Whether through detective stories, murder mysteries, or tales of revenge, the crime thriller genre is one that branches off into many possible directions. The Guilty (directed by Antoine Fuqua and based on the 2018 Danish film of the same name) is a prime example of the malleability of the genre. The story revolves around an LAPD officer, Joe (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is serving a mandated time-out from the force as an operator in a 911 call center. When he receives a call from a woman, Emily (Riley Keough), who claims to have been kidnapped by her ex-husband, Joe goes rogue to find the answers he needs to get her to safety. To say more would be to ruin the film's masterful suspense and surprise reveals that make it such a white-knuckle thriller.
But The Guilty is not the only crime thriller of its kind—and some of the ones that came before it even bear a resemblance to the film. Whether due to similarities in tone, topic, a killer Gyllenhaal performance, or being confined to one location, here are 7 films to check out if you liked The Guilty.
1. Buried (2010)
Ryan Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, an American working in Iraq who wakes up to find that he has been buried alive in a wooden coffin. With his personal effects limited to a lighter, a pen, and his cell phone, Paul must try to figure out who kidnapped him, and what they want. While Buried doesn't take place in a 911 call center, it is similar to The Guilty in that the action on-screen is confined to a singular location (Paul's coffin). The result is an incredibly tense and claustrophic film that forces the audience to stay with Paul and see everything through his perspective for the duration of the film. Like The Guilty, it features a captivating lead performance, a main character trying to piece together an event where the details are shaky, as well as all communication being conducted through phone calls.
2. Phone Booth (2002)
Stuart (Colin Farrell) is a New York City publicist who has been cheating on his wife (Radha Mitchell) with another woman (Katie Holmes). While in Times Square, Stuart uses a phone booth to call his mistress only to have the phone ring instead. The mysterious caller knows all about Stuart's affair and threatens to tell his wife if he leaves the phone booth. It's a solid premise and one with a built-in suspense factor assisted by the majority of the film taking place in a single, confined location. While The Guilty keeps viewers on the edge of their seats by forcing them to imagine the horrors taking place on the other end of the phone line, Phone Booth opens up the landscape and allows us to see how Stuart's actions (or inactions) affect the world around him. It's tense, suspenseful, and also features most of its characters' communications being conducted over the phone.
3. The Call (2013)
The Call shares some DNA with The Guilty by also revolving around a day in the life of a 911 operator. Halle Berry plays Jordan Turner who, like Joe in The Guilty, is reeling from some past emotional trauma related to her job. When she receives a call from teenager Casey (Abigail Breslin) who says that she's been kidnapped, it's up to Jordan to face her trauma in order to help Casey. Joe certainly goes off-book in his attempts to rescue his caller, but Jordan goes rogue by actually leaving the call center and placing herself in the field. It's a deviation big enough to make for differentiating plots but also shows how both films share much of the same basic threads. While both The Guilty and The Call are tense and rated R, The Call ends up being darker in some respects, such as its violence and final reveal.
4. Prisoners (2013)
How far would you go to rescue your child? It's the question that Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is forced to reckon with when his daughter goes missing. His frustrations mount when the police arrest a young suspect (Paul Dano) who Keller does not believe is innocent, only to quickly release him, causing Keller to take the investigation (and his unorthodox tactics) into his own hands. It's not quite the plot of The Guilty, though it does share some similarities by focusing on an abduction and a father taking a police situation (and the law) into his own hands. Not to mention that both films feature a considerably dark tone and color palette with a solid performance from Jake Gyllenhaal.
5. Saw (2004)
Adam and Larry (Leigh Whannell and Cary Elwes) wake up with their ankles chained to the pipes of a run-down bathroom and soon discover that they're the latest "players" in the infamous Jigsaw killer's games of life and death. Saw is similar to The Guilty in that both Adam and Larry have secrets they must reveal in order to get the answers they seek. There's also a great deal of uncertainty at play throughout the film, for both the characters and the audience. As Adam and Larry piece together the puzzle of their current predicament, it's often difficult to choose what to believe as truth or lies in terms of the clues that Jigsaw gives them over the course of their imprisonment. The film's main action also takes place in the confined bathroom location and features a dark color palette and dim lighting.
6. Nightcrawler (2014)
Nightcrawler is another film where Jake Gyllenhaal is center stage. Here, he plays Los Angeles resident Lou Bloom who films violent events (vehicle accidents, home invasions, carjackings) and sells his recordings to local news stations to play on their broadcasts. It's another Gyllenhaal performance where his character makes shaky moral decisions while hunting for the truth and what he wants. Like The Guilty, it also features a dark color palette (the film takes place almost exclusively at night) and poses questions about ethics, the truth, and what it means to be a law abiding citizen.
7. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
The film revolves around Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who gets into a car accident and wakes up in the underground bunker of Howard (John Goodman) who claims that something has occured to make the Earth above ground uninhabitable. It's another film that takes place primarily in one claustrophobic location that ratchets up the tension and suspense through surprise reveals, character drama, and powerhouse acting performances. There's also a mounting sense of paranoia as Michelle and Howard struggle to decide whether or not they can trust each other. Plus, both Howard in 10 Cloverfield Lane and Joe in The Guilty are harboring secret shames and deeds that play an important role in each film's climax.
The Guilty is now streaming on Netflix.