Best movies like Vares: Garter Snake

A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.

On the trail of a woman, Vares finds himself caught up with underworld characters who are on the trail of hidden millions.

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.

Sunny is married to the butcher, Ernie, and their marriage is about to end as both of them have affairs. Thus Sunny hires Lester Atlas as private investigator in order to collect proof for the divorce. One evening drunken Ernie and his partner Dave have a fight in the butcher shop with Ernie getting knocked out in the fridge where he dies during the night. But it was not Dave's fault but intentional murder by Sunny. Only Lester has proof so Sunny kills him, too. Thus she only has to kill Dave to get rid of all witnesses, but he can free himself out of the fridge and wants to take revenge.

Buster agrees to pose as a murderer to throw off the police while his room mate, a reporter, searches for the real killer.

A young college student is found stabbed to death,and private detective Vares life takes an interesting turn when the girls family asks him to investigate the case.

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

After his young son dies from the negligence at a hospital, Harry Fertig takes matters into his own hands and kills the doctors responsible. Slick lawyer Roy Bleakie, looking only to win a case and not caring of the matters involved, is assigned Fertig's case. Shocked to hear that his client wants to plead guilty, the case causes Bleakie to question his own morals by defending an honorable man.

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey. The Turkish courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".

An escaped convict gets a hold of some radioactive material after his escape. Authorities desperately try to find the man that unknowingly is threating the lives of everyone in the city.

Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?

A lawyer conducts business from the back of his Lincoln town car while representing a high-profile client in Beverly Hills.

Ned Ravine is a police officer and lawyer who occasionally defends the delinquents he arrests. He crosses paths with seductive Lola Cain during an assignment and promptly begins an affair with her. Meanwhile, Ned's wife, Lana, is deep in an affair of her own. Lana and her lover are planning to murder Ned in an elaborate fashion so they can collect on his triple indemnity life insurance policy.

Imprisoned Harry Lomart is a vicious, brute of a man and yet he is prepared to do his long jail term as he is confident that on his release his beautiful wife Pat will be waiting for him, but a visit from Pat brings him his worst nightmare.

A secretary (Gloria Stuart) solves a murder for her boyfriend (Michael Whalen) in the district attorney's office.

The amazing true story of Billy Moore, an English boxer incarcerated in Thailand’s most notorious prison. Thrown into a world of drugs and violence, he finds his best chance to escape is to fight his way out in prison Muay Thai tournaments.

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.

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.

The body of a young woman whose heart has been ripped out of her chest is found in a remote are in Finland. The finder of the body, a dismissed pastor, hires private investigator Jussi Vares to investigate the crime. Vares uncovers a criminal ring involved in extortion, religious scams, exploitation of minors and stock market speculation.

Lasse Pöysti plays a young reporter named Esko Pekuri who thinks he's got a front-page story. But every article he writes goes in press as minor news. He gets a fantastic idea to impersonate a gangster and write an article about prison life.

Shannon Tweed stars as the divorced defense attorney who gets caught in a passionate love affair with an accused murderer.

Neo-Nazi falls in love with a woman who has a black son and finds himself fighting with conflicting feelings.

The tango king Harry Koivikko was found dead six years ago in a sleazebag motel, with a knife is his back. The biggest manhunt in the county faded away without results. Jussi Vares gets a phone call from a down-and-out journalist; the informant tells Vares he knows the murderer. Then the journalist disappears without a trace and Vares has to face the biggest challenge of his career. To add insult to the injury, an old acquaintance Veikko Hopea gets his first prison furlough…

Tough Finnish detective Jussi Vares gets hired by a friend at a newspaper to investigate a 15 year old mystery regarding the disappearance of 3 girls.

Jamie is a makeup artist for a local bikini contest on the beautiful South Beach of Miami. Her life appears to be falling apart when her boyfriend leaves her in a jealous rage. Her wild and gorgeous friends, Dev and Bink, convince her to be a contestant in the contest while her ex-boyfriend's bumbling private detective hilariously tries to track her. In a transformation of innocence to high-profile model, Jamie heats up Miami at South Beach.

A woman finds herself unwillingly mixed up in a series of murders. At the behest of the district attorney, private detective Duncan MacLain (Kent Taylor) investigates the probability of corruption in high government circles.

By a daring ruse and inside help, Pete Rennick, a noted criminal behind bars on federal charges, escapes from the prison, and all of the law-agencies and local police are out to catch him with roadblocks and every car searched, but the escapee gets away. Bill Hasford, a private detective, investigating a racket finds it leads to the wanted man, and has the biggest adventure of his career.

Private eye Mike Hammer tries to clear his friend, Captain Chambers, who has been framed for cocaine possession.

Jimmie Rainwood was minding his own business when two corrupt police officers (getting an address wrong) burst into his house, expecting to find a major drug dealer. Rainwood is shot, and the officers frame him as a drug dealer. Rainwood is convicted of drug dealing, based on the perjured evidence of a police informant. Thrown into a seedy jail, fighting to prove his innocence is diffucult when he has to deal with the realities of prison life, where everyone claims they were framed.

Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson is forced to remember the very similar disappearance of Clare Kemplay, who was found dead in 1974, and the subsequent imprisonment of local boy Michael Myshkin. Washed-up local solicitor John Piggott becomes convinced of Myshkin's innocence and begins to fight on his behalf, unwittingly providing a catalyst for Jobson to start to right some wrongs.

The Continental Baths, a favorite hangout of New York homosexuals, provides the background of this socially conscious comedy drama that tries to examine the relationships between gay and heterosexual people. The story centers around a macho, heterosexual piano player who gets a job at the notorious nightclub and must therefore reconsider his attitudes. His girl friend helps him too. In the end, he winds up becoming sure of his sexuality when he tries to sleep with a gay man.

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

Jussi Vares falls in love with a beautiful brunette - only to lose her in a horrible way. After dating Sole a few weeks, her body is found in a bird-watching tower. The investigations come to a standstill, until Vares promises to solve a mystery of messy denunciation letters. Before the letters reveal their secret, a lot of things happen. A gun-for-hire, Stahanov, gets an assignment. Sole's brother finds his wife in the arms of a wrong man and goes on a rampage, accompanied by a black cat. In the end the clues lead to a familiar person and more death in unavoidable