Best movies like This Gun for Hire

Lover without a heart...killer without a conscience!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like This Gun for Hire Starring Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, and more. If you liked This Gun for Hire then you may also like: 48 Hrs., Waterfront, The Narrow Margin, Out of the Past, Railroaded! 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.

Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.

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48 Hrs.

A hard-nosed cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal temporarily paroled to him, in order to track down a killer.

Waterfront

A hard-living dockworker finds religion until his brother is murdered.

The Narrow Margin

A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster's widow on a tense train ride.

Out of the Past

Jeff Bailey seems to be a mundane gas station owner in remote Bridgeport, California. He is dating local girl Ann Miller and lives a quiet life. But Jeff has a secret past, and when a mysterious stranger arrives in town, Jeff is forced to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.

Railroaded!

A beautician and her crooked boyfriend attempt to rob the bookie operation located in the back room, but when the plan goes wrong, they frame an innocent man.

Raw Deal

A revenge-seeking gangster is sent to prison after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. After seducing a beautiful young woman, he uses her to help him carry out his plot for vengeance, leading him to the crazy pyromaniac who set him up.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

Ralph Cotter, a ruthless criminal, escapes violently from a farm prison. Then, he seduces a dead inmate’s sister, gets back quickly into the crime business, faces corrupt local cops who run the city’s underworld and meets a powerful tycoon’s whimsical daughter.

Kuffs

George Kuffs didn't finish high-school, just lost his job, and his college-age girlfriend is pregnant. To top it off, George's brother Brad is killed and George inherits Brad's "patrol special" privatized police district and all the problems that come with it.

Best Seller

Hit man Cleve approaches writer/cop Dennis about a story for his next book: How Cleve made a living, working for one of the most powerful politicians in the country. To get the story right, they travel around the country to gather statements and evidence, while strong forces use any means they can to keep the story untold.

The Big Combo

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.

Boiling Point

Red is an aging scam-artist who's just been released from prison together with Ronnie, a young and not-so-bright hoodlum who is easily manipulated. Their new business is to organize fake-money sales and then kill the buyer to take his money; but when Ronnie kills an undercover secret service agent, his partner Jimmy Mercer vows revenge and is given one week to catch the killers before being transferred. Written by Giancarlo Cairella

Born to Kill

Helen Brent has just received a Reno divorce. That night, she discovers her neighbor Laury Palmer and a gentleman caller murdered in Palmer's home. The killer is her neighbor's other boyfriend Sam Wilde, an insanely jealous man who won't abide anyone "cutting in" on him.

The Chase

In Denver, a fleeing bank robber kills a cop and kidnaps an old man to hold as a hostage. He is chased by the police and a news helicopter, which films the entire incident. Based on a true story.

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.

Desert Saints

Banks is a hit man, the best, usually working for Latin American drug cartels. He picks up solitary women, uses them briefly for a job, then kills them. He's in the Southwest, headed toward Mexico, when he picks up Bennie, a woman leaving an abusive marriage, going to Paradise, Arizona. The film follows three tracks: Banks's slow recruitment of Bennie, the set-up for the hit at a swank resort in Mexico, and the FBI's close pursuit of Banks, whom they want alive in hopes he'll rat out his bosses. Bennie may not be who she seems, and there may be a chink in Banks's tough-guy armor. Guns, money, and a chance at Paradise.

Pushover

A police detective falls for the bank robber's girlfriend he is supposed to be tailing.

I Walk Alone

Bootleggers on the lam Frankie and Noll split up to evade capture by the police. Frankie is caught and jailed, but Noll manages to escape and open a posh New York City nightclub. 14 years later, Frankie is released from the clink and visits Noll with the intention of collecting his half of the nightclub's profits. But Noll, who has no intention of being so equitable, uses his ex-girlfriend Kay to divert Frankie from his intended goal.

Shakedown

Jack Early is a photographer who will stop at nothing to climb his way to the very top of the success ladder. On the strength of his sheer tenacity, he gets a job with a major newspaper, and it's not long before he's made a name for himself by charming a notorious crime boss, Nick Palmer, into allowing himself to be photographed. Palmer takes him under his wing, but Early decides to bite the hand that feeds him and sets Palmer and another crime boss, Colton, against one another.

Trapped

U.S. Treasury Department agents go after a ring of counterfeiters.

Secrets of the Lone Wolf

Michael Lanyard's faithful butler Jamison is mistaken for his boss by a gang of jewel robbers.

Cry Vengeance

Ex-cop Vic Barron crossed the wrong mobsters; his wife and child were killed and he himself scarred, framed and imprisoned. On release, Vic has but one desire, revenge on still-hiding Tino Morelli.

The Man Who Wouldn't Die

A man believed to be dead and buried escapes from his grave and returns to the scene of the crime seeking revenge.

Tornado

The owner of an Illinois coal mine struggles to keep his business in operation, all the while unaware that among his employees is a saboteur planning destruction and chaos.

Private Hell 36

In New York, a bank robbery of $300,000 goes unsolved for a year, until some of the marked bills are found in a Los Angeles drugstore theft. Police detectives Cal Bruner and Jack Farnham investigate and are led from the drugstore to a nightclub, where singer Lili is another recipient of a stolen bill. With Lili's help, the partners track down the remaining money, but both Lili and Frank are dismayed when Cal decides he wants to keep part of it.

The Maltese Falcon

A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.

Miami Exposé

A police detective baits killer gamblers with a mob witness (Patricia Medina) in the Everglades.

My True Story

Ann Martin (Helen Walker) is serving time as a jewel thief. She is paroled and determined to stay clean. She quickly finds out that she was paroled by an old, vicious boss that has picked her for a job. It is dangerous for her to say yes or no.

The Port of 40 Thieves

A widow confesses she murdered her husband and kills two more people before her stepdaughter and an attorney prove her wrong.

Somewhere in the Night

George Taylor returns from WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, he tries to track down his old identity, stumbling into a 3-year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.

The Turning Point

Special prosecutor John Conroy hopes to combat organized crime in his city and appoints his cop father Matt as chief investigator. John doesn't understand why Matt is reluctant, but cynical reporter Jerry McKibbon thinks he knows: he's seen Matt with mob lieutenant Harrigan. Jerry's friendship with John is tested by the question of what to do about Matt, and by his attraction to John's girl Amanda. Meanwhile, the threatened racketeers adopt increasingly violent means of defense.

I Love Trouble

A wealthy man hires a detective to investigate his wife's mysterious past.

Decoy

A fatally shot female gangleader recounts her sordid life of crime to a police officer just before she dies.

The Long Wait

Soon after thumbing a ride from a truck driver, Johnny McBride is badly burned and suffers from complete amnesia when the vehicle he’s riding in blows a tire and goes over an embankment in a fiery blaze. McBride later receives a tip from an acquaintance that a photo of him was placed prominently in the window of a photography studio in a town called Lyncastle, so Johnny immediately leaves for the burg in the hopes that something there will jog his memory.

Strange Affair

Eminent psychiatrist Dr. Brenner invites cartoonist Bill Harrison and his wife, Jack, to a banquet honoring war refugees. Bill volunteers to pick up fellow psychiatrist Dr. Baumler at the train station, but the man vanishes when he has Bill stop so he can use a pay phone. At the dinner, Bill and Jack are seated with Brenner's daughter, Freda, and, to Bill's surprise, another man is introduced as Baumler -- who dies moments later.

Chain of Evidence

A police lieutenant fights to prove a boy's innocence after he's accused of murder. The fourth of five Ben Schwab productions that starred Bill Elliott as a detective lieutenant in the L.A. Sheriff's department.

The Devil Is Driving

Gabby Denton, a hard-drinking, down-on-his-luck drifter, seems to get a chance at redemption when his brother-in-law helps get him a job as a mechanic. Not realizing the garage he works for is actually a front for a stolen car ring, Gabby soon finds himself mixed up in both murder and a liaison with the boss's girl.

Hell's Half Acre

A woman travels to Hawaii to find out if a man in prison there is actually her missing husband.

The Invisible Wall

A former GI gets his old job back working for a bookie after returning from serving in the military. Unfortunately, he loses the $20,000 he was supposed to deliver to gambling and a con artist. His attempts to get the money back leads to bigger problems including a murder plot.

Below the Deadline

A veteran, Joe Hilton, returns from the war to find that his brother Jeffrey Hilton, a gangster, has been killed. His quest for revenge leads him to take over his brother's illegal operations but his sweetheart, Lynn Turner, persuades him to change his ways and return to the straight and narrow.

The Crooked Way

A war veteran suffering from amnesia, returns to Los Angeles from a San Francisco veterans hospital hoping to learn who he is and discovers his criminal past.

Smart Girls Don't Talk

A society woman gets involved with a gangster only to find he has hidden plans.

Bodyguard

A cop on suspension is framed for murder when he noses in on a murder investigation.

Dancing in Manhattan

In this comedy, a garbage truck driver stumbles across $5,000. He decides to use the money for a wild night on the town. He and his girlfriend do not know that the money represents the spoils of a blackmailer's scheme.

Between Midnight and Dawn

Rocky and Dan, war buddies, are prowl car cops on night duty. Dan is a cynic who views all lawbreakers as scum; Rocky feels more lenient. Both are attracted to the radio voice of communicator Kate Mallory; but in person, Kate proves reluctant to get involved with men who just might stop a bullet. By lucky chance, Rocky and Dan cause big trouble for murderous racketeer Ritchie Garris; but when he swears vengeance, Kate's fears may prove justified.

Sharpshooter

An assassin working for the CIA decides to take one final job before quitting only to find out that he is the target of his CIA boss.

The Inner Circle

A fresh-faced young detective gets set up, framed for murder, and alibied by a smart blonde.

The Fifth Commandment

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

The Price of Fear

A co-owner of a race track goes on the run after witnessing something he shouldn't have at the track.

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