We discuss 10 Movies like Nightcrawler you must watch. Add these well-recommended movies to your watch list.
Nightcrawler is a 2014 film by Dan Gilroy, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an antihero who will go to whatever lengths necessary to pursue a story he believes the public is interested in.
Many interesting themes are explored in the film through subtext, and if you’ve seen it recently and enjoyed it, you might be interested in similar films. Here are 10 of them.
10 Movies like Nightcrawler
Taxi Driver (1976)
If there is a film that influenced Nightcrawler more than any other, it’s probably Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. This Neo-noir psychological thriller was very revolutionary at the time and changed Scorsese and De Niro’s careers.
De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran who drives a taxi through New York City and whose mental state is slowly deteriorating.
The King of Comedy (1983)
This is the second Scorsese-De Niro film on this list, and though it hasn’t left a mark on film history as much as Taxi Driver, it’s a film that continues to influence movies to this day.
Notably, Joker had some heavy winks at The King of Comedy, whose story follows a failed comic who thinks of himself as extremely funny, no matter what everyone else tells him and no matter the lengths he will go to change minds.
The Insider (1999)
Michael Mann’s The Insider follows Al Pacino and Russell Crowe in a fictionalized take on a 60 Minutes story about Jeffrey Wigand, a tobacco industry whistleblower, and how CBS had to defend their story against attacks from Wigand’s former employer.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
If you are looking for similar movies to Nightcrawler but perhaps are interested in a bit of an action-adventure angle, Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can is exactly what you are looking for.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a con man posing as an airline pilot who tricked the agency into paying him millions over the years. As the title suggests, the FBI is trying to track him down, led by an agent played by Tom Hanks.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Arguably the Coen Brothers’ best film, No Country for Old Men, stars Javier Bardem in what will likely go down as his career-defining role as Anton Chigurh, for which he also won an Oscar.
The cast also includes Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, who is being hunted down by Chigurh after stealing two million dollars from the scene of a mob exchange that went wrong. Tommy Lee Jones plays the sheriff of the town where the story takes place.
There Will Be Blood (2007)
While there isn’t much to be compared between Nightcrawler and Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnum opus, There Will Be Blood; this is the ultimate example if you are looking for films commanded by antiheroes. (Aside from, you know, The Godfather and all that.)
And though the two of them are quite different in terms of themes, characters, and settings, they are similar in how they approach an unlikeable protagonist and how that informs the storytelling.
It also features arguably the best performance ever put on screen and is widely considered one of the best films of the 21st century.
Drive (2011)
In talking similar movies to Nightcrawler, one that immediately jumps to mind is Drive, Nicholas Winding Refn’s gripping thriller starring Ryan Gosling.
Much like Nightcrawler, the story of Drive follows a questionable protagonist rejected by society, but in this case, he seeks redemption through love. Is he unredeemable?
Prisoners (2013)
If you are looking for movies similar to Nightcrawler that also star Jake Gyllenhaal, Prisoners is just for you. Denis Villeneuve’s 2013 crime thriller follows the search for the person behind the abduction of two young girls in Pennsylvania.
Gyllenhaal plays Detective Loki, with Hugh Jackman playing the father of one of the girls.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Speaking of similar movies to Nightcrawler starring Jake Gyllenhaal, here is another one. Gyllenhaal plays Amy Adams’ ex-husband, who has a new novel coming out about a family where the wife and daughter are kidnapped and later killed.
This immediately sets off some trigger warnings for Adams as she starts to find similarities between the novel and her real-life experience.
Good Time (2017)
Another movie similar to Nightcrawler would be Good Time, directed by the Sadie Bros. and starring Robert Pattinson. He plays a small-time criminal who tries to free his brother (Benny Sadie) from police custody and not get arrested while doing it.
Do you have any other recommendations for Movies like Nightcrawler? Let us know in the comments below.
