Movies like The Stranger (2025)

Name: The Stranger
Released: 2025

10 films to watch after The Stranger, ranked by how well they match its tone — not just its genre.

Algiers, 1938. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother's funeral without shedding a tear. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague. He quickly slips back into his usual routine.

1

Disgrace (2008)

Fit 68%

Shares Crime and Drama with The Stranger.

Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.
2

The Adversary (2002)

Fit 67%

Shares Drama and Crime with The Stranger.

Based on the 2000 book of the same name by Emmanuel Carrère, it is inspired by the real-life story of Jean-Claude Romand. L'Adversaire's protagonist Jean-Marc Faure (Auteuil) pursues an imaginary career as a doctor of medicine in a plot more closely based on Romand's life and Carrère's book than was Laurent Cantet's 2001 film L'Emploi du Temps. The film was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
3

Pasha (1968)

Fit 54%

Shares Drama and Crime with The Stranger.

Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris...
4

Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Fit 53%

Shares Crime and Drama with The Stranger.

In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city's black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.
5

Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

Fit 46%

Shares Drama and Crime with The Stranger.

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.
6

The Assault (2011)

Fit 46%

Shares Drama with The Stranger.

December 1994. On Saturday 24th, four GIA terrorists hijack an Air France A300 Airbus, bound for Paris, with 227 passengers on board, at the Algiers airport.
7

36th Precinct (2004)

Fit 44%

Shares Crime and Drama with The Stranger.

In Paris, two cops are competing for the vacant job of chief of police, in the middle of the search for a gang of violent thieves. The movie is directed by Olivier Marchal, a former police officer who spent 12 years with the French police before creating this story, taken in part from real events of the 1980s.
8

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

Fit 43%

Shares Drama with The Stranger.

Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound knowledge of Japanese culture, and Sergeant Hara, brutal and simpleton, will witness the struggle of wills between two men from very different backgrounds who are tragically destined to clash.
9

The Piano Teacher (2001)

Fit 40%

Shares Drama with The Stranger.

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.
10

All the King's Men (2006)

Fit 39%

Shares Drama with The Stranger.

The story of an idealist's rise to power in the world of Louisiana politics and the corruption that leads to his ultimate downfall. Based on the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Robert Penn Warren, loosely based on the story of real-life politician Huey Long.