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Movies like The Postman Always Rings Twice

Key Features:
Adultery, Murder, Femme fatale, Conspiracy, Betrayal, Moral ambiguity, Desire, Greed, Suspense, Film noir, Forbidden love, Cynicism, Manipulation, Passion, Crime, Deception
Tone:
serious, gritty, dramatic
Target Audience:
Noir enthusiasts, Crime drama fans, Cynical viewers, Mature audiences
Emotional Arc:
Lust → Suspicion → Despair

The Postman Always Rings Twice

1981-03-20
The Postman Always Rings Twice Poster - Find Similar Movies

The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

Genres
Crime, Romance, Drama, Thriller
Cast
Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, John Colicos, Michael Lerner, John P. Ryan, Anjelica Huston, William Traylor, Thomas Hill, Jon Van Ness, Brian Farrell
Crew
David Mamet, Bob Rafelson
Rating
6.5(532 votes)
The Postman Always Rings TwiceThe Postman Always Rings Twice
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Sharky's Machine
6.1

Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.



The Hot Spot
6.2

Upon arriving to a small town, a drifter quickly gets into trouble with the local authorities — and the local women — after he robs a bank.



Crime of Passion
6.1

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.



Harper
Harper(1966)
6.6

Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.



The Two Jakes
5.965

Real estate developer Jake Berman hires private investigator and war veteran Jake Gittes for some run-of-the-mill matrimonial work. After Berman shoots his wife's lover, who happens to be his business partner, Gittes is drawn into a web of conspiracy and deceit involving the oil reserves beneath Los Angeles. While investigating, Gittes hears a voice from his past that causes him to revisit a traumatic case in Chinatown.



Marlowe
Marlowe(2023)
5.726

Private detective Philip Marlowe becomes embroiled in an investigation involving a wealthy Californian family after a beautiful blonde hires him to track down her former lover.



The Last Seduction
6.765

A devious femme fatale steals her husband’s drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.



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.



Kill Me Again
6.051

After Faye and her psychotic boyfriend, Vince, successfully rob a mob courier, Faye decides to abscond with the loot. She heads to Reno, where she hires feckless private investigator Jack Andrews to help fake her death. He pulls the scheme off and sets up Faye with a new identity, only to have her skip out on him without paying. Jack follows her to Vegas and learns he's not the only one after her. Vince has discovered that she's still alive.



Random Hearts
5.565

After losing their spouses in a plane crash, an internal affairs cop and a congresswoman find each other's keys in each other's loved ones' possessions and discover that the two were having an affair.



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.



Human Desire
6.7

A Korean War vet returns to his job as a railroad engineer and becomes involved in a sordid affair with a co-worker's wife and murder. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, in 1997.



Sea of Love
6.6

Seen-it-all New York detective Frank Keller is unsettled - he has done twenty years on the force and could retire, and he hasn't come to terms with his wife leaving him for a colleague. Joining up with an officer from another part of town to investigate a series of murders linked by the lonely hearts columns he finds he is getting seriously and possibly dangerously involved with Helen, one of the main suspects.



Never Talk to Strangers

Sarah Taylor, a police psychologist, meets a mysterious and seductive young man, Tony Ramirez, and falls in love with him. As a cause of this relationship, she changes her personality when she begins to receive anonymous telephone calls.



Fatal Attraction
6.8

A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.



Adulterers
5.97

A man who returns home to find his wife cheating on him on their anniversary. He holds her and her naked and humiliated lover captive at gunpoint while he decides whether or not he's going to kill them. The story, inspired by true events, takes place over one day and is set in New Orleans during a stifling heat wave.



The Big Combo
7

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.



Blood Simple
7.251

The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.



The Unfaithful Wife

Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.



Chinatown
Chinatown(1974)
7.916

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.



The Killers
6.9

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.



The Secret
7.105

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.



Serpico
Serpico(1973)
7.5

New York cop Frank Serpico blows the whistle on the rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.



Insomnia
Insomnia(2002)
6.955

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.



Where the Sidewalk Ends

A police detective's violent nature keeps him from being a good cop.



Le Deuxième Souffle

A gangster escapes jail and quickly makes plans to continue his criminal ways elsewhere, but a determined inspector is closing in.



Innocents with Dirty Hands

Saint Tropez. Julie Wormser and her lover, writer and neighbour Jeff Marle, plan the murder of her wealthy husband Louis, an alcoholic impotent. She hits him, and leaves the rest of the task to Jeff. Julie finds herself alone the following day, and becomes therefore the prime suspect. Where is Louis' body? Where is Jeff? Is there any secret beyond a door?



Original Sin
6.1

A young man is plunged into a life of subterfuge, deceit and mistaken identity in pursuit of a femme fatale whose heart is never quite within his grasp.



Red Rock West
6.742

When a promised job for Texan Michael fails to materialize in Wyoming, Mike is mistaken by Wayne to be the hitman he hired to kill his unfaithful wife, Suzanne. Mike takes full advantage of the situation, collects the money, and runs. During his getaway, things go wrong, and soon get worse when he runs into the real hitman, Lyle.



American Gigolo
6.2

Julian makes a lucrative living as an escort to older women in the Los Angeles area. He begins a relationship with Michelle, a local politician's wife, without expecting any pay. One of his clients is murdered and Detective Sunday begins pumping him for details on his different clients, something he is reluctant to do considering the nature of his work. Julian begins to suspect he's being framed. Meanwhile Michelle begins to fall in love with him.



Holland
Holland(2025)
5.389

Teacher Nancy's life with her husband in Holland, Michigan, tumbles into a twisted tale when she and a colleague become suspicious of a secret.



Mr. & Mrs. Smith
6.687

A husband and wife struggle to keep their marriage alive until they realize they are both secretly working as assassins. Now, their respective assignments require them to kill each other.



Where Danger Lives
6.4

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.



Shadowboxer
5.033

Mikey and Rose are professional assassins. They are also lovers, and once upon a time Rose also knew Mikey's father. During an elaborate hit job for a malicious gangster, Rose fails to kill the main target, the gangster's pregnant girlfriend. Instead, she delivers her baby and convinces Mikey to help her protect them both. As Rose weakens from cancer, Mikey becomes breadwinner for this unusual family. But tranquility will not last.



Elevator to the Gallows

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.



U Turn
U Turn(1997)
6.6

When a desperate man’s car breaks down in a bizarre desert town while evading vengeful bookies, he becomes entangled in a dangerous love triangle. Caught between a married couple, he’s faced with deadly contracts to kill them both.



Lonely Hearts
6.04

In the late 1940s, a murderous couple known as the 'The Lonely Hearts Killers' kills close to a dozen people. Two detectives try to nab the duo who find their targets via the personals in the paper.



Dead Ringer
6.882

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



In a Lonely Place
7.6

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



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.



Thérèse Raquin
6.593

Star-crossed lovers Thérèse and Laurent think they've gotten away with murder after Thérèse's weakling husband "falls" from a speeding train. But when forced to contend with a blackmailer's demands and the mute accusations of Thérèse's mother-in-law, it's only a matter of time before the law, their passion or blind chance trips them up.



Killing Them Softly

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.



The Killing
7.649

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



Midnight Lace
6.5

Kit Preston begins to unravel when she receives threatening telephone calls informing her she's soon to be murdered.



The Truth About Charlie

Regina meets charming Joshua while vacationing in Martinique, as she contemplates ending her whirlwind marriage to enigmatic Charlie. Upon her return to Paris, she finds that both her apartment and her bank account have been emptied, and her husband has been murdered. Stuck in ever-increasing danger and with four men pursuing her, another stranger offers assistance - but who can she trust?



St. Ives
St. Ives(1976)
5.63

A dabbler-in-crime and his assistant hire an ex-police reporter to recover some stolen papers.



Palmetto
Palmetto(1998)
5.9

After spending two years in prison, framed for accepting a bribe, former newspaper reporter Harry Barber is released, bitter and disillusioned. Feeling like he were owed something for his loss of time, he proceeds to get himself involved in a simple kidnapping plot which turns out to be more complex than he imagined.



The Neighbor
4.908

A middle-aged man in a stagnant marriage, finds his life upended when an attractive young woman and her seemingly abusive husband move in next door.



Angel Face
7.061

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but dangerous Diane Tremayne.



The Score
The Score(2001)
6.695

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



Marlowe
Marlowe(1969)
5.994

Mysterious Orfamay Quest hires Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe to find her missing brother. Though the job seems simple enough, it leads Marlowe into the underbelly of the city, turning up leads who are murdered with ice picks, exotic dancers, blackmailed television stars and self-preserving gangsters. Soon, Marlowe's life is on the line right along with his case.



Scandal Sheet
6.923

A tabloid editor assigns a young reporter to solve a murder the editor committed himself.



Black Bag
Black Bag(2025)
6.336

When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband – also a legendary agent – faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage, or his country.



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.



Sudden Fear
7.254

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



Strangers on a Train

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



The Man Who Wasn't There

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.



Detective
Detective(1985)
5.2

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.



Detective Story
7

Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.



One on Top of the Other

A San Francisco doctor encounters a prostitute who bears a striking resemblance to his late wife.



True Romance
7.541

Clarence marries hooker Alabama, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood, while the owners of the coke try to reclaim it.



True Confessions
6.1

A cop clashes with his priest brother while investigating the brutal murder of a young prostitute.



Klute
Klute(1971)
6.733

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



This Man Must Die
7.361

When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.



Double Whammy
5.449

Ray Pluto has many problems. He is satirized in the tabloids as the "loser cop." His partner is starting to seem suspiciously attracted to him. A pair of screenwriters across the hall keep bugging him for help. The superintendent of his building is stabbed by hoodlums hired by his own rebellious daughter. To top it off, a sexually aggressive chiropractor may just be Ray's undoing.



Irresistible
5.5

A wife and mother is consumed by the thought that her husband's co-worker is trying to win him away from her and their family.



Angel Heart
7.1

A down-and-out Brooklyn detective is hired to track down a singer on an odyssey that will take him through the desperate streets of Harlem, the smoke-filled jazz clubs of New Orleans, and the swamps of Louisiana and its seedy underworld of voodoo.



Busting
Busting(1974)
6.167

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.



The Prowler
6.8

Los Angeles, California. A cop who, unhappy with his job, blames others for his work problems, is assigned to investigate the case of a prowler who stalks the home of a married woman.



The Constant Gardener
6.997

Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.



Stone
Stone(2010)
5.3

Parole officer Jack Mabry has only a few weeks left before retirement and wishes to finish out the cases he's been assigned. One such case is that of Gerald 'Stone' Creeson, a convicted arsonist who is up for parole. Jack is initially reluctant to indulge Stone in the coarse banter he wishes to pursue and feels little sympathy for the prisoner's pleads for an early release. Seeing little hope in convincing Jack himself, Stone arranges for his wife to seduce the officer, but motives and intentions steadily blur amidst the passions and buried secrets of the corrupted players in this deadly game of deception.



Gone Girl
Gone Girl(2014)
7.9

With his wife's disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.



Diabolique
5.5

The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed scheme to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The psychological strain starts to weigh on the two women when a retired police investigator begins looking into the man's disappearance on a whim.



Don't Bother to Knock

An airline pilot pursues a live-in babysitter at his hotel and gradually realizes she is not as stable as perhaps she should be.



The Salton Sea
6.547

After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.



Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

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



Romeo Is Bleeding
6.3

A corrupt cop gets in over his head when he tries to assassinate a beautiful Russian hit-woman.



The Conversation
7.509

A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.



Woman on the Run
6.735

Frank Johnson, a sole witness to a gangland murder, goes into hiding and is trailed by Police Inspector Ferris, on the theory that Frank is trying to escape from possible retaliation. Frank's wife, Eleanor, suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage. Aided by a newspaperman, Danny Leggett, Eleanor sets out to locate her husband. The killer is also looking for him, and keeps close tabs on Eleanor.



Jackie Brown
7.358

Jackie Brown is a flight attendant who gets caught in the middle of smuggling cash into the country for her gunrunner boss. When the cops try to use Jackie to get to her boss, she hatches a plan — with help from a bail bondsman — to keep the money for herself.



Eyes Wide Shut
7.484

After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.



Touch of Evil
7.761

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.



Twilight
Twilight(1998)
6.096

A retired detective accepts a simple task, unaware that it will tear open old, forgotten, but deadly wounds.



Unfaithful
6.7

Connie is a wife and mother whose 11-year marriage to Edward has lost its sexual spark. When Connie literally runs into handsome book collector Paul, he sweeps her into an all-consuming affair. But Edward soon becomes suspicious and decides to confront the other man.



Narc
Narc(2002)
6.743

When the trail goes cold on a murder investigation of a policeman, an undercover narcotics officer is lured back to the force to help solve the case.



The American
5.968

Dispatched to a small Italian town to await further orders, assassin Jack embarks on a double life that may be more relaxing than is good for him.



Hustle
Hustle(1975)
5.592

The body of teenager Gloria Hollinger is found dead on a Los Angeles beach, and Lt. Phil Gaines is in charge of the investigation. Gaines learns that the girl, a stripper and prostitute, committed suicide, but he ignores the connection between her and a powerful mob lawyer, Leo Sellers. Hollinger's father, however, is not satisfied with Gaines's results, and attempts to investigate the case on his own.



The Postman
6.3

In 2013, there are no highways, no I-ways, no dreams of a better tomorrow, only scattered survivors across what was once the United States. Into this apocalyptic wasteland comes an enigmatic drifter with a mule, a knack for Shakespeare, and something yet undiscovered: the power to inspire hope.



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.



Careful What You Wish For

A guy gets more than he bargained for after entering into an affair with the wife of an investment banker. Soon, a suspicious death and substantial life insurance policy embroil him in a scandal.



Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.



The Late Show
6.2

Over-the-hill gumshoe in Los Angeles seeks to avenge the killing of an old pal, another detective who was involved in a case concerning a murdered broad, stolen stamps, a nickel-plated handgun, a cheating dolly, and a kidnapped pussycat.



Heist
Heist(2001)
6.3

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



The Offence
6.8

A burned-out British police detective finally snaps while interrogating a suspected child molester.



The Big Sleep
5.824

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



Dream Lover
6.2

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.



Cop
Cop(1988)
6.2

An obsessive, insubordinate homicide cop is convinced a serial killer is loose in the Hollywood area and disobeys orders in order to catch him.



Lost Highway
7.542

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.



Diva
Diva(1981)
6.7

Jules, a young Parisian postman, secretly records a concert performance given by the opera singer Cynthia Hawkins, whom he idolises. The following day, Jules runs into a woman who is being pursued by armed thugs. Before she is killed, the woman slips an audio cassette into his mail bag...

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