Movies Like I Wake Up Screaming
If you loved I Wake Up Screaming's Mystery and Crime storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks
Nightfall
An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.
The Damned Don't Cry
Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.
Panic
Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful part of his life. He seeks the help of a therapist and meets a woman in the waiting room that he connects with.
The Verdict
After an innocent man is executed in a case he was responsible for, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.
One Night at McCool's
On an ordinary night, in an ordinary part of town, a beautiful young woman walks into a bar. Her name is Jewel, and before long she is chatting to bartender Randy. The pair leave together, but he ends up getting into a tussle with her criminal boyfriend, who she then shoots dead, later persuading Randy to take the rap for her. But this isn't the end of it, as both Randy's cousin Carl and the detective assigned to the murder case also fall for Jewel's charms and find themselves caught up in the ensuing events. It seems that any man who meets Jewel falls instantly in love with her, and she's going to use this fully to her own advantage, leaving a trail of havoc in her wake. It also seems that she is going to get away with it - that is, until Randy decides to hire a hitman...
Black Angel
A falsely convicted man's wife, Catherine, and an alcoholic composer and pianist, Martin, team up in an attempt to clear her husband of the murder of a blonde singer, who is Martin's wife.
Lady on a Train
While watching from her train window, Nikki Collins witnesses a murder in a nearby building. When she alerts the police, they think she has read one too many mystery novels. She then enlists a popular mystery writer to help her solve the crime on her own, but her sleuthing attracts the attentions of suitors and killers.
The Glass Key
A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
More Movies Like I Wake Up Screaming
Johnny O'Clock
When an employee at an illegal gambling den dies suspiciously, her sister, Nancy, looks into the situation and falls for Johnny O'Clock, a suave partner in the underground casino. Selfish and non-committal by nature, Johnny slowly begins to return Nancy's affection and decides to run away with her, but conflict within his business threatens their plans. As Johnny tries to distance himself from the casino, his shady past comes back to haunt him.
Winged Creatures
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
The Mirror Crack'd
Jane Marple solves the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.
M
Remake of the 1931 Fritz Lang original. In the city, someone is murdering children. The Police search is so intense, it is disturbing the 'normal' criminals, and the local hoods decide to help find the murderer as quickly as possible.
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.
The Blue Gardenia
Upon waking up to the news that the man she’d gone on a date with the previous night has been murdered, a young woman with only a faint memory of the night’s events begins to suspect that she murdered him while attempting to resist his advances.
Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer
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.
Born to Kill
A calculating divorcée risks her chances at wealth and security with a man she doesn't love by getting involved with a hotheaded murderer.
A Shot in the Dark
Inspector Jacques Clouseau, smitten with the accused maid Maria Gambrelli, unwittingly turns a straightforward murder investigation into a comedic series of mishaps, testing the patience of his irritable boss Charles Dreyfus as casualties mount.
The Naked City
After a former model is drowned in her bathtub, Detective James Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon attempt to piece together her murder.
Bad
Hazel runs a beauty salon out of her house, but makes extra money by providing ruthless women the oppurtunity to perform hit jobs. L.T. is a parasite, and contacts Hazel looking for work after he runs out of money. She is reluctant to use him for a hit, since she prefers using women, but decides to try him on a trial basis. Meanwhile, the cop she pays off wants an arrest to make it look like he's doing his job, but Hazel doesn't want to sacrifice any of her "associates". The sleazy side of life is explored in this delightfully dark and deadpan film.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with I Wake Up Screaming (1941): Mystery 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 I Wake Up Screaming.
See full details for I Wake Up Screaming (1941)