Movies like movies, like The Nice Guys, are available to stream on some of the biggest services like Netflix.
Whether searching for comedic murder mysteries or buddy cop action, fans of The Nice Guys won't be left wanting for thrills when checking out the most similar films. The best movies like The Nice Guys aren't just worth seeking out for their similarities to Black and Anthony Bagarozzi's screenplay but because many of them are certified cinematic classics that have helped to shape Hollywood history.
15 L.A. Confidential (1997)
Russell Crowe As A Tough Cop In Los Angeles
L.A. Confidential
- Release Date
- September 19, 1997
- Runtime
- 138 Minutes
- Director
- Curtis Hanson
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson
Based on the beloved James Elroy novel, L.A. Confidential tells the story of the LAPD in the 1950s when corruption within the department had been running rampant for years. Directed by Curtis Hanson and written by Brian Helgeland, Russell Crowe plays a similar character here as he does in The Nice Guys. In The Nice Guys, he is a violent enforcer who will dish out damage to anyone who gets in his way. In L.A. Confidential, he is the cop who prefers to beat up criminals before he arrests them.
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L.A. Confidential is mostly about bringing down the bad cops, and in this case, it goes to the top. While Ryan Gosling's Holland March is a much better human being than Guy Pearce's "good cop" from L.A. Confidential, they both play the same sort of foil to Crowe's bruiser who thinks with his fists and in both movies, end up realizing it takes more than muscles and might to save the day.
14 Hot Fuzz (2007)
A Big City Cop Is Assigned To A Small Village
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Hot Fuzz
- Release Date
- February 14, 2007
- Runtime
- 121 minutes
- Director
- Edgar Wright
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Simon Pegg
In The Nice Guys, an experienced enforcer has to team up with a more laid-back private investigator to take down a major criminal conspiracy. While Hot Fuzz deals with two police officers, they are also very much mismatched and find themselves bringing down an organization that has been secretly killing people for years.
Edgar Wright followed up his breakout movie Shaun of the Dead with a love letter to buddy cop movies with Hot Fuzz. Nicholas Angel is a super-cop who transferred from London to a small village because he made everyone else look bad. When he arrives, he ends up partnering with Danny Butterman, the wide-eyed and impressionistic son of the police inspector.
Soon, Angel realizes something is not right in this quaint village when people keep dying in mysterious "accidents," and he soon realizes he can't stop the murderers on his own. The film has become a massive cult favorite and Hot Fuzz might be one of the most quotable movies of the century so far.
13 The Other Guys (2010)
Two Misfit Cops Set Out To Bring Down A Criminal Organization
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The Other Guys
- Release Date
- August 5, 2010
- Runtime
- 107 Minutes
- Director
- Adam McKay
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Adam McKay, Will Ferrell
While The Nice Guys has two mismatched men team up to bring down a criminal organization, The Other Guys has two misfit cops trying to do the same thing but without any help from the rest of the police force. The entire movie starts out with one of the most ridiculous sequences in action comedy history as two super-cops (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson) stop criminals while causing major property damage, but are hailed as heroes - until they die when they leap off a building while chasing bad guys.
Both movies have great one-liners and sight gags, and while The Other Guys is a little more slapstick-based, they share a similar backbone and structure.
This leads to the two misfits (one a mild-mannered detective who likes desk work and the second a hothead suspended for accidentally shooting Derek Jeter). They soon learn about a major heist about to go down, but when no one believes them, they set out to stop it on their own with hilarious results. Both movies have great one-liners and sight gags, and while The Other Guys is a little more slapstick-based, they share a similar backbone and structure.
12 Seven Psychopaths (2012)
A Writer Seeks Out Criminals To Help Break His Writer's Block
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Seven Psychopaths
- Release Date
- October 12, 2012
- Runtime
- 110 Minutes
- Director
- Martin McDonagh
Cast
Sam Rockwell
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Martin McDonagh
In The Nice Guys, a private investigator ends up forced to team with a violent enforcer who is more than happy to kill anyone who gets in his way. While this makes the partnership dangerous and frustrating for the PI, it bears a similarity to the Martin McDonagh movie Seven Psychopaths. In this movie, Colin Farrell plays a screenwriter in Los Angeles who has writer's block and is seeking inspiration for the "psychopaths" he wants to write into his new movie script.
To achieve this, he puts an ad in the paper for any "psychopath" to him so he can interview them and use their experience to write his new script. However, when mobsters, hitmen, and serial killers respond, Marty realizes he might have just put his life in danger, all while his roommate ends up with a hit put out on him by a psychopath of his own. The film was a cult hit, while also picking up nominations at the BAFTA and Independent Spirit Awards.
11 Midnight Run (1988)
A Bounty Hunter Brings In A Former Mob ant
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Midnight Run
- Release Date
- July 20, 1988
- Runtime
- 126 Minutes
- Director
- Martin Brest
Cast
Charles Grodin
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- George Gallo
There have been countless buddy cop movies over the years, but one of the best of the genre came in 1988 with Midnight Run. It is important to note that neither man here is a cop, though, which helps it line up more with the side genre that includes movies like The Nice Guys. In Midnight Run, Robert De Niro is Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter hired to bring in former mafia ant Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin).
While both the FBI and the mafia are warning Jack against bringing Mardukas back to the bail bondsman in Los Angeles, he ignores them and captures the man anyway. However, they end up with the mafia and the FBI on their tale and end up on a road trip movie with danger in every city they enter. This was one of De Niro's first attempts at comedy, and it was a smash hit. It has a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while it has become a beloved cult hit over three decades later.
10 The Long Goodbye (1973)
Elliott Gould Plays Philip Marlowe
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The Long Goodbye
- Release Date
- March 8, 1973
- Runtime
- 112 Minutes
- Director
- Robert Altman
Cast
-
Nina van Pallandt
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Leigh Brackett, Raymond Chandler
Robert Altman's classic neo-noir film is a hugely influential detective story that should be considered essential viewing for any fan of The Nice Guys. Elliott Gould's performance as the iconic private eye Philip Marlowe changed the movie-going public's expectations for hard-boiled detectives, and shades of him can be seen in many of Shane Black's characters.
While the story about Marlowe's investigation of the deaths of several people, including one of his old friends, retains many of the grittiest elements from Raymond Chandler's original novel, it's also injected with its own dark sense of humor. Like The Nice Guys, it has a very distinct mixture of toughness and vulnerability, thanks in large part to Gould's performance.
9 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
A Criminal Turned Actor Teams With A PI During A Case
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
- Release Date
- November 18, 2005
- Runtime
- 103 minutes
- Director
- Shane Black
Cast
Val Kilmer
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Brett Halliday, Shane Black
Shane Black's name is well-known to action movie fans due to a number of his highly-popular screenplays being produced in the 80s and 90s as well as a successful directing career that he started in the 2000s with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Like The Nice Guys, the movie is a neo-noir detective comedy that leans most heavily into the comedic part of the equation, but not without adhering faithfully to the tenets of hard-boiled detective fiction as well.
The murder mystery at the center of the story is compelling and Black makes sure to include some of the shootouts that made his earlier screenplays so popular. However, the chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer in the lead roles is more than enough reason for fans of The Nice Guys to seek it out.
8 The Last Boy Scout (1991)
A Former Cop Clashes With A Football Star During A Kidnapping
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The Last Boy Scout
- Release Date
- December 13, 1991
- Runtime
- 105 minutes
- Director
- Tony Scott
Cast
Joe Hallenbeck-
Damon WayansJames Alexander 'Jimmy' Dix
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Shane Black
- Producers
- Barry Josephson, Joel Silver, Michael Levy
Shane Black's first two screenplay credits were in 1987 for writing the action blockbuster Lethal Weapon and for co-writing the horror-comedy The Monster Squad. While the latter failed to find an audience in theaters, the former's success defined Black as a name in Hollywood action movies, and his second action screenplay helped him hone his distinct style.
The Last Boy Scout furthered Black's characterization of the weary detective and his more grounded partner, with Bruce Willis' former Secret Service agent turned sleazy PI acting as a bridge between Elliott Gould's Marlowe and Ryan Gosling's Holland March. The story, about a far-reaching conspiracy revolving around professional footballers, also drops the audience into a side of LA's entertainment industry not usually seen in movies, like The Nice Guys does with pornography.
7 Lethal Weapon (1987)
Shane Black's Breakout Screenplay
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Lethal Weapon
- Release Date
- March 6, 1987
- Runtime
- 109 minutes
- Director
- Richard Donner
Cast
Tom Atkins-
Mitchell Ryan
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Shane Black
- Sequel(s)
- Lethal Weapon 5
The original Lethal Weapon solidified a great many action movie tropes that are now commonplace in Hollywood screenwriting. It also showed many of Shane Black's most beloved quirks as a screenwriter, not least of which is his choice to set his stories on or around Christmas, which is a tradition that has endured in his career through Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, and even the ending of The Nice Guys.
The murderous conspiracy plot in Lethal Weapon has a slightly harder edge than the one in The Nice Guys as the two LAPD officers at the center of the mystery–the iconic Riggs and Murtaugh–are a bit more serious than Holland March and Jackson Healy. This isn't to say that the film isn't funny as a result though, as Mel Gibson and Danny Glover have superb chemistry and light up each and every scene that they're in.
6 The Guard (2011)
A Bad Cop Teams Up With An FBI Agent Searching For Drug Smugglers
The Guard
- Release Date
- July 7, 2011
- Runtime
- 96 minutes
- Director
- John Michael McDonagh
Cast
Brendan GleesonSergeant Gerry Boyle
FBI agent Wendell Everett
Liam CunninghamFrancis Sheehy
Mark StrongClive Cornell
WHERE TO WATCH
The Guard follows a small-town Irish cop with an unorthodox demeanor as he partners with a methodical FBI agent. Together, they navigate their contrasting personalities to dismantle an international drug-trafficking operation.
Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson are the oddly paired cops in this dark crime comedy from writer and director John Michael McDonagh. Cheadle plays an FBI agent searching for drug smugglers on the west coast of Ireland, and Gleeson is a local police officer who's far from a straight arrow but essential to understanding the landscape. Fans of The Nice Guys will appreciate the movie's focus on witty back-and-forth dialogue as well as the story's bullet-riddled finale.
The Guard has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Guard may not have the glamour of 70s Hollywood going for it, but it uses the natural beauty of its location to create a unique personality for the film. For anyone who loves the "good cop/bad cop" dynamic of mismatched partners but wants to see it in a different setting (Ireland), this is a great film for fans of The Nice Guys to see a similar story with a new dynamic. Director John Michael McDonagh received a BAFTA nomination for his screenwriting on the film.
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