when a deformed madman known as 'The Joker' seizes control of Gotham's criminal underworld, Batman must face his most ruthless nemesis ever while protecting both his identity and his love interest, reporter Vicki Vale.

An embittered woman seeks escape in marriage, only to fall for her husband’s best friend.

Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe: 1) A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. 2) A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. 3) A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.

Pat Garrett is hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid.

Unofficial lawman John Corbett hunts down Cuchillo Sanchez, a Mexican peasant accused of raping and killing a 12-year-old girl.

In 1870s New Mexico, a half-breed kills a bigoted sheriff in self-defense but the posse that eventually hunts him finds itself in dangerous territory.

After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity.

When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.

A young doctor falls in love with a disturbed young woman and apparently becomes involved in the death of her husband. They head for Mexico trying to outrun the law.

Sir Robert Beaumont is behind schedule on a railroad in Africa. Enlisting noted engineer John Henry Patterson to right the ship, Beaumont expects results. Everything seems great until the crew discovers the mutilated corpse of the project's foreman, seemingly killed by a lion. After several more attacks, Patterson calls in famed hunter Charles Remington, who has finally met his match in the bloodthirsty lions.

An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.

An evil is unleashed in a small town when a logging company sets up shop in the neighboring woods. Isolated and threatened, a mysterious force hidden within the trees outside the small town of Maiden Woods, strikes fear in the townspeople as Sheriff Paul Shields attempts to overcome the demons of his past while protecting those that he loves.

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.

Archie Lee Meighan is a failing cotton gin owner who is married to Baby Doll, a 19-year old childlike beauty whose father arranged the marriage for financial reasons. As Archie awaits the arrival of Baby Doll's 20th birthday, the day that they are supposed to consummate their marriage, he faces interference from business rival Silva Vacarro, who plots to seduce Baby Doll away from Meighan.

In the grim Alaskan winter, a naturalist hunts for wolves blamed for killing a local boy, but he soon finds himself swept into a chilling mystery.

When a dead newborn is found, wrapped in bloody sheets, in the bedroom wastebasket of a young novice, psychiatrist Martha Livingston is called in to determine if the seemingly innocent novice, who knows nothing of sex or birth, is competent enough to stand trial for the murder of the baby.

A tale of murder, crime and punishment set in the summer of 1949. Ed Crane, a barber in a small California town, is dissatisfied with his life, but his wife Doris' infidelity and a mysterious opportunity presents him with a chance to change it.

A man lurks the night alleys, killing people at random, he feels nothing, no emotion, and no pain; when he meets a graceful widow he must confront what it means to be human.

Director F.W. Murnau makes a Faustian pact with a vampire to get him to star in his 1922 film "Nosferatu."

A former drug lord returns from prison determined to wipe out all his competition and distribute the profits of his operations to New York's poor and lower classes in this stylish and ultra violent modern twist on Robin Hood.

A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

In the wilderness of British Columbia, two hunters are tracked and viciously murdered by Aaron Hallam. A former Special Operations instructor is approached and asked to apprehend Hallam—his former student—who has 'gone rogue' after suffering severe battle stress from his time in Kosovo.

Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.

Movie star Charlie Castle draws the ire of Hollywood producer Stanley Hoff when he refuses to sign a new seven-year contract. Castle is sick of the low quality of the studio's films and wants to start a new life. While his estranged wife supports him in the decision, Castle's talent agent urges him to reconsider. When Castle continues to be uncooperative, Hoff resorts to blackmail in order to get his way.

The escape of Bubber Reeves from prison affects the inhabitants of a small Southern town.

A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.

"Boxcar" Bertha Thompson, a transient woman in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early '30s, meets up with rabble-rousing union man "Big" Bill Shelly and the two team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment.

A man who has failed as a father and husband commits a heist to make money for his fledging business, but things become complicated when his wife interferes.

A mysterious preacher protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to encroach on their land.

The small city of Tarker's Mills is startled by a series of sadistic murders. The population fears the work of a maniac, but sightings of a mysterious, hairy creature soon spread. People lock themselves up at night, but there's one boy who's still outside…

In 1940s Los Angeles, two former boxers-turned-cops must grapple with corruption, narcissism, stag films and family madness as they pursue the killer of an aspiring young actress.

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

Five grisly tales from a 1950s-style comic, including a murdered father rising from beyond, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate's occupant, and a plague of cockroaches.

The true story of Edward Gein, the farmer whose horrific crimes inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. This is the first film to Gein's tormented upbringing, his adored but domineering mother, and the 1957 arrest uncovered the most bizarre series of murders America has ever seen

A man on the run from his own sins, finds himself in a small border town in Texas, impersonating a reverend. The town are quickly drawn to the man's unorthodox sermons, but so is a police chief who has his suspicions.

Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger's charm and audacity endear him to much of America's downtrodden public, but he's also a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover and the fledgling FBI. Desperate to capture the elusive outlaw, Hoover makes Dillinger his first Public Enemy Number One and assigns his top agent, Melvin Purvis, the task of bringing him in dead or alive.

A young teacher on her way to a position in Transylvania helps a young man escape the shackles his mother has put on him. In so doing she innocently unleashes the horrors of the undead once again on the populace, including those at her school for ladies. Luckily for some, Dr. Van Helsing is already on his way.

An alcoholic drifter must battle withdrawal and psychotic rednecks after he becomes the target of a deranged sporting event.

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

During the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership.

