Movies Like The Onion Field
If you loved The Onion Field's Crime and Drama 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
Righteous Kill
Two veteran New York City detectives work to identify the possible connection between a recent murder and a case they believe they solved years ago; is there a serial killer on the loose, and did they perhaps put the wrong person behind bars?
Blindfire
A police officer who while responding to a violent hostage call, kills the African American suspect only to later learn of his innocence. Sensing this was a set-up, and facing repercussions, he must track down the person responsible while examining his own accountability and the ingrained racism which brought him to this point.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.
True Believer
Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.
City of Lies
Los Angeles Police Department detective Russell Poole has spent years trying to solve his biggest case -- the murders of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur -- but after two decades, the investigation remains open. Jack Jackson, a reporter desperate to save his reputation and career, is determined to find out why. In search of the truth, the two team up and unravel a growing web of institutional corruption and lies.
Death Sentence
Nick Hume is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when protecting his family.
L.A. Confidential
Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.
Mob Town
Based on the true story of the notorious 1957 ‘mob summit’ in upstate New York. Spearheaded by Vito Genovese, more than 50 leaders of the organized crime syndicates from around the country converged on the sleepy town to discuss upcoming expansion plans. Their plans are foiled when local police trooper Ed Croswell discovers their activities and, consequently, exposes the mob to the American public. Croswell’s actions shed light on the massive web of corruption and changed the face of law enforcement forever.
More Movies Like The Onion Field
Cop
An obsessive, insubordinate homicide cop is convinced a serial killer is loose in the Hollywood area and disobeys orders in order to catch him.
Q & A
A young district attorney seeking to prove a case against a corrupt police detective encounters a former lover and her new protector, a crime boss who refuses to help him.
The United States of Leland
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.
Monster
The story of Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder.
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 Pelican Brief
A law student's theory about the recent deaths of two Supreme Court justices embroils her in a far-reaching web of murder, corruption, and greed.
Normal Life
Chris Anderson and his wife Pam live a fairly normal life until Chris loses his job on the police force and secretly turns to robbing banks to make his wife's dreams come true. Upon discovering his secret, she joins his deadly crime wave and together they terrorize an unsuspecting suburban town.
Point of No Return
Hardened criminal Maggie Hayward's consistent violence, even in police custody, ends in the execution chamber. However, top-secret US government agent 'Bob' arranges a staged death, so Maggie can be elaborately trained as a phantom killer and subdued into obedience.
In Too Deep
Drug lord Dwayne Gittens rules Cincinnati with an iron fist. No wonder he's known as "God" on the streets. Determined to break Gittens' stranglehold on the city is undercover cop Jeffrey Cole. But as Cole takes on an assumed identity to penetrate Gittens' criminal empire, he makes a disturbing discovery -- he kind of likes being a gangster.
Copshop
On the run from a lethal assassin, a wily con artist devises a scheme to hide out inside a small-town police station. However, when the hit man turns up at the precinct, an unsuspecting rookie cop finds herself caught in the crosshairs.
Straight Time
After being released on parole, a burglar attempts to go straight, get a regular job, and just go by the rules. He soon finds himself back in jail at the hands of a power-hungry parole officer.
The Seven-Ups
A tough detective who is part of an elite New York City unit is trying to find out who killed his partner, but uncovers a plot to kidnap mobsters for money.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with The Onion Field (1979): Crime and Drama 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 The Onion Field.
See full details for The Onion Field (1979)