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Best Movies Like L.I.E.

If you enjoyed L.I.E., will enjoy these picks that questions the purpose and weight of our choices while maintaining targets the intellect with complex, multi-layered ideas. Carefully balances character depth with narrative flow makes this a deeper look into what makes these stories stick.

Mood Breakdown
Runtime Cluster

Standard feature-length experiences.

Viewer Fit

Best for fans of who appreciate concise storytelling.

Top Picks

A Thousand and One
6.6

A Thousand and One

2023

Struggling but unapologetically living on her own terms, Inez is moving from shelter to shelter in mid-1990s New York City. With her 6-year-old son Terry in foster care and unable to leave him again, she kidnaps him so they can build their life together. As the years go by, their family grows and Terry becomes a smart yet quiet teenager, but the secret that has defined their lives threatens to destroy the home they have so improbably built.

Lost Girls
6.1

Lost Girls

2020

When Mari Gilbert's daughter disappears, police inaction drives her own investigation into the gated Long Island community where Shannan was last seen. Her search brings attention to over a dozen murdered prostitutes.

The United States of Leland
6.5

The United States of Leland

2003

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

Kids
6.9

Kids

1995

A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.

An American Crime
7.3

An American Crime

2007

The true story of suburban housewife Gertrude Baniszewski, who kept a teenage girl locked in the basement of her Indiana home during the 1960s.

Once Upon a Time in America
8.4

Once Upon a Time in America

1984

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

Mysterious Skin
7.7

Mysterious Skin

2005

A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.

Hot Summer Nights
6.6

Hot Summer Nights

2018

In 1991, a sheltered teenager comes of age during a wild summer on Cape Cod, getting rich from selling pot to gangsters, falling in love for the first time, partying, and eventually realizing that he's in way over his head.

More Movies Like L.I.E.

A Bronx Tale
7.9

A Bronx Tale

1993

Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.

Cape Fear
7.3

Cape Fear

1991

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

Gloria
6.9

Gloria

1980

When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York.

LUV
5.8

LUV

2013

Over the course of one day, a shy 13-year-old forms a bond with his troubled uncle.

Òlòtūré
6.3

Òlòtūré

2019

In Lagos, Nigeria, young, naive Nigerian journalist Òlòtūré goes undercover to expose the shady underworld of human trafficking. Unused to this brutal environment, crawling with ruthless traders and pimps, Òlòtūré finds warmth and friendship with Blessing, Linda and Beauty, the prostitutes she lives with. However, she gets drawn into their lifestyle and finds it difficult to cope. In her quest to uncover the truth, she pays the ultimate price - one that takes her to the verge of no return.

Shaft
6.4

Shaft

1971

Cool Black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.

Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer
6.8

Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer

2025

A struggling writer in the midst of a divorce befriends a retired serial killer who incidentally becomes his marriage counselor by day, and killing counselor for his next book by night.

Boy Wonder
6.3

Boy Wonder

2010

A young Brooklyn boy witnesses the brutal murder of his mother and grows up obsessed with finding her killer. Thus begins his life as a quiet, straight-A student by day and a self-appointed hero at night. But what is a real hero? And who decides what is right or wrong? As the boundaries blur, Sean's dual life wears on his psyche and his two worlds careen dangerously close to colliding. Like a graphic novel you can't put down, Boy Wonder challenges morality, distorting perceptions of what is right and what is justified, as it races to its shocking conclusion.

The Bygone
6.5

The Bygone

2019

When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.

Chinatown
7.9

Chinatown

1974

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.

Landline
6.1

Landline

2017

A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.

Thoroughbreds
6.4

Thoroughbreds

2018

Lily and Amanda, two high school students living in suburban Connecticut, rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of drifting apart. Together, they devise a plan to kill Lily's abusive stepfather by hiring a lowlife drug dealer.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with L.I.E. (2001): Drama and Crime themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of L.I.E..

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