40 Movies Like Papillon (2017) You Need to Watch Next
Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friend
Updated June 2026
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If you loved Papillon (2017) by Michael Noer, here are 40 movies that share its content DNA. iRankMovies measures real similarity using cosine similarity across eight weighted dimensions — genre (50%), tone (12%), pace (10%), structure (8%), era (7%), theme (6%), audience (4%) and narrative perspective (3%) — not just the rating. The closest matches according to our analysis are Thelma & Louise, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blow. Every title is ranked by how closely it matches and backed by the iRank Score, a composite of IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDb across 12,000+ analysed titles.
40 Movies Similar to Papillon
Thelma & Louise
1991 · Ridley Scott
Taking a break from their dreary lives, close friends Thelma and Louise embark on a short weekend trip that ends in unforeseen incriminating circumstances. As fugitives, both women rediscover the stre
In common: Adventure · Crime · Drama
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1969 · George Roy Hill
As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.
In common: Adventure · Crime · Drama
Blow
2001 · Ted Demme
A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950's. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family. It is finally revealed that George's father canno
In common: Crime · Drama
The Mule
2018 · Clint Eastwood
Earl Stone, a man in his eighties, is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he is offered a job that simply requires him to drive. Easy enough, but, unbeknownst to Earl, he's just
In common: Crime · Drama
American Hustle
2013 · David O. Russell
A conman and his seductive partner are forced to work for a wild FBI agent, who pushes them into a world of Jersey power-brokers and the Mafia.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Unforgivable
2021 · Nora Fingscheidt
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
In common: Crime · Drama
Just Mercy
2019 · Destin Daniel Cretton
The powerful true story of Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned — including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despi
In common: Crime · Drama
Requiem for a Dream
2000 · Darren Aronofsky
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
In common: Crime · Drama
Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey
2018 · Jim Donovan
On the night she plans on taking her own life, 17-year-old 'Lisa McVey' is kidnapped and finds herself fighting to stay alive and is raped. She manages to talk her attacker into releasing her, but whe
In common: Crime · Drama
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
2019 · Joe Berlinger
A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Hate U Give
2018 · George Tillman Jr.
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two ver
In common: Crime · Drama
Cool Hand Luke
1967 · Stuart Rosenberg
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admi
In common: Crime · Drama
Wall Street
1987 · Oliver Stone
A young and impatient stockbroker is willing to do anything to get to the top, including trading on illegal inside information taken through a ruthless and greedy corporate raider, whom takes the yout
In common: Crime · Drama
The Place Beyond the Pines
2013 · Derek Cianfrance
A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.
In common: Crime · Drama
Cherry
2021 · Joe Russo
Cherry drifts from college dropout to army medic in Iraq—anchored only by his one true love, Emily. But after returning from the war with PTSD, his life spirals into drugs and crime as he struggles to
In common: Crime · Drama
Freedom Writers
2007 · Richard LaGravenese
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.
In common: Crime · Drama
Papillon
1973 · Franklin J. Schaffner
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.
In common: Crime · Drama
Catch Me If You Can
2002 · Steven Spielberg
A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his
In common: Crime · Drama
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2017 · Martin McDonagh
After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at Bil
In common: Crime · Drama
The Outsiders
1983 · Francis Ford Coppola
In 1960s Tulsa, class divisions ignite a violent rivalry between the working-class Greasers and the privileged Socs. When a deadly encounter forces two Greasers, Ponyboy and Johnny, to flee, their str
In common: Crime · Drama
21
2008 · Robert Luketic
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot affo
In common: Crime · Drama
The Call of the Wild
2020 · Chris Sanders
Buck is a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life is turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Yukon during the Gold Rus
In common: Adventure · Drama
Alpha
2018 · Albert Hughes
In the prehistoric past, Keda, a young and inexperienced hunter, struggles to return home after being separated from his tribe when bison hunting goes awry. On his way back he will find an unexpected
In common: Adventure · Drama
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle
2018 · Andy Serkis
A human child raised by wolves, must face off against a menacing tiger named Shere Khan, as well as his own origins.
In common: Adventure · Drama
Everest
2015 · Baltasar Kormákur
Inspired by the incredible events surrounding a treacherous attempt to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain, "Everest" documents the awe-inspiring journey of two different expeditions chal
In common: Adventure · Drama
Seven Years in Tibet
1997 · Jean-Jacques Annaud
Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer journeys to the Himalayas without his family to head an expedition in 1939. But when World War II breaks out, the arrogant Harrer falls into Allied forces' hands a
In common: Adventure · Drama
Return to the Blue Lagoon
1991 · William A. Graham
In this sequel to the 1980 classic, two children are stranded on a beautiful island in the South Pacific. With no adults to guide them, the two make a simple life together and eventually become tanned
In common: Adventure · Drama
A Dog's Journey
2019 · Gail Mancuso
A dog finds the meaning of his own existence through the lives of the humans he meets.
In common: Adventure · Drama
Arthur the King
2024 · Simon Cellan Jones
Over the course of ten days and 435 miles, an unbreakable bond is forged between pro adventure racer Michael Light and a scrappy street dog companion dubbed Arthur. As the team is pushed to their oute
In common: Adventure · Drama
The Way Back
2010 · Peter Weir
A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.
In common: Adventure · Drama
Bridge to Terabithia
2007 · Gábor Csupó
Jesse Aarons trained all summer to become the fastest runner in school. So he's very upset when newcomer Leslie Burke outruns him and everyone else. Despite this and other differences including that s
In common: Adventure · Drama
Alive
1993 · Frank Marshall
The amazing true story of a Uruguayan rugby team's plane that crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains, and their immense will to survive and pull through alive, forced to do anything and everythi
In common: Adventure · Drama
The Lost City of Z
2017 · James Gray
A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching
In common: Adventure · Drama
The Physician
2013 · Philipp Stölzl
England, 1021: Born in a miserable mining town, Robert Cole swears to become a physician and vanquish disease and death. His harsh path of many years, a quest for knowledge besieged by countless chall
In common: Adventure · Drama
Life of Pi
2012 · Ang Lee
The story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.
In common: Adventure · Drama
The 13th Warrior
1999 · John McTiernan
A Muslim ambassador exiled from his homeland joins a group of Vikings, initially offended by their behavior but growing to respect them. As they travel together, they learn of a legendary evil closing
In common: Adventure · Crime
Hugo
2011 · Martin Scorsese
Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is
In common: Adventure · Drama
Into the Wild
2007 · Sean Penn
After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity, and hitchhikes to Alaska t
In common: Adventure · Drama
Captain Fantastic
2016 · Matt Ross
Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, beginnin
In common: Adventure · Drama
Noah
2014 · Darren Aronofsky
A man who suffers visions of an apocalyptic deluge takes measures to protect his family from the coming flood.
In common: Adventure · Drama