Best movies like Vanishing Act

A beautiful stranger is posing as Harry's wife... Someone is lying... And you'll never guess who. Is it a scam or is it murder?

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Vanishing Act Starring Mike Farrell, Margot Kidder, Elliott Gould, Fred Gwynne, and more. If you liked Vanishing Act then you may also like: Vertigo, Nightmare in the Daylight, Out of Time, Rehearsal for Murder, The Return of Count Yorga 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.

A man honeymooning with his new wife in the Rockies reports her disappearance to the police. A few days later, a woman escorted by the local priest claims to be his missing wife, despite the man's failure to recognize her. Is a stranger impersonating her or is he delusional?

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Know any good movies to watch like Vanishing Act 1986. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Vertigo

A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

Nightmare in the Daylight

A married Wisconsin teacher fears a Los Angeles lawyer who has mistaken her for his long-lost wife.

Out of Time

Matt Lee Whitlock, respected chief of police in small Banyan Key, Florida, must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion. Matt Lee has to stay a few steps ahead of his own police force and everyone he's trusted in order to find out the truth.

Rehearsal for Murder

A year after his fiancée's death, a playwright schedules a rehearsal for his new play, which proves to be a trap for her killer.

The Return of Count Yorga

Count Yorga continues to prey on the local community while living by a nearby orphanage. He also intends to take a new wife, while feeding his bevy of female vampires.

Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise

When Jesse Stone looks into the murder of a teen-age girl whose body is found floating in a local lake, it brings him up against the Boston mob and into the affluent world of a bestselling writer who exploits troubled teens.

After the Thin Man

Nick and Nora Charles investigate when Nora's cousin reports her disreputable husband is missing, and find themselves in a mystery involving the shady owners of a popular nightclub, a singer and her dark brother, the cousin's forsaken true love, and Nora's bombastic and controlling aunt.

The Amazing Mr. Williams

Kenny Williams, a lieutenant on the homicide squad, is engaged to Maxine Carroll, the Mayor's secretary. Or isn't he rather married with his job? For each time he has a date with his longtime fiancée, he is prevented from keeping it by his devotion to duty. Maxine, in desperation, decides to take action and bring Kenny to the altar. Who will win, Maxine's curves or the glorious fight against crime?

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.

The Good Mistress

A woman's one-night stand turns out to be her friend's husband, and a local political candidate.

Deadly Honeymoon

Handsome silver spoon Texan Trevor Forrest can't always control his tendencies to flirt and gamble, even on honeymoon cruise to Tahiti with Lindsey Ross Forrest, which may compromise their business ambitions. The ship captain asks FBI agent Gwen Merced, on cruise, to investigate discretely when Trevor goes missing, probably fallen or pushed overboard as blood traces are found. It's unclear whether the Hungarian business trio Luka, Max and Ben are innocent flirtatious gamblers like Trevor or criminals, but others have hidden agendas too.

A Kind of Murder

In 1960s New York, Walter Stackhouse is a rich, successful architect and unhappily married to the beautiful but damaged Clara. His desire to be free of her feeds his obsession with Kimmel, a man suspected of brutally murdering his own wife. When Walter and Kimmel's lives become dangerously intertwined, a ruthless police detective becomes convinced he has found the murderer. But as the lines blur between innocence and intent, who, in fact, is the real killer?

The Cry of the Owl

Fleeing New York City, a failed marriage and a fragile mental history, artist Robert Forrester moves to small-town Pennsylvania. There he becomes fascinated with the simple domesticity of a beautiful neighbor, watching her through the windows of her home --- until she invites him in for coffee. He is drawn into a relationship with the young woman whose boyfriend goes missing; Robert becomes a murder suspect, gradually sensing he is the target of a larger plot.

Gone Baby Gone

When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons—they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live.

Murder by Death

Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

Love from a Stranger

Ann Harding plays a lovely but somewhat naive young woman who goes on a European vacation after winning a lottery. Swept off her feet by charming Basil Rathbone, Harding finds herself married before she is fully able to grasp the situation. Slowly but surely, Rathbone's loving veneer crumbles; when he casually asks Harding to sign a document turning her entire fortune over to him, she deduces that her days are numbered.

The Disappearance

The wife of contract killer disappears. When he is hired by an international organisation to carry out a hit, he suspects they are connected with her disappearance.

Dying Room Only

A married couple are traveling on a deserted desert road at night. They stop at a diner and the husband goes to the men's room. He never returns and the wife begins to suspect serious foul play.

Elizabeth Harvest

The newly married Elizabeth arrives with her new husband, the scientist Henry, at a magnificent house. He tells her that she can do there anything she pleases, except to enter a certain closed room.

Frantic

The wife of an American doctor suddenly vanishes in Paris and, to find her, he navigates a puzzling web of language, locale, laissez-faire cops, triplicate-form filling bureaucrats and a defiant, mysterious waif who knows more than she tells.

Hangman

A homicide detective teams up with a criminal profiler to catch a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by the children's game, Hangman.

The Lady Vanishes

On the eve of World War II, zany heiress Amanda Kelly travels by train to Switzerland. While passing through Germany, she meets a sweet elderly lady, who suddenly vanishes. Distraught, she questions her fellow passengers who claim that the woman was never there. Unsure if it's all in her mind or if there's a more sinister plot afoot, Amanda teams up with photographer Robert Condon to discover the truth.

Absolution

At a Catholic boys' school, domineering disciplinarian Father Goddard rules over his pupils with an iron hand. When one of his teenage charges confesses to murder, the dogmatic but deeply repressed Goddard finds his faith challenged and his life spiralling dangerously out of control.

Dangerous Crossing

A young bride is set to begin her honeymoon aboard a luxury liner. Her happiness does not last when she finds that her husband has disappeared. Trouble is, no one else ever saw him board the ship with her and his name has mysteriously dropped from the passenger list.

The Hot Month of August

A young man, Jason, is on his way home and meets two beautiful women, Hope and Alexis. He falls for Hope, but has sex with Alexis. He doesn't know that Alexis' husband has hired a private detective to trail her, and the man reports back to Alexis' husband about her affair with Jason. The husband kills Alexis but the police suspect Jason. He and Hope have to clear his name and find enough evidence to prove the husband is the killer.

The Great Lie

After a newlywed's husband apparently dies in a plane crash, she discovers that her rival for his affections is pregnant with his child.

Honeymoon

Young newlyweds Paul and Bea travel to a remote lake cottage for their honeymoon, where the promise of private romance awaits them. Shortly after arriving, Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night.

Lackered Box

The story gets under way at a weekend house party where a scientist is murdered and his secret papers stolen. Putting his "little grey cells" in action, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot methodically pieces together the clues, revealing the culprit to be -- you guessed it -- the Least Likely Suspect.

Searching

After David Kim's 16-year-old daughter goes missing, a local investigation is opened and a detective is assigned to the case. But 37 hours later and without a single lead, David decides to search the one place no one has looked yet, where all secrets are kept today: his daughter's laptop.

Spinning Man

Evan Birch is a family man and esteemed professor at a distinguished university. When a female student goes missing, police Detective Malloy has reason to be suspicious when crucial evidence makes Evan the prime suspect in her disappearance.

Tangled

A young man is found bruised, beaten and stumbling down a secluded road. As the police try to piece together what happened, the convoluted relationship between a young woman and her two suitors gradually emerges.

Tension

Warren Quimby manages a drugstore while trying to keep his volatile wife, Claire, happy. However, when Claire leaves him for a liquor store salesman, Warren can no longer bear it. He decides to assume a new identity in order to murder his wife's lover without leaving a trace. Along the way, his plans are complicated by an attractive neighbor, as well as a shocking discovery that opens up a new world of doubts and accusations.

London by Night

A newspaperman, his canine companion, and an adventurous socialite investigate an umbrella-wielding murderer who is terrorizing a London neighborhood.

The Thirteenth Chair

Although his murdered friend was by all accounts a scoundrel, Edward Wales is determined to trap his killer by staging a seance using a famous medium. Many of the 13 seance participants had a reason and a means to kill, and one of them uses the cover of darkness to kill again. When someone close to the medium is suspected she turns detective, in the hope of uncovering the true murderer.

A Kiss to Die For

William, a Harvard psychology professor is having trouble dealing with life after the death of his wife when he meets a beautiful woman named Ali. As their relationship grows, he begins to question her secretive past, which he discovers is linked to a series of murders that the police are investigating. Tim Matheson (Animal House, The West Wing) stars.

The Vanished

A family vacation takes a terrifying turn when parents Paul and Wendy discover their young daughter has vanished without a trace. Stopping at nothing to find her, the search for the truth leads to a shocking revelation.

Murder by Natural Causes

An elaborate mystery involving a famous mentalist, his unfaithful wife who is trying to literally scare him to death, the best friend of the family, and the wife's ham-actor lover -- not only an intriguing who- (or whether) dunit, but also a literate, adult dramatic puzzle with an endless series of twists.

One of My Wives Is Missing

Vacationing in a small town, a frantic Daniel Corban shows up at the local police station, declaring that his wife has disappeared. Corban imperiously demands that the easygoing police inspector drop everything and find his missing spouse. Within a few days, a woman claiming to be his wife shows up, but Corban insists that he's never met the woman before.

6.0 / 10 1974 TV Movie Mystery
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Death Cruise

Several couples are notified that they have won an ocean cruise, but they actually have been lured onto a ship so that they can be murdered.

Honeymoon with a Stranger

While on honeymoon with her husband in Spain, a woman wakes up one morning to find he has disappeared. After reporting it to the police, a man shows up claiming to be her husband. But he's not the man she married and no one will believe her.

Fourth Story

Valerie's husband Darryl leaves for work as usual, but never returns. She hires private eye Shepard to find him. Soon he discovers that David had a second identity and obviously doesn't want to be found. But since Shepard is strongly attracted to the pretty Valerie, he investigates further and gets involved more than professionally.

Presumed Dead

A famous crime novelist's protigie disappears before the release of author's first new book in years. Is the seeming crime an elaborate publicity stunt, or was this author so desperate for material that he created his own sinister inspiration? Despite his cunning defense on trial (the trial that made his book a best seller), Detective Cooper suspects the latter. She's determined to separate fiction from reality, but the deeper she gets in the story, the more twisted the plot becomes.

Cannon

In this pilot film to the TV series, Cannon investigates the murder of a war buddy to clear the man's wife of suspicion in his death.

Broken Vows

When Father Joseph Hennessey visits the home of one of his parishioners to offer last rights,he becomes embroiled in a plot which ultimately shakes his faith to its very foundation. Intrigued by the dying man's mention of "Nim," and fascinated by the man's saintly demeanor, Father Joseph's curiosity is redoubled when a beautiful young woman enters his church to question the young priest about the deceased man. Father Joseph and the woman, whom he discovers to be the "Nim" in question, embark upon an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the man's death.

Still Life: A Three Pines Mystery

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team arrive in Three Pines to solve the unusual murder of a much-loved woman and find dark secrets shadowing this usually peaceful village.

Thirteen at Dinner

Actress Jane Wilkinson wants a divorce, but her husband, Lord Edgware, refuses. She convinces Hercule Poirot to use his famed tact and logic to make her case. Lord Edgware turns up murdered, a well-placed knife wound at the base of his neck. It will take the precise Poirot to sort out the lies from the alibis - and find the criminal before another victim dies.

Back to the Streets of San Francisco

Mike Stone's back and his old partner, Steve Keller, is missing. So Mike heads up an investigation. At the same time, he is investigating another brutal murder. And he is trying to decide which of two inspectors shall he recommend for the position of Lieutenant; a woman who has a "Dirty Harry" tendency or a man who reminds him of Steve Keller.

Past Tense

A former cop who is now a novelist notices an attractive young woman move in next door to him. He strikes up a conversation, one thing leads to another and he spends the night. She asks him to come back the next evening, but when he does he discovers that she has been killed. When he reports the murder, he is told that no such woman ever lived there, and when he gets back to the house there's a completely different woman staying there--who he's never seen before--who claims that she's lived there for years and no other woman has ever lived there

The Girl in the Empty Grave

The police chief of a small town begins an investigation after a young woman, who was supposed to have died several months previously, starts appearing around town just before her parents are found mysteriously dead.

The Devil Plays

A mystery novelist's detective skills are put to the test when he attends a party where a murder is committed.

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