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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo poster

Movies that feel likeThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece

If you loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the closest films we have are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) and The Girl in the Fog (2017). All three share The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's tense and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Drishyam (2015).

🍅 85% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Niels Arden Oplevcontemplativetensegrittytwisty
9 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Hulu

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If The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009) · The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo poster
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2011 · dir. David Fincher
🍅 86%★ 7.8thriller · crime · mysteryNetflixApple TV+

Two things both keep coming back to: journalist and island

The difference: Less contemplative, more its own thing

Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.

The Secret in Their Eyes poster
The Secret in Their Eyes
2009 · dir. Juan José Campanella
🍅 89%★ 8.2mystery · thriller · dramaHulu

One thread runs through both: rape

Hoping to put to rest years of unease concerning a past case, retired criminal investigator Benjamín begins writing a novel based on the unsolved mystery of a newlywed’s rape and murder. With the help of a former colleague, judge Irene, he attempts to make sense of the past.

The Girl in the Fog poster
The Girl in the Fog
2017 · dir. Donato Carrisi
🍅 75%★ 6.8mystery · thriller · crime

Tense where it counts, gritty underneath

A gripping and chilling thriller that brings us to a hazy mountain village where an enigmatic detective is investigating the sudden disappearance of fifteen-year-old girl.

Eastern Promises poster
Eastern Promises
2007 · dir. David Cronenberg
🍅 89%★ 7.6thriller · crime · mysteryPrime Video

Common ground: rape

A Russian teenager living in London dies during childbirth but leaves clues in her diary that could tie her child to a rape involving a violent Russian mob family.

Drishyam poster
Drishyam
2015 · dir. Nishikant Kamat
🍅 64%★ 8.2mystery · thriller · drama

Both land stillness and twists at once

When his family stares down the barrel of criminal charges, a commoner channels his street smarts and knowledge of action films to tie the long arm of the law into an investigative Gordian knot.

A Walk Among the Tombstones poster
A Walk Among the Tombstones
2014 · dir. Scott Frank
🍅 68%★ 6.5crime · drama · mystery

Contemplative drama in both cases

Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.

Lucky Number Slevin poster
Lucky Number Slevin
2006 · dir. Paul McGuigan
★ 7.7drama · thriller · crime

Thriller built on tension, twice over

Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.

Marshland poster
Marshland
2014 · dir. Alberto Rodríguez
🍅 91%★ 7.2crime · mystery · thriller

Gritty crime, and it commits to that

The Spanish Deep South, 1980. A series of brutal murders of adolescent girls in a remote and forgotten town bring together two disparate characters – both detectives in the homicide division – to investigate the cases.

Bad Times at the El Royale poster
Bad Times at the El Royale
2018 · dir. Drew Goddard
🍅 75%★ 7.1thriller · mystery · crime

Mystery with a pulse of twists, in both cases

Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.

The Bone Collector poster
The Bone Collector
1999 · dir. Phillip Noyce
🍅 30%★ 6.7crime · thriller · dramaPrime VideoStarz

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

Lincoln Rhyme was the department's top homicide detective and leading expert in criminal forensics until an injury left him paralyzed, depressed, and incapable of working. But when a gruesome murder in Manhattan leaves detectives baffled, they call on Rhyme to help solve the mystery. Amelia Donaghy, a rookie cop whose quick thinking preserved a gruesome murder scene, is enlisted by Rhyme to be his on-the-scene forensics expert. With Amelia reluctantly acting as Rhyme's able-bodied go-between, the pair piece together cryptic clues the killer leaves behind at the scene of the crime, hoping to catch the grisly serial killer.

L.A. Confidential poster
L.A. Confidential
1997 · dir. Curtis Hanson
🍅 99%★ 8.2crime · mystery · thrillerPrime Video

Both keep coming back to the same thing: whodunit

Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.

Zodiac poster
Zodiac
2007 · dir. David Fincher
🍅 90%★ 7.7crime · mystery · thrillerParamount+

The same preoccupation in both: journalist

Police conduct a manhunt for the Zodiac Killer, a serial killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, taunting police with letters, bloodstained clothing, and ciphers mailed to newspapers.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s defining feeling.