Best movies like Shanghai

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Shanghai Starring John Cusack, Gong Li, Chow Yun-fat, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and more. If you liked Shanghai then you may also like: The 39 Steps, No Way Out, Arabesque, Blood Brothers, Blue Ice 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.

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An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.

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The 39 Steps

Richard Hannay, a mining engineer on holiday from the African colonies, finds London socialite life terribly dull. Yet it's more than he bargained for when a secret agent bursts into his room and entrusts him with a coded notebook, concerning the impending start of World War I. In no time both German agents and the British law are chasing him, ruthlessly coveting the Roman numerals code, which Hannay believes he must personally crack.

No Way Out

Navy Lt. Tom Farrell meets a young woman, Susan Atwell , and they share a passionate fling. Farrell then finds out that his superior, Defense Secretary David Brice, is also romantically involved with Atwell. When the young woman turns up dead, Farrell is put in charge of the murder investigation. He begins to uncover shocking clues about the case, but when details of his encounter with Susan surface, he becomes a suspect as well.

Arabesque

When a plot against a prominent Middle Eastern politician is uncovered, David Pollock, a professor of ancient hieroglyphics at Oxford University, is recruited to help expose the scheme. Pollock must find information believed to be in hieroglyphic code and must also contend with a mysterious man called Beshraavi. Meanwhile, Beshraavi's lover, Yasmin Azir, seems willing to aid Pollock -- but is she really on his side?

Blood Brothers

Three best friends who are barely getting by as fishermen seek their fate in 1930s Shanghai. Upon arriving in the bustling city, the naïve trio gradually find their innocence corrupted as they fall into the deepest depths of the criminal underworld.

Blue Ice

An ex-British spy (Michael Caine) helps a U.S. diplomat's wife (Sean Young) and blows the lid off a deadly government cover-up.

Megachurch Murder

After popular and charismatic megachurch leader Hamilton Spears commits suicide, his teenage daughter Hannah's life goes off the rails. The only thing keeping her together is her new boyfriend, Oliver. When she finds evidence pointing to a church conspiracy and threats toward her father, she is determined to prove that Hamilton's death was murder not suicide. As she gets closer to the truth, she realizes her own mother may be involved in her father's murder...and that the boy she is falling in love with is the son of his killer.

China Moon

Detective Kyle Bodine falls for Rachel Munro who is trapped in a violent marriage. After shooting her husband, Kyle relucantly agrees to help hide the body, but Kyle's partner is showing an unusual flair for finding clues.

5.9 / 10 1996 Drama Thriller
suggested by: user489gcngnxro

City Hall

The accidental shooting of a boy in New York leads to an investigation by the Deputy Mayor, and unexpectedly far-reaching consequences.

Blacklight

Travis Block is a shadowy Government agent who specializes in removing operatives whose covers have been exposed. He then has to uncover a deadly conspiracy within his own ranks that reaches the highest echelons of power.

Shanghai Surprise

Glendon Wasey is a fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China. Gloria Tatlock is a missionary nurse seeking the curing powers of opium for her patients. Fate sets them on a hectic, exotic, and even romantic quest for stolen drugs. But they are up against every thug and smuggler in Shangai.

Deceiver

The gruesome death of a prostitute brings suspicion on one of her clients, James Wayland, a brilliant, self-destructive and epileptic heir to a textile fortune. So detectives Braxton and Kennesaw take Wayland in for questioning, thinking they can break the man. But despite his troubles, Wayland is a master of manipulation, and during the interrogation, he begins to turn the tables on the investigators, forcing them to reveal their own sinister sides.

The Tamarind Seed

During a Caribbean holiday, a British civil servant finds herself falling in love with a Russian agent.

The Chairman

An American scientist is sent to Red China to steal the formula for a newly developed agricultural enzyme. What he is not told by his bosses is that a micro-sized bomb has been planted in his brain so that should the mission ever look likely to fail, he can be eliminated at the push of a button!

Lust, Caution

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.

Gorky Park

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.

Last Embrace

Secret agent Harry Hannan suffers a mental breakdown when a botched mission in Mexico results in the death of his wife. He is sent to a mental asylum, after which he eventually returns to work. But, once again, he begins to doubt his sanity when he receives a bizarre death threat written in Hebrew. Not knowing which of his colleagues wants to kill him, Hannan teams up with pretty young college student Ellie Fabian to attempt to unravel the mystery.

Sweeney!

When one of Regan's snouts complains that his girlfriend's recent suicide was murder, the flying squad detective feels compelled to investigate. He uncovers a conspiracy that reaches the heart of the government, and finds himself fitted up, suspended and under the scrutiny of Special Branch.

The Double Man

In a complex piece of espionage the Russian secret service attempts to kidnap a high ranking officer in the CIA and replace him with a double of its own.

Enigma

The story of the WWII project to crack the code behind the Enigma machine, used by the Germans to encrypt messages sent to their submarines.

The Executioner

A British intelligence agent must track down a fellow spy suspected of being a double agent.

The Good German

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.

The Holcroft Covenant

A man who was a confidant of Adolf Hitler dies and leaves a fortune to make amends for his Nazi past—but his son has to search the world to find it.

Hollow Point

Livingston is trying to merge the Russians, Chinese and Italian gangsters into one group with huge amounts of money and power. FBI agent Susan and DEA agent Max are trying to stop them.

Flashpoint

Two Texas border guards find a jeep buried in the desert, with a skeleton, a scoped rifle, and a box with $800,000 in cash. Before they decide whether to keep the money or report it, they privately investigate the clues and unravel a decades old mystery.

Company Business

An aging agent is called back by "the Company" to run a hostage trade of a Soviet spy for an American agent.

Safe House

A psychological thriller; Mace Sowell, an ex-intelligence operative and whose past government activities catches up with him, faces his own mortality, in the shape of the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Holding the electronic key to secret information which implicates a Presidential front-runner, Mace struggles for his life while battling the debilitating effects of the disease.

Mulholland Falls

In 1950s Los Angeles, a special crime squad of the LAPD investigates the murder of a young woman.

Puppet on a Chain

Special agent Taube is on the case of a deadly heroin smuggling operation. This one is notable for an amazing power boat chase through the canals and waterways of Amsterdam

suggested by: user336swrmhh3b

True Blue

Rembrandt Macy (Tom Berenger) is a maverick cop assigned to a case where the primary evidence is a woman's hand found in a pond. Investigators identify the dead, and Macy is lead into a young woman's past. Macy's primary path to understanding the victim is through one of her roommates, Nikki. Through Nikki and others, Macy learns of the victim's shady contacts at City Hall, the involvement of a gang of Asian drug runners, and the sordid affairs of one of the city's bigwigs. As Macy begins to understand how all these crimes fit together, he learns that his new friend Nikki is not an innocent bystander.

Infernal Affairs III

While Yeung Kam Wing is trying to remove all connections between the mob and him, his actions are being carefully observed by Lau Kin Ming, who bears a personal grudge against him.

The Innocent

A young engineer is sent to post-WWII Berlin to help the Americans in spying on the Russians. In a time and place where discretion is still a man’s best friend, he falls in love with a mysterious woman who will take him on the dark side of evil.

The Message

After a series of assassinations in Nanking, a Japanese spy master gathers a group of suspects in a mansion, then a tense cat-and-mouse game erupts as the Chinese agent tries to keep his or her identity a secret.

Purple Butterfly

Ding Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.

Shanghai Triad

Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.

Shining Through

Spirited New Yorker Linda Voss goes to work for international lawyer and secret Office of Strategic Services operative Ed Leland just before World War II. As they fall in love, the United States enters the fight against Hitler, and Linda volunteers to work for Ed spying undercover behind Nazi lines. Assigned to uncover information about a German bomb, Linda also has personal motives to fulfill: discovering the fate of her Jewish family members in Berlin.

Six Minutes to Midnight

Summer 1939. Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English seaside town to learn the language and be ambassadors for a future looking National Socialist. A teacher there sees what is coming and is trying to raise the alarm. But the authorities believe he is the problem.

Suzhou River

After getting out of prison, small-time crook Mardar stumbles upon a woman who looks exactly like his long-lost lover.

Farewell, My Lovely

Private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by ex-con Moose Malloy to find his girlfriend, a former lounge dancer. While also investigating the murder of a client and the theft of a jade necklace, Marlowe becomes entangled with seductress Helen Grayle and discovers a web of dark secrets that are better left hidden.

The Amateur

A researcher for the CIA who convinces his superiors to send him to the eastern bloc in order to avenge the murder of his wife by enemy agents discovers a web of deception underneath his wife's death.

The Secret Life of Ian Fleming

The Secret Life of Ian Fleming follows the exciting life of a dashing young Ian Fleming, the mastermind behind the highly successful James Bond books and movies.

Chasing Ghosts

A serial killer targeting the city's mobsters taunts police with clues and photos left behind at the crime scenes. A veteran cop takes on a rookie partner hoping to crack one last case before retiring. As the web of deception and lies unravels, the truth slowly begins to reveal itself.

Gunshy

When the New York journalist Jake Bridges catches his girlfriend with another guy, he goes to Atlantic City to drink himself to oblivion. He is saved from a bar brawl by a small-time mobster Frankie, and Jake falls in love with Frankie's girlfriend Melissa. Jake soon also joins Frankie in his money-collecting duties.

Freefall

New York publisher Dex Dellum sends his fiancée and star photographer Katy Mazur to Swaziland to shoot the taita falcon. There she meets 'highman' (altitude stuntman) Grant Orion, who practices skydiving. After an initial clash, they become hot lovers, her first infidelity. She's drugged before he leaves unannounced. In London Grant saves her from armed killers and discloses to be an Interpol agent. Dex has an incompatible story but is killed. It's the start of a cascade of violence and charades.

Murder on the Home Front

At the height of the London blitz, Dr Lennox Collins, pioneer of the new forensic science, is enlisted by DI Wilkins after prostitute Mary Williams is strangled and a swastika carved on her tongue.

Mike's Murder

Betty has a crush on her tennis instructor Mike. He promises to call her for a date, but never does – she doesn’t know he sells drugs on the side. After botching a deal on someone else’s turf, Mike has to disappear for a while. He contacts Betty – then he’s killed before they can meet. Betty tries to find out what happened, leading her straight into a hornet's nest of vice.

On Dangerous Ground

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy (he was organizing against apartheid, and left in fear of his life) to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.

The Silent War

An espionage thriller set in the 1950s and adapted from the novel "Year Suan/Plot Against" by May Jia. Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a blind man who works for a piano tuner. He is recruited for a spy mission because of his exceptional hearing.

The Fifth Patient

John Reilly wakes up in an African Hospital with only fragments of his memory intact. An officer of the local regime, Mugambe, accuses him of being an American spy.

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