Best movies like The Silk Worm

Penniless Lord Whitebait's plan to save his sinking fortunes is to open stately Whitebait Manor to the public. But the public ignores his gesture, and his fortunes fade even further, with a stream of debts threatening to run into a deluge when his daughter's fiancé demands a plush and costly wedding. Where is the cash to come from? Whitebait and his servant Spankforth's answer is a scam involving the theft of a valuable painting from the Manor. How could such a cunningly original ruse fail?

Two young sexually free hippies, Dick and Ingrid, finance their travels by selling naked snaps of Ingrid until their plan is brought to an abrupt end by the Police. Forced on the run the two seek refuge at a seemingly empty isolated large villa. As it turns out the house is inhabited by the middle-aged Barbara who invites them in for some potential three-way hanky-panky that soon locks them into something far more twisted and chilling!

Francesca, an incredibly beautiful woman, after the death of her husband discovers his unfaithfulness and huge amount of debts he left. Cesare is Francesca's best friend, he is a solicitor. Following his advice Francesca starts selling all her goods, like the house, jewels, furs and finally also the yacht. By doing this she is able to survive for the rest of the year, but has no prospects for the future and every attempt to get a job fails. Finally she makes a decision to set up a lottery in which the prize is her.

Van Hekken, an old gangster, arrives in Tokyo to direct a bank hold-up in order to get a very valuable diamond.

In the 1920s, enterprising Louise Randall is determined to succeed in a man's world. Despite numerous setbacks, she always picks herself back up and moves forward again.

Maggie is an uptight, single mother and college writing teacher from New York City. In an effort to reconnect with her troubled teen daughter Summer, she decides to embark on a journey to a Tuscan village where she frequented in her younger days. Upon arrival, Maggie runs into Luca a handsome former lover who is still a bachelor and lives with his eighty-year-old mother Carmen. Summer (missing her “bad boy” boyfriend in NYC) and Carmen (secretly planning a wedding against Luca’s wishes to MARCELINO, her one true love in Rome) impulsively steal Luca’s car and race off to Rome. Maggie and Luca quickly pursue allowing the two mismatched couples to spend some time together and develop a new understanding of each other.

Bruno, an up and coming film composer, has been hired to write the score to a new horror movie. The film’s director, Sandra, suggests that he move into a spooky and secluded villa, so as to get extra creative inspiration. However, life begins to imitate art as a vicious killer starts bumping off anyone and everyone who happens to pay Bruno a visit. As each death leaves more clues, while opening up more possibilities as to potential suspects, Bruno begins to believe that the film he’s been hired to work on may itself be the key to unlocking the mystery...

Five years after her son was killed, Tess Ford is ready to live again. But a one-night romance with a handsome soldier throws her life back into chaos as the young man's attraction turns out to be a frightening obsession.

With her husband Jack perpetually away at work, Margaret Hall raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop?

Francesca, a seventeen-year-old Roman, is finally sure she has found love. Almost sure. She spends the day observing other lovers' behaviors and considering whether she is ready to jump. Her age notwithstanding, this movie is more about coming of age than about improper or illegal romantic relationships.

Kleptomaniac Dorothy Lyons is paroled from prison into the custody of her sister June, secretary to "reform" politician Frank Jansen. Ben Grace, associate of crime boss Sol "Solly" Caspar, sees this as a way to smear Jansen's campaign. Seductive Dorothy will do anything to get what she wants, which includes having a good time with Ben-- whom June is now in love with.

Middle-aged businessman, Simon Léotard finds his future in jeopardy when his partner Julien commits suicide after having accumulated a mass of debts. Simon's unscrupulous business rival Lépidon offers to save him from bankruptcy by buying his company, at a discount rate. Reluctant to fall into Lépidon's trap, Simon decides to resolve the crisis himself. A prostitute, Mado, provides him with the solution to his problems...

Merle Kramer works as a stenographer for a psychiatrist. She is casually dating Karl Benson, a private eye and former cop. Merle mentions in passing that one of her boss's patients is an author with recurring dreams of murdering his wife, and she includes the fact that the wife owns valuable jewels. When the wife is found murdered in a manner identical to that of her husband's dream, the husband is naturally the prime suspect. But as the investigation of the police and insurance investigator Joe Cooper proceeds, it turns out that several people in the case, including Merle, are not what they seem.

In the seaside town of Boulogne, no one seems to be able to cope with their past, least of all Hélène, an antique furniture saleswoman, her stepson Bernard, and her former lover Alphonse.

In this crime melodrama, a Swiss woman finds herself unwittingly involved in a plot to steal from her employer, a London diamond merchant. Her boyfriend is behind the scheme. First he sends two accomplices disguised as German jewelers to see the boss. He is not fooled by their ruse and is killed while the woman is knocked unconscious. She awakens with amnesia and begins aimlessly wandering the London streets. Thinking that his girl has squealed to the police, her boy friend begins scouring the town to find her. Meanwhile, she is taken in by a boxer who returns to the ring to win the money needed to get her out of the country. Trouble ensues when her lover finally finds her after the match and begins beating on the exhausted fighter.

Two seemingly separate stories in New South Wales: a burned, murdered body of a young woman is found on the beach, and a retired inspector makes inquiries; also, Linda, a waitress and ferry attendant, has several lovers and marries one, but continues seeing the others. The police have a suspect in the murder, but the retired inspector is convinced they're wrong; he continues a methodical investigation. Linda and her husband separate, and there are complications. Will the stories cross or are they already twisted together?

Italy, 1977. Professor Bruschi is a retired widower who lives according to a strict routine he set for himself. An ardent old-style communist, he has always been at odds with the unconventional lifestyle led by his son and his hippieish girlfriend Stella. When their four-year-old daughter is left in his care out of the blue after the two break up, the old professor becomes a sort of father figure to the girl, growing fond of her. However he's once again challenged when Stella also arrives for a stay in his elegant villa, reclaiming custody of her daughter.

Free-lance undercover agent Coplan receives a phone call from an old girlfriend in Turkey. The panic-stricken woman gives sketchy details of a plot that threatens world security. When Coplan arrives, he is told the woman has been killed, and the trail of the murderer leads to her mad-scientist brother.

thriller by max fischer

Four notorious bank robbers meet up in an isolated castle to divide a large number of diamonds hidden there by their former, deceased boss whose Italian wife is hosting a party.

Alain Revent, a seductive and refined man, derives a peculiar satisfaction from debasing his wives. The first, driven to the brink of despair, throws herself out of a window. Enlisting the help of an equally perverse casual acquaintance, Dino, the "handsome brute" proceeds to emotionally torture his second wife, Nathalie. The sadistic plan is picked up on by Officer Leroy who suspects the truth. Will he be able to snatch the unfortunate woman from the evil Alain's clutches?

After her prostitute mother and her john are beaten to death while they are asleep in bed, teen-aged Ellie Masters is sent to an isolated orphanage run by a mysterious woman and her handyman, both whom she comes to suspect are hiding dark secrets.

A government pilot (George Brent) falls for a woman (Isa Miranda) helping her partner (John Loder) smuggle diamonds out of South Africa.

An international crime syndicate absconds with over $5 million in precious jewels. Police are baffled. The insurance companies are outraged. When dashing Tony Driscoll-private investigator-is called in, the robbery investigation quickly becomes a murder case. And Driscoll is suspect #1. Dodging cops as well as criminals, Driscoll steps into a subterranean world. A world of beautiful women, exotic ports and sleek fast cars. Where hunter becomes hunted-and romance is heartbeats away from death.

During a reception in a villa, wealthy banker Calandri is killed in the park with a gunshot. The gamekeeper Barra is immediately arrested, but he declares himself innocent. During the trial it turns out that the defendant had threatened the victim, guilty of courting his sister-in-law. But the deposition of a journalist present at the party soon leads to discover the existence of a dense network of equivocal relations between the victim, the guests and the servants. This judicial setting drama is allegedly the second Italian sound film after "The Song of Love", made using the RCA Photophone recording technique, and is also considered to be the first Italian detective film, a precursor to the later genre of Giallo films.

After being fired from his job on the Evening Star newspaper, cub reporter Jack Darwin (William Fairbanks) , with the help of an undercover police woman, Ethel Bennett (Eva Novak), prevents the theft of the valuable Riko jewels. Jack gets his job back...and marries Ethel.

In an effort to avoid paying off a massive gambling debt to a notorious mobster in England, a couple flees to Los Angeles and hatch a jewel theft plot.

Saint Tropez. Julie Wormser and her lover, writer and neighbour Jeff Marle, plan the murder of her wealthy husband Louis, an alcoholic impotent. She hits him, and leaves the rest of the task to Jeff. Julie finds herself alone the following day, and becomes therefore the prime suspect. Where is Louis' body? Where is Jeff? Is there any secret beyond a door?

Raymond Dabney returns to his family after trouble with the law. He convinces the sheriff to give him a job watching the house and furniture of widow Crystal Wetherby without knowing she is engaged to his brother.

After a phone call has been intercepted (an industrialist is going to receive a huge amount of money from a foreign bank), Mafioso Luca Albanese is assigned to set up a big robbery. He and his gang (three men and three women) then hide-out in a remote mountainous region, but soon at each other's throats. Moreover, someone is killing Albanese's men one by one, leaving white paint on the victim's faces...

After winning 50 million dollars in the lottery, Matt Walker thought that he'd found the perfect woman one evening when he met Karen Bristol...she was smart, gorgeous and wanted him for his body...only trouble was that's all she wanted from him. Upon waking the next morning Matt discovers that his mind has some how be transferred into Karen's body...and that the being now in his body explains that he has lived throughout the centuries moving from body to body whenever the mood strikes him. Now, forced out onto the street, the new 'Karen' discovers that she is penniless and wanted by the police. In desperation she turns to her lecherous best friend Brian and ex girl friend Lisa, but unless he can find a way back to his own body, Matt will have to live the rest of his life as a true victim of Identity Theft.

A jewel thief crosses paths with a woman carrying a briefcase that the Americans, the Russians and the Chinese all want desperately, so he goes on the run with her figuring that what's inside the case has to be way more valuable than anything he could steal on his own.

In a plot similar to, but predating, the later Superman stories, a young girl, Jenny, is involved in several dangerous adventures as a result of her possession of a valuable jewel. Each time she is saved by her normally shy, unassuming boyfriend, Audreses, who comes to her rescue disguised as a bare-chested wrestler wearing a mask.

A flirt tries to make her fiancée jealous by hiring a gigolo.

A comedy of errors in which the sweetly incompetent Dr. Pietro Vignali (de Sica) has been run deep into debt by his girlfriend, Loletta Prima (Magnani). After his creditors threaten to sell his belongings, he takes a job as an orphanage health inspector to pay his debts and ends up engaged to wealthy Lilli, daughter of a mattress tycoon, and chased after by the orphan Teresa Venerdí, while trying to keep his life in order.

Donatella is a simple and honest roman girl, daughter of a bookbinder and girlfriend of Guido, a gas station owner. One day she finds a woman's handbag containing valuables and documents, and decides to return it to her owner, a wealthy American lady, who offers Donatella a job as a secretary as a reward: she has to manage the lady's villa during her absences. There, Donatella casually meets Maurizio, a rich, elegant and well-educated young man, and ends up falling in love.

In the long days of summer in a beach town on the New Jersey shore, high schooler Alan and his friends Red and Smitty break into vacation homes to steal valuables, funding dates at the boardwalk and lunches at the burger stand. When Alan and his younger brother Peter find a bag of gold coins, they try to hide them from the others — but Red, suspicious and violently unpredictable, seems willing to do anything to get the money.

Threatened by creditors, a newly unemployed man agrees to work for a debt collector, but soon discovers his deal with the devil has unexpected costs.

Santoro family lives in an elegant country villa the whose ancestor is the old Theodora. One day her son has an accident and is paralyzed; Eleanor, his wife throws herself into the arms of a lover, but the mother-in-law does everything possible to replace it with another of her choice.

In order to keep his lover, Maria Draga, in luxury, Captain Alex Pastitsch contracts huge debts which threaten his military career. To save Alex's career, his superior officer, Colonel Strádimirovitsch has an idea of how to fix it.

Singer Joan Whitney, called the "Sweetheart of the Navy" by sailors, is struggling to re-open the Snug Harbor Cafe. After her partner, Richard, skips town with the money owed to their creditors, the club opens unceremoniously. Two of Joan's sailor friends, Andy and Pete, offer to help her raise money for the club by staging a fight with Bumper Martin, boxing champion of the fleet. At Andy's request, straight-laced yeoman Eddie Harris replaces him in the upcoming fight. Andy and Pete then intimidate or coerce the sailors into betting on the fight, promising to give Joan the profits. Navy Commander Lodge, who is grooming Eddie for the Naval Academy at Annapolis, is against the fight, however, and Joan decides to "vamp" Eddie to make him fight.

Jill is a stunning brunette with a secret - she is a convicted jewel thief. Sultry Jill is a convicted jewel thief, but her handsome and wealthy lover Ben has no idea about her kleptomaniacal proclivities. When his neighbors' jewels begin to go missing, though, it's only a matter of time before this sexy burglar's cat is let out of the bag!

A speed-boat racer suffers amnesia after an boating accident and goes to his isolated villa to recuperate. His relationship with his wife is troubled, so he starts an affair (sort of) with the another woman, which results in one of the three of them being shot. But there are several more twists--and more murders--to come.

A couple invites some friends to spend a weekend together in an isolated cabin surrounded by woods and fields. But... there's a killer lurking around.... And... someone is monitoring him.

Italy, the early 19th century. A villa is the home of a small English community, all rich and superficial people lounging about in its beautiful surroundings. Claire, George's wife, and Robert, her son, are murdered by a mysterious killer. Thinking the murderer is one of the family, distraught George devises a plan to unmask the culprit. Having met a woman, Ann, who is a dead ringer for Claire, he takes her back to the villa and announces their imminent marriage. Ann is considered an outsider and treated with contempt and hostility, while George fails to find any significant clue to the solution: everybody is to be blamed, at least morally, but the final revelation is more bitter than expected...

On her way home, a fashion model, Gloria, saw a man fought against a woman and killed her in a strangely noisy room in the old villa where a German Countess named Greta Stella used to live. But when the police Commissioner, who is crazy about fishing, and his dull assistant go to the problematic villa in the next morning, the villa is perceived to have been empty for twenty years and there seems to be nothing criminal left. And then Gloria asks help from a playboy-typed psychiatrist, Gianmarco Contini, who is one of the eight joint-owners of the problematic villa...

In an isolated villa, Davide Lugani lives with his wife, Carlo, his brother, and their secretary Paolo. Wheelchair-bound Carlo is blind and mute, but his abnormal sensitivity allows him to predict events before they happen. Davide dies of a suspected heart attack and Carlo's nurse is shot dead. The police suspect Davide's widow as well as Paolo, who seems to be her lover. Just as the pair are about to be arrested, there is a twist...

Francis, a forty year old engineer, after a mysterious disgrace he retired to live in a village on Lake Iseo. With still little daughter occupies the former family villa, a magnificent Art Nouveau building on the lake shore. In the big house there is, however, another mysterious person, of which only perceives the echo of the respirator that keeps her alive. But other presences no less disturbing, and certainly more dangerous, they move around the villa. What happened to the man and his family? What secrets hide? Marta will know, childhood friend always in love with him, awaken Francis from the torpor in which he has fallen, and free him from the pain? And most importantly, how many succeed they gravitate around the house to escape the danger that threatens their lives? Breaths tells how the pain can profoundly transform a man crushed by memories, guilt, fears. He also wants to show the extent to which an individual is able to accept the existence paths without being a victim.

An unworthy nephew, with the help of a girl who seduces the young guardian, robs the aunt of the family jewels. He also manages to put the blame for the theft on the caretaker, engaged to a young woman who is actually the woman's natural daughter. The thief also tries to blackmail his aunt by threatening to reveal the truth after so many years, but a commissioner manages to prove the innocence of the suspect and the guilt of his nephew.

The merchant Giovanni Illes is tracked down by the debtors, but cannot pay his debts. To save her father from bankruptcy, Anna talks to the lawyer, trying to earn an extension. The lawyer grants it to him, but he gets too close, even physically. She wants to defend herself, but his power dominates the impotence of the woman.