Best movies like Murder by Numbers

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Murder by Numbers Starring Sam Behrens, Shari Belafonte, Ronee Blakley, Stanley Kamel, and more. If you liked Murder by Numbers then you may also like: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, Vito, No Way Back, On the Other Hand, Death, Jeffrey and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Hired by the deceased's ex-wife, a private eye checks out the death of a gay man who had AIDS.

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An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

After finding her boss, a private detective, has committed suicide and has left her his agency, Cordelia Gray is asked to investigate the suicide of the man's son. During the course of her investigation, Cordelia becomes obsessed with the young man's memory and his increasingly suspicious death.

Vito

In the aftermath of Stonewall, a newly politicized Vito Russo found his voice as a gay activist and critic of LGBTQ+ representation in the media. He went on to write "The Celluloid Closet", the first book to critique Hollywood's portrayals of gays on screen. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Vito became a passionate advocate for justice via the newly formed ACT UP, before his death in 1990.

No Way Back

Crowder is a an unethical private detective in pursuit of a gangster who's after embezzled money.

On the Other Hand, Death

Donald Strachey is a gay private investigator who learns of a local school's decision to chastise a lesbian teacher for speaking openly about her sexuality. Discovering that her home has been vandalized, Donald starts to look into things and discovers there is more going on than appears on the surface.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey, a gay man living in New York City with an overwhelming fear of contracting AIDS, concludes that being celibate is the only option to protect himself. As fate would have it, shortly after his declaration of a sex-free existence, he meets the handsome Steve Howard, his dream man -- except for his HIV-positive status. Facing this dilemma, Jeffrey turns to his best friend and an outrageous priest for guidance.

As Is

Story of a homosexual man who finds out he has AIDS and how people react. Ex-lovers are brought together when the former is stricken with AIDS. Often humorous and never morose, author William Hoffman doesn't pull his punches with either his portrayal of a gay lifestyle or of the emotional toll the disease takes.

Love! Valour! Compassion!

Gregory invites seven friends to spend the summer at his large, secluded 19th-century home in upstate New York. The seven are: Bobby, Gregory's "significant other"; Art and Perry, two "yuppies"; John, a dour expatriate Briton; Ramon, John's "companion"; James, a cheerful soul who is in the advanced stages of AIDS; and Buzz, a fan of traditional Broadway musicals who is dealing with his own HIV-positive status.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

A documentary look, mostly through the eyes of Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, at her rise and fall as a popular televangelist with husband Jim Bakker.

The Gift

Controversial documentary about gay men purposely contracting the AIDS virus.

Philadelphia

Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.

It's My Party

Nick, a gay, HIV-positive architect, begins to display severe symptoms of AIDS and makes preparations to kill himself before he is unable to function normally. He arranges a party to reconnect and say goodbye to his closest friends and his confused parents. But when his ex-partner, Brandon, a television director who left Nick when he was diagnosed with HIV, shows up, what was supposed to be a celebratory event becomes much more difficult for everyone.

The Last Supper

Chris is a dancer dying of AIDS. He has chosen euthanasia to end his suffering. With the assistance of his lover Val and his doctor, he surrounds himself in his last hours with everything that made his life special and creates his ultimate work of art by choreographing his own death.

My Night with Reg

Six gay friends discuss love, friendship and infidelity over the course of three significant evenings

The Perfect Son

Brothers Theo and Ryan lead very different lives. Theo is always in and out of drug rehabilitation while Ryan is a successful and rather conservative lawyer. Usually they do not get along and stay out of each other's way. When reunited at their father's funeral, Ryan's admission to being gay ultimately brings the two closer than they've ever been.

Swan Song

An aging hairdresser escapes his nursing home to embark on an odyssey across his small town to style a dead woman's hair for her funeral, rediscovering his sparkle along the way.

The Swordsman

When Harriet Zapper is hired to find the identity of Karel Duval, and the true heir to the Duval family fortune, a bloody trail of murders leads the Big Zapper from London to the South of France and into a hornet's nest of betrayal and death.

The Outsider

Darren McGavin is David Ross, a private investigator playing a game of follow the money. A simple case of embezzling turns bad quickly when bodies start dropping and the savvy P.I. is the primary suspect in an attractive woman's death. This NBC TV movie served as a pilot for the later series.

Fast Trip, Long Drop

A gay jewish man speaks out about living with and dying from AIDS. He also discusses how being gay has affected his identity as a jew and his relationship with his parents.

Passport to Treason

After being consulted by a friend concerning a murder case, a private eye learns the friend has become the next victim. Passport to Treason was put together by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman, the same team who’d later collaborate on the UK TV series The Saint. Rod Cameron stars as an American private eye, stationed in London. For the sake of a murdered friend, the detective takes over the dead man’s case, which turns out to have international ramifications. The villains are members of a phony pacifistic society, all of whom harbor plans for taking over the world.

Buddies

When 25 year-old gay yuppie David volunteers to be a "buddy" to an AIDS patient, the gay community center assigns him to Robert, a 32 year-old politically impassioned gay gardener abandoned by his friends and lovers. Throughout his visits to Robert's hospital room, the two men become friends.

Blue

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

Stacey

The sleazy and dangerous adventures of a gorgeous female private detective.

Alien Private Eye

An alien sent to Earth to retrieve a drug that was sent here on a black disc has to fight her race's enemies, who are also on Earth to search for the drug.

Zero Patience

The ghost of "patient zero", who allegedly first brought AIDS to North America - materialises and tries to contact old friends. Meanwhile, the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton, who drank from the Fountain of Youth and now works as Chief Taxidermist at the Toronto Natural history Museum, is trying to organise an exhibition about the disease for the museum's "Hall of Contagion".

Red Ribbon Blues

After attending his 23rd funeral for a friend with AIDS, Troy and his friends hatch a plan to steal the HIV drugs that they need. One sucessful heist leads to another and another until they have so much inventory they decide to begin their own community distribution program.

Third Degree Burn

A down-and-out private eye (Treat Williams) gets too close to the wife (Virginia Madsen) of a rich man (Richard Masur) soon found dead.

Sex Positive

Sex Positive explores the life of Richard Berkowitz, a revolutionary gay S&M hustler turned AIDS activist in the 1980s, whose incomparable contribution to the invention of safe sex has never been aptly credited. Mr. Berkowitz emerged from the epicenter of the epidemic demanding a solution to the problem before the outside world would take heed. Now destitute and alone, Mr. Berkowitz tells his story to a world who never wanted to listen.

Ballbuster

Roosevelt Prophet is a one-time big city cop turned private investigator- nickname "Ballbuster". Ballbuster must stop the nefarious Nick Plato, who's into everything from loan sharking to gambling.

Take It Out in Trade

A couple hire a detective to locate their missing daughter. He finds her in a "house of ill-repute."

Bill T. Jones: Still/Here

Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with white people, confusion over his sexuality, his partner Arnie Zane’s untimely death from AIDS, and Jones’s own HIV-positive status.

Travis McGee

Travis McGee is a world-weary private eye trying to help boat skipper friend Van Harder salvage his reputation that sank when his boat ran aground, resulting in a death that might have been faked.

Closing Numbers

Keith, Anna and their son Peter are a close, loving family living in a smart suburban street of a provincial city. Anna is a typical middle-class housewife, filling her day with good works, until one day, when she finds a note that leads to a shattering discovery - her husband has been having an affair. Anna's intense shock at finding out Keith's secret is compounded when she arranges to meet his lover. When Steve arrives at the meeting place, Anna is forced to accept the fact that Keith has been leading a double life for the length of their marriage. Steve stresses the risk of AIDS and urges Anna to have an AIDS test. To show her what it can be like to live with the disease, he introduces her to Jim, who needs 24-hour care and has developed a realistic attitude towards his own death. When Keith leaves home suddenly, Anna is forced to tell her son about the threat of HIV, but Peter turns violently against her and runs away.

Tidy Endings

Based on the play by actor/playwright Harvey Fierstein, this drama is about a man whose companion dies of AIDS. He then confronts his lover's ex-wife and the two end up building a friendship while coping with the emotional aftermath of the death.

The Private Eye

Private investigator Mort Madison's life begins spiraling downward when a beguiling, slightly familiar woman hires him for his most unusual case.

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