History Main / StrangersOnATrainPlotMurder

* ''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying: [[spoiler: This is what's happening in the sequel. Except that, as it's done online, one of the members is confused about who their buddy is]]. [[spoiler: complicated further when their original buddy backs out, but someone else takes over without either original knowing.]]

* ''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying: [[spoiler: This is what's happening in the sequel, ''One of Us is Next''. Except that, as it's done online, one of the members is confused about who their buddy is]]. [[spoiler: complicated further when their original buddy backs out, but someone else takes over without either original knowing.]]

* ''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying: [[spoiler: This is what's happening in ''One of Us is Next''. Except that, as it's done online, one of the members is confused about who their buddy is]]. [[spoiler: complicated further when their original buddy backs out, but someone else takes over without either original knowing.]]

[[folder: Radio]]

Oh, hello there. I didn't see you. I was too busy thinking about my horrible [[FreudianExcuse father]] -- but you don't want to hear about it. You probably have troubles of your own. Perhaps a shrill ex-wife? And you don't want to pay her alimony any more, you say? Well, perhaps we met for a reason. Listen: I'll [[MurderIsTheBestSolution "X" your ex]], if you [[TroubleEntendre pop my pop.]] Ah, I knew this was a good idea. We'll each have alibis for the other crime, and we won't have apparent motives for the one we did commit. It's [[ThePerfectCrime perfect]] — [[TemptingFate we'll never get caught.]]

* The 1994 straight-to-video movie ''Dead On''. Adulterous lovers Ted and Erin agree to kill each other's spouses. After Ted's wife Marla [[NeverFoundTheBody disappears]], he murders Erin's husband... and [[SubvertedTrope becomes a suspect in the murder]] after the affair comes to light. [[spoiler: It turns out his wife's body wasn't found for a good reason - Marla is still alive. It was actually a plot between Marla and Erin to get rid of each other's ''husbands'', so that Erin becomes a wealthy widow, and Marla (who was already rich) gets to divorce Ted without alimony after he's sent to jail for the murder. Knowing he's going to jail anyway, Ted pulls a TakingYouWithMe and kills them both. They really should have checked him for a gun before they pulled their [[SmugSnake gloating reveal]].]]

* The TropeMaker, Patricia Highsmith's novel ''Strangers on a Train'', also [[UnbuiltTrope isn't quite a straight example]]. From the start, Guy Haines explicitly refuses to be part of Charlie Bruno's plot, and leaves him to find somebody else. Unfortunately, Bruno is [[HoYay fond of]] Haines, and kills his wife anyway as a favor. Then he starts stalking Haines to try and make him follow through with his end of the "bargain". [[spoiler:Unlike in the Hitchcock movie, Haines becomes so demoralized that he ''does'' kill Bruno's father. The plot is eventually found out by the police, in large part because Bruno ignores the "strangers" bit and starts wedging himself into Haines's personal life.]]

* Done in a fairly easy ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}'' tie-in mystery book. There are three failed attempts at murder, in each case two people with motive are missing. Since one was missing on all three occasions, the two killers are obvious.
* In ''A Pen-Knife in My Heart'', a novel written by future Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis under his Nicholas Blake pen name, Stuart Hammer takes weak-willed author Ned Stowe out on his boat and makes him a proposal. Stuart will kill Ned's wife so that Ned can be with his mistress Laura. In return Ned will murder Stuart's uncle, who's also his boss. Published eight years after ''Strangers on a Train'' and six years after Creator/AlfredHitchcock's movie, the plot was close enough so that Day-Lewis had to make some last minute changes in order to avoid a lawsuit from Highsmith's publisher.
* In the short story "Strangers On a Handball Court"by Creator/LawrenceBlock, two men exchange their ex-wives' murders.[[spoiler: One of them conceals the fact that he is still married to the target and having an affair with the second man's wife. He then kills the "stranger" who broke into his house and murdered his wife.]]

* In the ''Series/{{Castle}}'' episode "The Double Down," it was Strangers on a Boat. Castle even does the "criss cross" gesture. As a writer, he is understandably excited.

* ''Series/{{Heartbeat}}''. Local rogue Claude Greengrass has just been to see the movie ''Strangers on a Train'' and jokes loudly afterward about how he's like someone to burn down his old barn for the insurance money. Unfortunately, someone takes him at his word, and gets nasty when Claude doesn't keep his side of the 'bargain'.
* ''Series/{{Bones}}'' did a three way "[[NewMediaAreEvil Strangers on the Internet]]" version of this once [[spoiler:in "The Bodies in the Book"]].

* Series two of ''Series/{{Psychoville}}'' features a [[AffectionateParody parody/homage]] of "Strangers on a Train." David agrees to kill [[spoiler:Mrs Wren]] so that her nephew can inherit her money, with the nephew agreeing to "relieve Maureen of her pain" (she is [[spoiler:dying of cancer]]) in exchange; they meet on a train to discuss the plan. It backfires when [[spoiler:Jelly escapes with the real Mrs Wren, leading to her roommate (who was wearing a borrowed cardigan with Mrs Wren's name sewn into it) being mistaken for her and murdered by Finney, and David finding the body. Meanwhile, Maureen catches Wren's nephew breaking into her house, and kills him - then discovers he ''wasn't'' planning to murder her, he was there to give her a disabled parking badge.]]
* ''Series/TheCloser'' has a non-murder (at least initially) variation. A group of teenagers whose parents are all well-off make a plan: each time one of them goes on vacation with their family, the rest of the group will break into their house and steal laptops and stuff, because they figure that they want stuff, and since their parents are rich they can just replace the missing things. It backfires when one of them decides he doesn't want to do it any more, but the others decide to break into his house anyway when he and his parents go on vacation, and accidentally kill the house-sitter.

* ''Series/{{Medium}}'' had 5 Strangers On An Airport Lobby combined with SerialKillingsSpecificTarget: the victims would all be poisoned with the same tainted painkiller, so that the deaths would be blamed on a serial poisoner, since there was no apparent connection between the victims.

* Used in an episode of ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles''. Two people, each wanting to be rid of their spouses, meet at a dog park and agree to swap murders. They're careful not to correspond on computer or talk on the phone, being GenreSavvy enough to know they could be traced that way. Dog hair left at one of the murder scenes is what trips them up.

%%[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
%%* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' has a filler episode in which this is used as the plot.
%%[[/folder]]

%%* ''Film/TheStrangeViceOfMrsWard''. They also employ a third accomplice.

* Done as part of a [[Creator/AlfredHitchcock Hitchcock]] parody in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' "Treehouse of Horror XX." Subverted because Bart and Lisa are siblings instead of strangers. Like what happened in the TropeMaker, Lisa doesn't agree to kill Bart's victim. She just doesn't think that Bart said "Ding-dong-ditch" as something other than that prank where one rings the victim's doorbell and flees before the victim opens the door.

* ‘’Series/LawAndOrder’’ episode “C.O.D.” has this with two women conspiring to kill their respective husbands.

* {{Series/LawAndOrder}} episode “C.O.D.” has this with two women conspiring to kill their respective husbands.

* Series/LawAndOrder episode “C.O.D.” has this with two women conspiring to kill their respective husbands.

* ‘’Series/LawAndOrder’’ episode “C.O.D.” has this with two women conspiring to kill their respective husbands.

* ‘’Series/{{LawAndOrder}}’’ episode “C.O.D.” has this with two women conspiring to kill their respective husbands.

* ‘’Series/{{Law&Order}}’’ episode “C.O.D.” has this with two women conspiring to kill their respective husbands.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* Done in a ''Series/{{Columbo}}'' episode "A Friend in Deed", although the perpetrators are not really strangers. They almost manage to get away with it.

[folder: Radio]]

A non-lethal version of the trope exists on sitcoms, in which two characters who can't bring themselves to tell loved ones something that will hurt them will swap duties thinking it will be less painful coming from the other character. A similarly non-lethal ([[AlwaysMurder or at least "non-lethal" at first]]) variation is people exploiting their apparent lack of connection to get alibis for crimes like insider trading. Another variation can come in {{Villain Team Up}}s where the villains in question belong to two separate heroes' {{Rogues Gallery}}s.

A non-lethal version of the trope exists on sitcoms, in which two characters who can't bring themselves to tell loved ones something that will hurt them will swap duties thinking it will be less painful coming from the other character. A similarly non-lethal ([[AlwaysMurder or at least "non-lethal" at first]]) variation is people exploiting their apparent lack of connection to get alibis for crimes like insider trading. Another variation can come in {{Villain Team-Up}}s where the villains in question belong to two separate heroes' {{Rogues Gallery}}s.

A non-lethal version of the trope exists on sitcoms, in which two characters who can't bring themselves to tell loved ones something that will hurt them will swap duties thinking it will be less painful coming from the other character. A similarly non-lethal ([[AlwaysMurder or at least "non-lethal" at first]]) variation is people exploiting their apparent lack of connection to get alibis for crimes like insider trading.

A non-lethal version of the trope exists on sitcoms, in which two characters who can't bring themselves to tell loved ones something that will hurt them will swap duties thinking it will be less painful coming from the other character.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' has a filler episode in which this is used as the plot.
[[/folder]]

* ''Film/TheStrangeViceOfMrsWard''. They also employ a third accomplice though.

* In the ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode "The Inside Man," it was Strangers on a Commuter Train... although the crime was insider trading rather than murder, at least to start with.
** And [[GenreSavvy Tony]] explicitly draws the connection to the TropeNamer.
** Interestingly, this one, and the above ''Castle'' incidence originally aired within the same two-week timespan, if memory serves.
** The episode "Alibi" has this again with Strangers at an AA Meeting. In fact, the suspect in a hit-and-run tries to alibi out to his attorney by explaining that he was [[spoiler:stabbing a guy to death in another town during the hit-and-run]], and she can't tell anyone due to the attorney-client privilege (she still finds a way to leave a hint for Gibbs).

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'' did a three way "[[NewMediaAreEvil Strangers on the Internet]]" version of this once [[spoiler: in "The Bodies in the Book"]].
* ''Series/LawAndOrder'': "C.O.D." has Strangers in a Coffee Shop.
* ''Series/DueSouth'' does a version with one murder in Chicago and the other in Toronto.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Supertrain}}'' did a literal "Strangers on a Train" [[strike: rip-off]] homage with Creator/DickVanDyke as the psycho.
** Creator/DickVanDyke also subverted this trope in an episode of ''Series/DiagnosisMurder''. A deranged psychiatrist killed a hospital administrator who was going to recommend that Dr. Sloan(Van Dyke) be dismissed from Community General when he protested her bone-deep budget cut recommendations. The psychiatrist then called up Dr. Sloan and told him, "Now you owe me a favor." Dr. Sloan refused to play along.

* ''{{Fillmore}}'' had an episode where it looked like a vigilante was [[BullyHunter going after bullies]]. It turned out that the victims of various bullies had decided to fight back, but they swapped targets so that each of them would have an alibi when the bully they had reason to hate was targeted.