Summary

• Movies like Prisoners offer gripping mysteries that captivate audiences with complex characters and intense storytelling.
• From The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to Zodiac, films similar to Prisoners focus on haunting crimes and dark psychological depths.
• Denis Villeneuve's work, like Incendies and Wind River, pushes boundaries with raw emotions and shocking twists that leave a lasting impact.

Denis Villeneuve gained widespread critical appeal thanks to his 2013 thriller, Prisoners, which took the world by storm and began a hugely successful streak of English-language movies from the director, as well as several movies like Prisoners trying to replicate his success. These movies have the ability to stay with film fans for a lifetime, with few other titles ever truly living up to the standards that they set. This means that some of the best movies that are similar to Prisoners are counted as some of the greatest thrillers available and are well worth seeking out.

Movies like Prisoners stand out for their striking cinematography but linger in the minds of viewers because of the strength of their performances, with stars Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal being only two components in a stunning ensemble. The best films like Prisoners are often true stories or actor-driven pieces that don't let the audience down in any of the technical categories either. They are movies of a rare level of quality, but they do exist, and many of them are available to watch on major streaming services.

20 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Daniel Craig Investigates A Decades-Old Disappearance

David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a movie based on a novel by Stieg Larson that was already adapted into a movie trilogy in Sweden. However, Fincher helped this movie stand on its own thanks to his combination of award-winning cinematography, great use of music, and wonderful acting by Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

The movie is about an abducted person, and like Prisoners, it is a mystery film that deals with trauma from the past manifesting itself in the present day. Craig plays a journalist asked to look into the 40-year-old disappearance of a teenage girl, and there are some who want the past to remain buried.

He gets help from a tech detective named Lisbeth Salander, and like Noomi Rapace before her in the original Swedish adaptations, Mara gives a sensational performance. The combination of great acting and an engaging mystery makes this an ideal watch for fans of Prisoners.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is available to stream on Max.

19 Kiss The Girls (1997)

Morgan Freeman's Alex Cross Hunts A Killer

Kiss the Girls was based on the James Patterson Alex Cross novels, a series about a Washington, DC, police detective and forensic psychologist. At the time, this was the start of a franchise that stalled out after two movies with Morgan Freeman starring as Cross.

In this movie, Cross investigates the disappearance of his niece, who is the latest missing person in Durham, North Carolina. When one abductee escapes (Ashley Judd), she helps Cross save his niece and the other missing girls before it is too late.

Like Prisoners, this showed a family member seeking the answers as well as a determined detective attempting to get to the bottom of the case with the truth closer than he realizes. Freeman is his usual stoic and commanding self on screen, creating an intriguing hero in Cross.

Kiss the Girls is available to stream on Prime Video.

18 Changeling (2008)

Angelina Jolie Leads A Period Thriller With A Twist

Changeling saw director Clint Eastwood team up with star Angelina Jolie to tell a familiar story to fans of Prisoners, as it involved a parent who would do anything to find their missing child. The twist here, as the movie's title signifies, is that the police bring her a boy that she quickly realizes isn't her missing son.

However, taking place in 1928, the police labeled her as delusional and closed the case. When she finds proof that the child is not hers, she ends up itted to a mental hospital, making this as tense as Prisoners at times.

This was a tale about police corruption on a very high level, while Jolie earned an Oscar nomination for her role as a mother desperately looking for her son. Eastwood crafts an engaging and riveting mystery that is as much about a woman's fight for justice as it is about getting answers.

Changeling is available to stream on Prime Video.

17 Gone Girl (2014)

Ben Affleck Is Accused Of His Wife's Disappearance

Gone Girl is not a movie about an abducted child, but is instead a movie about a man suspected of murder after his wife's disappearance. Directed by David Fincher, the movie stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as a married couple going through a difficult time when the wife, Amy, disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary.

While Nick cooperates in the search for his wife, he seems not to care that she is gone, which puts the aim on him from those who believe she might have been murdered. It is another dark and twisted thriller similar to Prisoners with more and more reveals taking audiences down a captivating rabbit hole toward the shocking truth.

Affleck gives one of the best performances of his career as the flawed husband who finds himself the prime suspect in the case while Pike earned an Oscar nomination for her even more complex performance as his wife.

Gone Girl is available to stream on Netflix.

16 Taken (2008)

Liam Neeson Fights For His Kidnapped Daughter

In Prisoners, Hugh Jackman played a father who would do anything to find who kidnapped his child and took the law into his own hands, to his own detriment. Taken had the same storyline, but where Prisoners showed that the father's actions could put him in jail as well as the kidnapper, in Taken, the father killed everyone who stood between him and rescuing his daughter, and there were no repercussions.

If anything, Taken is almost a fantasy movie for a parent who goes through the torment that the father in Prisoners had to deal with. It is extremely satisfying to see the determined father taking out one vile villain after another in his path to save his daughter. Taken helped kick off Liam Neeson's action career and was a huge success that spawned sequels and a TV series.

Taken is available to stream on Disney+.

15 The Lovely Bones (2009)

A Young Girl Hunts Her Killer From The Afterlife

The Lovely Bones was a low-key Peter Jackson movie after he had made nothing but blockbusters for years. Based on the bestselling Alice Sebold novel, The Lovely Bones was about a teenage freshman who was kidnapped and murdered by a serial killer.

However, he made the body disappear, and her parents never received closure on her death. This began to shatter the marriage of her parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz), as they had different ways of dealing with grief.

The twist here was that Susie's (Saoirse Ronan) ghost remained behind and couldn't leave until she helped solve her own murder. While the afterlife elements of the movie don't quite work, the scenes of a family falling apart in the aftermath of the tragedy as well as the father becoming obsessed with finding answers feel similar to the grounded elements of Prisoners.

The Lovely Bones is available to stream on Prime Video.

14 You Were Never Really Here (2017)

A Man Is Hired To Recover A Kidnapped Girl

While You Were Not Really Here is a different setup than Prisoners, the two share a sense of foreboding and dread based on the disappearance of a missing child. Instead of a parent searching for his own child, Joaquin Phoenix plays a man named Joe who tracks down missing children for their families.

A former military man with a traumatic past, he then exacts vigilante justice to the kidnappers. However, the movie throws him into a child trafficking case that ends up tearing his life apart when it turns out that high-ranking government officials are part of the trafficking ring.

You Were Never Really Here is a very dark and grim movie despite the fact that most of the violence occurs off-screen. While the kidnapping is integral to the plot, the movie is really a character study of Joe, a deeply disturbed man whose life is filled with violence and pain.

You Were Never Really Here is available to stream on Prime Video.

13 Jar City (2006)

A Weary Detective Investigates A Small Town Murder

Icelandic novelist Arnaldur Indriðason wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of the third book in his popular series of mysteries featuring the no-nonsense detective Erlendur Sveinsson (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson). The movie is set in a small town where a murder is revealed to be linked to a decades-old crime.

This leads to the world-weary detective and his team digging into the dark secrets of the quiet and isolated community. It's an unflattering take on hard-boiled detective fiction, with the difficult and often hollow lives of the main characters emitting a kind of haunting energy that fans of Prisoners will appreciate.

Jar City is an uncommon murder mystery story not just because of its setting but also its complex emotions stemming from rich characters and a carefully unraveled crime, the effects of which echo across decades.

Jar City is available to stream on Prime Video.

12 Searching (2018)

John Cho Digitally Tracks Down His Missing Daughter

While Prisoners was an expertly crafted movie by Villeneuve when it comes to the look, design, and pacing, Searching was a "screenlife" thriller where most of the action was spent watching a computer screen or sending texts on a mobile device.

John Cho stars in the movie as a father whose daughter disappears. When he goes to the police, he sees video evidence of what might have happened and then investigates the case himself using online resources. Searching is as different as a movie can get from Prisoners, but the two movies share a lot in common when it comes to their themes.

Cho's protagonist is another determined father who will stop at nothing to learn the truth about what happened to his child. While the approach may seem gimmicky, it makes for a captivating investigation that allows it to stand out in the genre as something fresh. The movie received universal acclaim and a Searching sequel arrived in 2023.

Searching is available to stream on Netflix.

11 The Silence (2010)

Investigators And Criminals React To The Aftermath Of A Murder

Grief, tragedy, and trauma are explored in a similarly powerful and engaging way to Villeneuve's Prisoners in this German thriller about the disappearance of a young girl which bears similarities to a murder case from decades earlier.

The story then unfolds by focusing both on the detectives looking into the case, including the retired detective who oversaw the first murder, and the actual murderers. The Silence delves into the psychology of its characters in a rich and unusually rewarding way whilst still being an unremittingly tense and chilling thriller.

It is a grim and dark movie filled with a somber tone similar to Prisoners. It will certainly not be a movie for the faint of heart as it deals with heartbreaking loss and a bleak view of the world. However, it is undeniably gripping even in its haunted exploration of this crime.

The Silence is available to stream on Netflix.