NoBadPicks

Movies Like There Once Was a Cop

If you loved There Once Was a Cop's Crime and Comedy 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

The Damned Don't Cry
7.0

The Damned Don't Cry

1950

Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

Guardian Angels
6.1

Guardian Angels

1995

A sleazy Paris nightclub owner and ex-detective flies to Hong Kong to rescue the young son of a friend murdered by the Chinese mob.

Gangsters
6.6

Gangsters

2002

Franck Chaievski and Nina Delgado are two undercover detectives of a French special force trying to identify two corrupts members of the Paris Police Force. Franck is pretending to be a gangster and Nina a prostitute living with him, and involved in a robbery of a fortune in diamonds, having seven deaths and some injured persons.

Johnny Dangerously
6.3

Johnny Dangerously

1984

An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.

Hold-up
6.1

Hold-up

1985

Dressed as a clown, the clever rascal Grimm holds up the most secure bank of Montreal and takes 30 hostages. While confusing and ridiculing the police with his strange behavior, he calmly manages to rid the bank of a fortune. But then an unsatisfied companion arouses trouble...

Wrong Cops
6.1

Wrong Cops

2013

A group of bad cops look to dispose of a body that one of them accidentally shot.

Umbrella Coup
6.9

Umbrella Coup

1980

Grégoire Lecomte, the unlucky actor anxious to find a "real job", goes to take a screen test for a role of a killer, but gets to mafiosi by mistake. He takes their don for a producer, and they mistake him for a hitman with whom they had an appointment. Deluded Lecomte signs contract with them. He is supposed to kill gun dealer Otto Krampe at his birthday party in Saint-Tropez by piercing him with a cap of the umbrella with a built-in syringe with potassium cyanide. Lecomte is not aware that it has to be a real murder.

Things Change
6.1

Things Change

1988

Jerry, a misfit Mafia henchman, is assigned the low-level job of keeping an eye on Gino, a shoe repairman fingered by the Mob to confess to a murder he didn't commit. But Gino's mistaken for a Mafia boss, and the two are suddenly catapulted to the highest levels of mobster status. Only friendship will see them through this dangerous adventure alive!

More Movies Like There Once Was a Cop

How to Rob a Bank
5.8

How to Rob a Bank

2007

Caught in the middle of a bank robbery, a slacker and a bank employee become the ones who arbitrate the intense situation.

Cop or Hood
6.3

Cop or Hood

1979

When the local police inspector was found dead in a prostitute's house, police division commissioner Stan Borowitz is sent to investigate the situation. Posing as the prostitute's long-lost brother "Antonio Cerruti," he discovers a mare's nest of police corruption. In fact, in this comedy thriller the whole town is corrupt. If they were closely examined, Stan's methods for pursuing this investigation might embarrass the police. For instance, he drives into a criminal's house in a fancy, expensive race car. In another incident, he callously blows up a casino owned by Musard , one of the town's crime bosses. On that occasion, he first forces Musard to remove his clothes, and the poor criminal watches his casino explode from across the square while standing naked in a phone booth. Meanwhile, Stan seduces the lovely Edmonde.

The Stranger
6.8

The Stranger

2025

In 1930s Algeria, the daily life of an indifferent Frenchman is shaken by the death of his mother and a fateful encounter on a beach.

Buffet Froid
7.0

Buffet Froid

1979

Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.

The First, the Last
6.4

The First, the Last

2016

Apocalyptic neo-western about two gangsters, a town full of crazy people and Jesus...

LaRoy, Texas
6.9

LaRoy, Texas

2024

Broke and depressed, Ray is mistaken for a dangerous hitman and given an envelope of cash. Along with his P.I. friend Skip, he must escape the actual hitman to make it out of LaRoy alive.

Plunder Road
6.9

Plunder Road

1957

A spectacular heist starts to unravel as the crooks take it on the lam.

The Seven-Ups
6.3

The Seven-Ups

1973

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.

Each Dawn I Die
6.8

Each Dawn I Die

1939

A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.

Gotcha!
5.9

Gotcha!

1985

A student on a trip to France is tricked into smuggling secrets across the Iron Curtain by a sexy spy.

La Chèvre
7.1

La Chèvre

1981

When the boss' unlucky daughter is missing in South America, Campana is sent to watch the boss' most unlucky employee who is sent as a private detective in hopes he can duplicate the daughter's mistakes.

Le Clan
6.8

Le Clan

2023

Fred, Achille, Max and Belette form a good-for-nothing gang of crooks. Dismally failing their last raid, they decide to get back in the game, kidnapping Sophie Marceau.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with There Once Was a Cop (1972): Crime and Comedy 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 There Once Was a Cop.

See full details for There Once Was a Cop (1972)

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