Best movies like The Big Sleep

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A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Big Sleep Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, and more. If you liked The Big Sleep then you may also like: Zero Effect, V.I. Warshawski, Roaring City, Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Sleep 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.

Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

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Know any good movies to watch like The Big Sleep 1946. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Zero Effect

Daryl Zero is a private investigator and—along with his assistant, Steve Arlo—he solves impossible crimes and puzzles. Although Daryl's a master investigator, he doesn't know what to do with himself when he's not working; he has no social skills, writes bad music and drives Steve crazy.

V.I. Warshawski

Victoria "V.I" Warshawski is a Chicago based private detective who agrees to babysit for her new boyfriend; then he is murdered. Being the detective type, she makes the murder her next case. In doing so she befriends the victim's daughter, Kat, and together they set out to crack the case.

Roaring City

A San Francisco private eye finds himself under suspicion while investigating a prizefighter's murder.

Kiss Me Deadly

One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for vengeance and in hopes that "something big" is behind it all, decides to pursue the case.

The Big Sleep

Private eye Philip Marlowe investigates a case of blackmail involving the two wild daughters of a rich general, a pornographer and a gangster.

Black Coffee

Black Coffee is a 1931 British detective film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott. Based on the 1930 play Black Coffee by Agatha Christie featuring her famous private detective Hercule Poirot, it stars Austin Trevor as Poirot with Richard Cooper playing his companion Captain Hastings. A famous but hated scientist, Sir Amory, is killed during a house party, and some of his valuable papers are missing. Poirot rapidly determines the cause of death and the motive, then narrows down the suspects to the most likely culprit.

Blackmail

A private detective is offered a job protecting a rich business man from suspected blackmail. Before he can accept the case a murder is uncovered.

The Maltese Falcon

A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.

Find the Blackmailer

A private eye is hired by a mayoral candidate to prevent any sort of adverse publicity. It seems that, somewhere in town, there's a talking blackbird who insists upon saying that the candidate will commit a murder. When the killing occurs, the candidate is implicated, and the detective is off on a hectic pursuit of the incriminating crow and the actual murderer.

Crooked House

A private investigator helps a former flame solve the murder of her wealthy grandfather, who lived in a sprawling estate surrounded by his idiosyncratic family.

Marlowe

Private detective Philip Marlowe becomes embroiled in an investigation involving a wealthy Californian family after a beautiful blonde hires him to track down her former lover.

To Have and Have Not

A Martinique charter boat skipper gets mixed up with the underground French resistance operatives during WWII.

The Long Goodbye

In 1970s Hollywood, Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

Devil in a Blue Dress

In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city's black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.

Murder, My Sweet

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

Lady in the Lake

Private eye Phillip Marlowe wants to get out of the detective racket and into crime writing. But when he's called to the office of editor Adrienne Fromsett, it's not to talk about his story ideas — she wants him to locate the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby. The assignment quickly becomes complicated when bodies start turning up.

Harper

Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.

The Man with Bogart's Face

In this send-up of the Humphrey Bogart detective films of the 1940s, a man idolizes Bogart so much that he has his features altered to look exactly like him and then opens up a detective agency under the name Sam Marlow.

Holiday

Johnny Case, a freethinking financier, has finally found the girl of his dreams — Julia Seton, the spoiled daughter of a socially prominent millionaire — and she's agreed to marry him. But when Johnny plans a holiday for the two to enjoy life while they are still young, his fiancée has other plans & that is for Johnny to work in her father's bank!

Marlowe

Mysterious Orfamay Quest hires Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe to find her missing brother. Though the job seems simple enough, it leads Marlowe into the underbelly of the city, turning up leads who are murdered with ice picks, exotic dancers, blackmailed television stars and self-preserving gangsters. Soon, Marlowe's life is on the line right along with his case.

Tony Rome

Tony Rome, a tough Miami PI living on a houseboat, is hired by a local millionaire to find jewelry stolen from his daughter, and in the process has several encounters with local hoods as well as the Miami Beach PD.

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.

Assignment to Kill

A private eye is hired by an insurance company to investigate a shipping magnate suspected of deliberately sinking his own ships for the insurance money. He finds himself involved in a web of deception, double-crossing and murder.

Tick Tock

Stunning trophy wife Rachel Avery is stuck in a cold, loveless marriage with her millionaire husband, Holden. So when Holden goes away on a trip, Rachel hooks up with her close friend Carla, and the two hatch a plan to murder Holden and collect on his vast assets. But the girls don't want to commit the crime themselves, so at a bar they seduce a stranger, Travis Brewer, and convince him to do their bidding.

Cry Murder

A young actress has retired from films to marry the son of a prominent and rich politician in New York City. The father objects strongly to the marriage. The actress is being blackmailed by a second-rate artist who has stolen some letters from her that could be misconstrued. During the payoff, she is knocked unconscious, and awakens to find herself involved in a murder and the police have her marked as the number-one suspect.

The Brasher Doubloon

Mrs. Elizabeth Bright Murdock hires Marlowe to find an old rare coin, the Brasher Doubloon, that belonged in her deceased husband's collection. Marlowe begins investigating, but quickly finds himself entangled in a series of unexplained murders.

Pier 23

Pier 23 was one of three hour-long mysteries produced by Lippert Productions for both TV and theatrical release. Each of the three films was evenly divided into two half-hour "episodes," and each starred Hugh Beaumont as San Francisco-based amateur sleuth Dennis O'Brien. In Pier 23, O'Brien first tackles the case of a wrestler who has died of a suspicious heart attack after refusing to lose a match. He then agrees to help a priest talk an escaped criminal into returning to prison. The film's two-part structure leads to repetition and predictability, but it's fun to watch TV's "Ward Cleaver" making like Philip Marlowe.

Where's Marlowe?

After making a disastrous 3-hour documentary on New York City's water supply, two young filmmakers focus on the goings-on of life in the LA offices of Boone and Murphy, private investigators. Cheating husbands and missing dogs fail to bring in the big bucks, however, and after sleeping with the wife of one of their clients Murphy leaves. To stop Boone from having to close down the business, the filmmakers must resort to a more hands-on approach in the investigations to ensure the completion of their movie.

The Adventures of Nick Carter

Detective discovers that a colleague's death is tied into the disappearance of a wealthy playboy's wife.

The Late Show

Over-the-hill gumshoe in Los Angeles seeks to avenge the killing of an old pal, another detective who had gotten himself involved in a case concerning a murdered broad, stolen stamps, a nickel-plated handgun, a cheating dolly, and a kidnapped pussycat.

The Rockford Files: I Still Love L.A.

Detective Jim Rockford works to uncover facts of the death of a wealthy socialite whose two grown children are accused of murdering her. Complicating matters are Rockford's omnipresent "friend" Angel, and Rockford's ex-wife Kit, a lawyer who represents the children.

Take It Out in Trade

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

Girl on the Run

A Hollywood private eye (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) seeks a singer being stalked by a hired killer.

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