NoBadPicks

Movies Like Leave No Traces

If you loved Leave No Traces's Drama and History 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

Citizen X
7.2

Citizen X

1995

Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who, over many years, claimed victim to over 50 people. His victims were mostly under the age of 17. In what was then a communists state, the police investigations were hampered by bureaucracy, incompetence and those in power. The story is told from the viewpoint of the detective in charge of the case.

The Onion Field
6.0

The Onion Field

1979

An LA police officer is murdered in the onion fields outside of Bakersfield. However, legal loopholes could keep his kidnappers from receiving justice, and his partner is haunted by overwhelming survivor's guilt.

Telefon
6.6

Telefon

1977

Nicolai Dalchimski, a mad KGB agent steals a notebook full of names of "sleeping" undercover KGB agents sent to the U.S. in the 1950's. These agents got their assignments under hypnosis, so they can't remember their missions until they're told a line of a Robert Frost poem. Dalchimski flees to the U.S. and starts phoning these agents who perform sabotage acts against military targets.

Operation Hyacinth
6.8

Operation Hyacinth

2021

Not satisfied with the result of a murder investigation in Warsaw's gay community, an officer in 1980s communist Poland resolves to uncover the truth.

Closet Land
6.6

Closet Land

1991

A young writer is interrogated by a sadistic secret policeman. She is accused of embedding political messages in her children's stories. The entire movie takes place in one room, with only the two actors. The movie is set in an unidentified, modern police state.

Truth & Treason
8.0

Truth & Treason

2025

When loyalty to country becomes loyalty to a lie, one teen risks everything to expose the truth. With the Gestapo closing in, he must decide what it really means to be a good German.

Run
6.0

Run

1991

When a law student accidentally kills the son of a mob boss in a fight, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by the mob and the police.

The Deadly Affair
6.2

The Deadly Affair

1967

Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.

More Movies Like Leave No Traces

In Too Deep
6.4

In Too Deep

1999

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.

Blood Ties
6.1

Blood Ties

2013

Two brothers, on either side of the law, face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s.

The Equalizer 3
7.3

The Equalizer 3

2023

Robert McCall finds himself at home in Southern Italy but he discovers his friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends' protector by taking on the mafia.

The Secrets We Keep
6.0

The Secrets We Keep

2020

In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.

God Is a Bullet
6.0

God Is a Bullet

2023

Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.

Firebrand
6.3

Firebrand

2024

Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.

Gorky Park
6.3

Gorky Park

1983

Police Inspector Renko tries to solve the case of three bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park but finds his attempts to solve the crime impeded by his superiors. Working on his own, Renko seeks out more information and stumbles across a conspiracy involving the highest levels of the government.

Salvador
7.0

Salvador

1986

In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

Blood Work
6.2

Blood Work

2002

Still recovering from a heart transplant, a retired FBI profiler returns to service when his own blood analysis offers clues to the identity of a serial killer.

Brake
5.8

Brake

2012

A Secret Service Agent is held captive in the trunk of a car and endures high-speed mental and physical torture as terrorists attempt to extract needed information for their sinister plot.

Saw V
6.2

Saw V

2008

Following Jigsaw's grisly demise, Detective Mark Hoffman is commended as a hero, but Agent Strahm is suspicious, and delves into Hoffman's past. Meanwhile, another group of people are put through a series of gruesome tests.

Child 44
6.3

Child 44

2015

Set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, a disgraced MGB agent is dispatched to investigate a series of child murders -- a case that begins to connect with the very top of party leadership.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with Leave No Traces (2021): Drama and History 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 Leave No Traces.

See full details for Leave No Traces (2021)

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