Best movies like Silence the Witness

Inspector Betti (Maurizio Merli) is transferred to Naples and immediately after his arrival receives a warm welcome from The Commandante (Barry Sullivan), the city's crime lord. Betti then goes on a personal mission against corruption and organized crime, and tries to force the syndicate out of town with any means necessary.

It is a law police officials obey out of fear. A rule chilling in its simplicity. Accept corruption...or die! They have sealed an unholy alliance. The great banks of Europe. And the blackhearted underworld empire. Together, with their matchless wealth, there is no stopping their almighty, corrosive power. Even the police force's investigation into the diabolical link has been polluted by corruption and terror! When key police officials of the inquiry are viciously assassinated, only two honest men remain--a commissioner and police chief--to carry out the suicidal investigation. And they must fight a deepening mistrust of each other. For they too, know the only rule of the game. They too, have been warned!

"Poliziotti solitudine e rabbia" or "Ein Mann namens Venedig" (A Man called Venice), as it was called in Germany, is an Italian-German crime drama co-production from 1979, filmed mainly in the snowy winter of bleak West-Berlin. Italian cop Nick, played by gangster movie veteran Maurizio Merli, goes to Berlin to find the head of an International European blackmailing gang who has murdered several people. He investigates undercover as a contract killer for the gangsters, but of course becomes immediately the target of his enemies and has to fight hard to save his life...

Four bandits commit a robbery in a villa. The maid calls the police and Commissioner Carli immediately orders patrols to chase them.

Milan, Italy, 1967. Santo Russo, a boy of Calabrian origin, arrives north with his parents and younger brother to find better living conditions. Due to an absurd misunderstanding and his father's contempt, Santo ends up in prison, where he gets a “true education.” In 1978, he and his friends Slim and Mario embark on a 15-year criminal career, a successful and ruthless spiral of robberies, kidnappings, murders and heroin smuggling.

After her husband dies in a freak plane accident, a woman leaves London for Athens to collect his generous life insurance policy. She soon discovers that others besides herself are keen to get their hands on the money - and are willing to kill for it. Meanwhile, a private investigator arrives to investigate irregularities in the claim, teaming up with a beautiful reporter.

A police captain arranges the release of a criminally insane prisoner, who soon winds up dead. When the District Attorney takes on the case, he uncovers corruption in the department and vows to take down the man who's responsible.

A crackdown on drugs leads a burned out cop to take the law into his own hands and seek revenge against villainous drug dealers. Word comes down from above that the United States feels French authorities have been lax on their arrests of the dealers. A violent action feature finds the harried inspector battling his colleagues as much as the criminal element targeted for extermination.

A ruthless Interpol agent goes after the man who killed his wife in Stelvio Massi's crime thriller. A gutsy robber named Marseilles pulls off a tricky heist, but he's no match for agent Ravelli, a maverick who can't control his bloodlust. And this time, it's personal: Years earlier, the daring thief murdered the operative's wife in cold blood.

The city of Turin is in the grip of a brutal crime boss known as "the Marsellaise," and plenty of cops have good cause to want him dead — none more than Inspector Vanni, whose wife was murdered by the ruthless gangster. Having exhausted every other avenue, Vanni forms a crack squad of motorcycle-riding, Colt .38-toting elite officers, tasked with meting out justice on the margins of the law. But when the Marsellaise launches a bombing campaign designed to extort a vast ransom from the city's authorities, Vanni finds himself in a race against time to exact his revenge and avert disaster.

When the eyewitness to a brutal murder decides not to testify, the actual murderer chooses to finger him as the murderer and claim eyewitness status for himself.

An Italian police inspector matches wits with a powerful European drug ring. As he comes closer to the top of the underworld organization, his odds of survival decrease.

A detective is assigned to head a manhunt for four violent bank robbers.

Two police officers attempt to hunt down and arrest a trio of rich kids who rob, assault and kill for fun.

A number of unexplained military deaths hit Italy and are ruled to be accidental or suicides, but police inspector Giorgio Solmi suspects otherwise. When a mysterious wealthy electrician is seemingly murdered by a female escort, a sinister plot slowly begins to unravel.

In Genoa, the Commissioner Sironi has identified the leader of the ferocious racket that controls the port activities. But the law restrains his action.

On a mission in Istanbul, an interpol agent disrupts the activities of a powerful drug lord and his accomplices. To get rid of him, the gangsters blackmail a skeet shooting champion into shooting the inspector.

Pretty solid Merli/Massi collaboration. The plot is a simple one that centers on various kidnapping episodes. With each scenario, the stakes increase for Merli's character and he must race against the clock to resolve each standoff.

A biker's brother is killed while investigating the kidnapping of a young boy, the byproduct of a war between two crime families. The biker vows to get revenge by finding the kidnapped boy and destroying the two families.

The investigation of the bombing of a hotel lobby as seen through the eyes of a young detective.

During a wave of political violence in Italy, a policeman who's already survived an assassination is assigned to act as a bodyguard to a morally upright judge. He feels increasingly fearful as the links of the upper echelons of police and government to the violence become clear.

A police officer suspended and now accused of murder is forced to join forces with his court-appointed attorney to assemble the pieces of a deadly puzzle to find the missing link before time runs out.

A drug deal goes bad and the heroin is stolen. One mob boss doesn't have his drugs and the other doesn't get his money. People are going to die until they discover who double-crossed them. Into this backdrop, Inspector Dario Mauri arrives from Milan to help clean-up Naples. His mission – find the drugs and stop the killing.

Maurizio Merli takes up a familiar role as Commissioner Berni; a cop who puts his life on the line to transport a witness from Corleone to New York City in order to testify against a mob boss on trial for murder. Along the way, Berni and his prisoner face a series of traps set up by the Mafia.

After a couple of 'special squad' cops are gunned down while chasing some kidnappers, the head of the squad takes it really personally! His violent path to find the kidnappers leads him to the upper echelons of the government. Now, the powers-that-be don't want to be found out and decide it's time to kill one more cop...

Two mafia bosses, Don Antonio Marchesi and Don Peppino Scalise, battle over building contracts in Palermo.

Drugs, murders, robberies. In Turin, violence is an everyday fact of life, but a mysterious vigilante starts cleaning up the streets. In fact, the killer is a cop, Moretti, who went undercover to do the dirty work he couldn't do in cop's clothing.

In Bangkok, an assassin who turns down a job that hits too close to home finds himself targeted by the elite members of his profession

In Rome, a vagrant finds the body of a teen girl, her throat professional slashed. Police inspector Olmi uses his brutal and violent methods to follow a trail that leads him toward high government officials. When his methods leave an innocent bystander dead, the corrupt officials have an excuse to get Olmi transferred to a coastal town where the pace is slow and he has time for a romantic dalliance. Soon, Olmi discovers that fishing isn't the only local occupation, and out comes his gun and his ruthless tactics of investigation.

Pino Scalise discharged from the prison he was in for robbery, take refuge in Milan at the home of his uncle. Pino falls in love with one of the uncle's two daughters, who has become a prostitute because of Don Ciccio, head of a gang that traffics in drugs. Pino, now an informer to Police Commissioner Morani, makes plans to take the boss down.

A female cop assigned to protect a dead drug dealer's girlfriend from mob assassins takes her to a home for battered wives. When revenge is the only option, the emotionally scarred women are forced to fight back.

Alessandro Corso is a special forces carabiniere. During an operation he saves a child but cause the death of one of his comrades. He's then transferred to a peaceful little town, where he will be unexpectedly forced to help an hot witness named Antavleva, protecting her and bringing them safely to the trial.

Hit man Antonio Mancuso travels to Italy to make the big time. He meets and befriends Mafia boss Don Vincenzo. Mancurso becomes part of the organization and the more he gets to know Vincenzo the more he wants his job but Mancurso will learn that success can come at a severe cost.

When a crime boss is murdered while in hospital, a young woman sees the killers, but her room mate convinces her not to tell the police, fearing the consequences. Unfortunately the murderers realize that they have been seen, and kill both women. Catching the killers proves difficult as anyone who knows anything dies in unexplained circumstances. It becomes evident that a large and powerful criminal organization is behind the murders, and that they have links within the police force. It is up to Lt. Carmine to see that justice prevails, using any means necessary.

The city suffers and succumbs unarmed, but an ex secret agent succeeds in winning the struggle against the gangsterism. Intrigue and violence grip a society victim of the crime.