Highest-Rated Movies about 'Drifter', Sort by Popularity

3-Iron (2004), The Thin Blue Line (1988), Run the Wild Fields (2000), It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947), The Petrified Forest (1936), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), High Plains Drifter (1973), Of Mice and Men (1992) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Drifter movies.

#1. 3-Iron (2004)

Storyline: A young drifter enters strangers' houses - and lives - while owners are away. He spends a night or a day squatting in, repaying their unwitting hospitality by doing laundry or small repairs. His life changes when he runs into a beautiful woman in an affluent mansion who is ready to escape her unhappy, abusive marriage.

Plot Keywords: abused wife, husband, drifter, cop, loner, dreamy, dark ...

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#2. The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Storyline: Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas, Texas. Briefly, a drifter (Randall Adams) ran out of gas and was picked up by a 16-year-old runaway (David Harris). Later that night, they drank some beer, smoked some marijuana, and went to the movies. Then, their stories diverged. Adams claimed that he left for his motel, where he was staying with his brother, and went to sleep. Harris, however, said that they were stopped by police late that night, and Adams suddenly shot the officer approaching their car. The film shows the audience the evidence gathered by the police, who were under extreme pressure to clear the case. It strongly makes a point that the circumstantial evidence was very flimsy. In fact, it becomes apparent that Harris was a much more likely suspect and was in the middle of a crime spree, eventually ending up on Death Row himself for the later commission of other crimes. Morris implies that the DA's and the judge's desire for the death penalty in this case (for which Harris would have been ineligible because of his youth) made Adams a scapegoat on whom to pin this heinous crime.—Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>

Plot Keywords: drifter, murderer, petty criminal, judge, psychiatrist, cop, dark ...

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#3. Run the Wild Fields (2000)

Storyline: Ruby Miller (Joanne Whalley) has put her life on hold. Her husband, after leaving to fight in World War II, has been missing in action for years. Ruby tends their North Carolina farm and rears their daughter, Pug (Alexa Vega), but cannot bring herself to think about the future. One day a drifter named Tom Walker (Sean Patrick Flanery) arrives in town. Ruby hires him to do some odd jobs around the farm, but he gradually assumes a much more vital role for her and her daughter.

Plot Keywords: housewife, drifter, daughter, neighbor, father figure, husband, patriotic ...

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#4. It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)

Storyline: Every winter, Michael J. O'Connor, the second richest man in the world, vacates his 5th Avenue mansion for his winter home in warmer climes. Every winter, Aloysius T. McKeever, a homeless man, and his dog moves into vacated mansions. This particular winter, McKeever meets Jim Bullock, an army veteran who has recently been evicted from his apartment and offers to share the mansion with him. It's not long before the mansion has a few more guests, including two of Jim's army buddies and their wives and children; runaway heiress Trudy Connor; her mother and even Michael J. O'Connor, himself.—L. Hamre

Plot Keywords: businessman, wealthy man, drifter, veteran, daughter, ex-wife, touching ...

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#5. The Petrified Forest (1936)

Storyline: Gabby lives and works at her dads small diner out in the desert. She can't stand it and wants to go and live with her mother in France. Along comes Alan, a broke man with no will to live, who is traveling to see the pacific, and maybe to drown in it. Meanwhile Duke Mantee a notorious killer and his gang is heading towards the diner where Mantee plan on meeting up with his girl.

Plot Keywords: drifter, writer, waitress, gangster, criminal, bleak, intense ...

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#6. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Storyline: Nick Smith, the middle-aged proprietor of a roadside restaurant, hires drifter Frank Chambers as a handyman. Frank eventually begins an affair with Nick's beautiful wife Cora, who talks Frank into helping her kill Nick, by "accident." But the best laid plans......

Plot Keywords: drifter, femme fatale, district attorney, lawyer, restaurant owner, tense, suspenseful ...

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#7. High Plains Drifter (1973)

Storyline: A Stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides into in the dusty mining town of Lago, where the townspeople are living in the shadow of a dark secret. After a shoot-out leaves the town's hired-gun protectors dead, the town's leaders petition the Stranger to stay and protect them from three ruthless outlaws who are soon to be released from prison. The three have their sights set on returning to Lago to wreak havoc and take care of some unfinished business. A series of events soon has the townspeople questioning whether siding with the Stranger was a wise idea, as they quickly learn the price that they each must pay for his services. As the outlaws make their way back into Lago, they discover that the town is not exactly as they had left it, and waiting in the shadows is the Stranger, ready to expose the town's secret and serve up his own brand of justice.

Plot Keywords: drifter, outlaw, dwarf, innkeeper, wife, bleak, gritty ...

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#8. Of Mice and Men (1992)

Storyline: Two traveling companions, George and Lennie, wander the country during the Depression, dreaming of a better life for themselves. Then, just as heaven is within their grasp, it is inevitably yanked away. The film follows Steinbeck's novel closely, exploring questions of strength, weakness, usefulness, reality and utopia, bringing Steinbeck's California vividly to life.

Plot Keywords: drifter, giant, wife, abusive husband, worker, sad, profound ...

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#9. Ride the High Country (1962)

Storyline: Aging ex-marshal Steve Judd is hired by a bank to transport a gold shipment through dangerous territory. He hires an old partner, Gil Westrum, and his young protege Heck to assist him. Steve doesn't know, however, that Gil and Heck plan to steal the gold, with or without Steve's help. On the trail, the three get involved in a young woman's desire to escape first from her father, then from her fiance and his dangerously psychotic brothers.

Plot Keywords: lawman, frontiersman, daughter, drifter, brother, engaging, amusing ...

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#10. The Misfits (1961)

Storyline: Dpressed divorcèe, Roslyn Tabor (Monroe), and Gay Langland (Gable), an aging ex-cowboy, who survives by rounding up and catching mustangs (and sselling them to slaughterhouses Wallach plays Guido, Langland's pilot partner, and Clift plays Perce Howland, a drifter rodeo rider.

Plot Keywords: divorcée, cowboy, gambler, rodeo rider, drifter, friend, winsome ...

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#11. The Westerner (1940)

Storyline: Cole Harden just doesn't look like a horse thief, Jane-Ellen Matthews tells Judge Roy Bean as she steps up to the bar. Cole says he can't take it with him as he empties all of his coins on the bar to buy drinks for the jury. He notices two big pictures of Lily Langtry behind the bar. Sure, Cole has met the Jersey Lily, whom the hanging judge adores, even has a lock of her hair. Hanging is delayed for two weeks, giving Cole time to get in the middle of a range war between cattlemen and homesteaders and to still be around when Lily Langtry, former mistress of Edward VII who became an international actress, arrives in Texas.—Dale O'Connor <daleoc@interaccess.com>

Plot Keywords: judge, drifter, homesteader, actress, offbeat, melodramatic, gutsy ...

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#12. They Live (1988)

Storyline: Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

Plot Keywords: drifter, politician, police officer, alien, media personality, dark, amusing ...

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#13. Scarecrow (1973)

Storyline: Max is an ex-con who's been saving money to open a car wash in Pittsburgh. Lionel is a sailor who's returning home to the midwest to see the child born while he was at sea. They form an unlikely pair as the brawling Max learns a little how Lionel copes with the world: Lionel believes that the scarecrow doesn't scare birds, but instead amuses them - birds find scare-crows funny.

Plot Keywords: drifter, sailor, charming, united states, friendship, road trip, transformation ...

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#15. The Fugitive Kind (1960)

Storyline: Having fled New Orleans to avoid arrest, the undeniably alluring Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier (Val), a trouble-prone guitar-playing drifter, wanders into a small Mississippi town aiming to go straight and lead a quiet, simple life. He gets a job in the dry goods store owned by a sexually-frustrated middle-aged woman named Lady Torrence, whose sadistic elderly husband, Jabe, is dying. With an obscure past and passions of her own, Lady finds herself attracted to Val, pulsating with passion anew, as he presents an arousing antidote to her bitter marriage and small-town hum-drum life, but also vying for Val's attention are the alcoholic, sex-crazed Carol Cutrere and the unhappily-married Vee Talbot. Each bring their share of problems into Val's plans, himself equally tempted by these women though he succumbs to the charms of Lady. But the jealous Jabe is friends with Sheriff Talbot, who's also Vee's wife - things can't possibly end well for Val and Lady. The screenplay by Meade Roberts and Tennessee Williams is based on Williams' own 1957 play "Orpheus Descending".—pdlussier1

Plot Keywords: drifter, sick person, alcoholic, housewife, bleak, emotional, uneasy ...

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