Best movies like You Only Live Once

A terrifying drama of love and murder!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like You Only Live Once Starring Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon, and more. If you liked You Only Live Once then you may also like: Yield to the Night, The Verdict, West of Memphis, White Heat, Wild at Heart 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.

Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.

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Yield to the Night

Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.

The Verdict

After an innocent man is executed in a case he was responsible for, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.

West of Memphis

The documentary tells the hitherto unknown story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light. Told and made by those who lived it, the filmmakers' unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense, allows the film to show the investigation, research and appeals process in a way that has never been seen before; revealing shocking and disturbing new information about a case that still haunts the Unitedstatian South.

White Heat

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.

Wild at Heart

After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune. Lula's mother, Marietta, desperate to keep them apart, hires a hitman to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru, an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.

Raising Arizona

When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.

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.

Bonnie and Clyde

In the 1930s, bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.

Boomerang!

In a quiet Connecticut town, a kindly priest is murdered while waiting at a street corner. The citizens are horrified and demand action from the police. All of the witnesses identify John Waldron, a nervous out-of-towner, as the killer. Although Waldron vehemently denies the crime, no one will believe him. District Attorney Henry Harvey is then put on the case and faces political opposition in his attempt to prove Waldron's innocence. Based on a true story.

Seems Like Old Times

Writer Nick Gardenia is kidnapped from his California cliffhouse and forced to rob a bank. Now a fugitive, he seeks help from his ex-wife who is now a public defender and has remarried — to a prosecutor.

Papillon

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

The Fugitive

Wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death, Richard Kimble escapes from the law in an attempt to find the real killer and clear his name.

The Getaway

A recently released ex-convict and his loyal wife go on the run after a heist goes wrong.

A Perfect World

A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.

Guncrazy

California teen Anita Minteer struggles in the face of an absentee mother, her mom's abusive boyfriend, Rooney, and a lack of respect from her classmates. This all changes when a pen-pal school project connects her with convict Howard. Anita secures Howard's parole and violently squares off against Rooney after he rapes her. Soon enough, the gun-crazy teen is on the run with Howard, with his parole officer in pursuit.

Crown Heights

When Colin Warner was wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend Carl King devoted his life to proving his innocence.

South of 8

An ex-con trying to find work in a new Depression is lured back to a life of crime, but his gang passes the point of no return once they become fugitives.

Dark Passage

A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try and prove his innocence.

The First Degree

Sam Bass receives a summons to testify before a grand jury, and not realizing that the matter concerns sheep-stealing he assumes it to concern the murder of his brother, Will.

I'm Your Woman

A woman is forced to go on the run after her husband betrays his partners, sending her and her baby on a dangerous journey.

They Live by Night

An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.

The Escapist

Denis Hopkins, a pilot, lives with his pregnant wife Valerie and has a comfortable lifestyle. When a gang of criminals led by the sadistic Ricky Barnes breaks into his home, he offers whatever the criminals want to protect his wife and unborn child, but the evil Ricky kills Valerie anyway. Their baby is saved, and later Barnes is arrested and sentenced to life in the maximum security prison, Sullen Voe. Denis fakes his own suicide, then assaults a police car in order to get himself arrested and sent to prison with the intention of tracking down and killing Ricky Barnes. He does not reveal his true name and is called John "What" by the prisoners and guards. Denis escapes from successive prisons, forcing his eventual transfer to Sullen Voe. When he reaches his objective, Ricky Barnes schedules a confrontation, but things do not quite turn out the way Denis had expected.

The Next Three Days

A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of murdering her boss. Her husband John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. When the strain of being separated from her husband and son gets to her, John decides to find a way to break her out.

The Sugarland Express

Married small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and resolve to do whatever it takes to get him back. Lou-Jean gets Clovis out of jail, and the two steal their son from his foster home, in addition to taking a highway patrolman hostage. As a massive dragnet starts to pursue them across Texas, the couple become unlikely folk heroes and even start to bond with the captive policeman.

Son of a Gun

Locked up for a minor crime, 19 year old JR quickly learns the harsh realities of prison life. Protection, if you can get it, is paramount. JR soon finds himself under the watchful eye of Australia's most notorious criminal, Brendan Lynch, but protection comes at a price.

High Sierra

Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.

Gun Crazy

Bart Tare is an ex-Army man who has a lifelong fixation with guns, he meets a kindred spirit in sharpshooter Annie Starr and goes to work at a carnival. After upsetting the carnival owner who lusts after Starr, they both get fired. Soon, on Starr's behest, they embark on a crime spree for cash.

Father Hood

Deadbeat dad kidnaps his kids from the bus to an abusive foster home and they go on a run. The cops are after them, they bicker constantly and his idea of a way out is grim, yet this dangerous ride might just turn them into a family.

Eddie Macon's Run

Eddie Macon is running from a nightmare... running to a dream... running for his life and his time is running out. He's escaped a Texas prison for the second time (risking life imprisonment if caught) to make it back to his wife and son. Relentlessly pursued by ruthless truant officer, Carl Marzack, who feels he must prove he can still 'get his man' by returning Macon to jail at any cost.

Murder on a Sunday Morning

2001 French documentary about the murder trial of a 15 year old black teen accused of murder in Jacksonville, Florida. Winner of 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.

The Invisible Man Returns

The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.

Supremacy

The story centers on paroled white supremacist who has just killed a cop, and takes a black family hostage. Within hours of being released from 14 years of solitary confinement in maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, Garrett Tully is on the run again. When he finds a house off a dirt road and takes a family hostage, he thinks the Aryan Brotherhood has his back–and his kidnap victims are black. The family’s patriarch, Mr. Walker, is a jaded ex-con who hates cops so much he disavowed his own son for becoming one. Seeing a familiar desperation in Tully, Walker refuses to call the authorities for help, causing familial tensions to escalate, and soon grave missteps are made.

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here

While confronting the disapproving father of his girlfriend Lola, Native American man Willie Boy kills the man in self-defense, triggering a massive manhunt, led by Deputy Sheriff Christopher Cooper.

Thieves Like Us

Bowie, a youthful convicted murderer, and bank robbers Chicamaw and T-Dub escape from a Mississippi chain gang in the 1930s. They hole up with a gas station attendant and continue robbing banks. Bowie, who is injured in an auto accident, takes refuge with the daughter of the gas station attendant, Keechie. They become romantically involved but their relationship is strained by Bowie's refusal to turn his back on crime. The film is based on the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson. The novel is also the source material for the 1949 film They Live by Night, directed by Nicholas Ray.

Decoy

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

The Last Gangster

A crime boss goes searching for his ex-wife and son after a ten-year prison stint. His old gang has other plans though, and use the child to try and make him disclose the location of the loot he hid before going to the slammer.

The Pardon

Toni Jo tries to break her husband, Cowboy, out of prison and becomes an instant sensation due to her beauty.

I Want to Live

The movie tells the story of a woman who struggles and fights to escape the gas chamber being condemned with capital punishment because of her participation in a hold up in which a person was killed.

Women Without Names

Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts of politically ambitious assistant DA Marlin, Fred awaits his doom on Death Row, while Joyce works overtime on the outside to clear her husband's name

Fugitive at Large

George Storm is a reputable construction engineer but his life changes the moment a bandit trio holds up the company payroll car. And that is because the daring holdup is successful because the gang leader, Tom Farrow, is an exact-double for Storm.

Thomasine & Bushrod

A pair of thieves operate in the American South between 1911 and 1915, stealing from rich, white capitalists, and giving to Mexicans, Native Americans and poor whites.

Bonnie & Clyde vs. Dracula

After a heist goes wrong, outlaw couple Bonnie and Clyde crash a mansion inhabited by the recently revived Dracula.

Scottsboro: An American Tragedy

A look at the infamous "Scottsboro Boys" case that occurred in Alabama in 1931, in which nine young black men were arrested, tried and quickly convicted in the rape of two white women, despite overwhelming evidence that showed their accusers had falsely accused them and the fact that one of the women later admitted that no rape had in fact occurred (although both had had sexual relations with their boyfriends on the day prior to the "rape"). The case was one of the first that shined a spotlight on what many called the "legal lynchings" that occurred in the South whenever blacks were accused of crimes, especially against whites and most especially against white women.

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