Best movies like Pizza, Beer, and Cigarettes
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A couple of friends work for a taxi driver to rob his passengers, but they feel like they're getting ripped off. They decide to plan their own robberies, but they are amateurs and things don't go too well. One of the youths, Cordoba, whose girlfriend Sandra is pregnant, just wants to get enough cash so they can leave Argentina and get to Uruguay to start a new life. He and his friends plan one last robbery, but things don't go as planned.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: social, hispanic, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
Best tv shows and movies like Pizza, Beer, and Cigarettes (1998):
Similar in 82%
Jimmy Zip (1999)
Plot Summary:
An abused runaway with pyromaniac tendencies teams up with a metal sculptor. Together they blow away the art world and a local crime boss.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: independent film, rough, serious, realistic, grunge
Similar in 87%
Rodrigo D: No Future (1990)
Plot Summary:
"Rodrigo D: No futuro" explores the bleak and precarious lives of working class street kids in Medellín. So dangerous is this world that three of its nonprofessional actors have been killed violently since production wrapped in 1988. Rodrigo has headaches and thinks about his mother, who died sometime previous to the film's story. He is also looking for a drum kit so he can start a punk band with his friends, who sell cocaine to school kids, and steal cars to survive.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Music
Country: Colombia
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Fast, Fast (1981)
Plot Summary:
Angela begins to hang around with Pablo and his gang of young robbers.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Spain, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: hood, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 84%
Chronically Unfeasible (2000)
Plot Summary:
Filmed over a five-year period, Chronically Unfeasible dissects Brazilian problems, using six people who meet in a restaurant in São Paulo as models to illustrate political, sociological and economic disparities between Brazil's upper and lower classes.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 672
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, biting, suspense
Similar in 82%
Bolivia (1999)
Plot Summary:
A Bolivian immigrant working illegally as a cook in a small restaurant in Buenos Aires suffers abuse and discrimination from its customers.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Netherlands
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: depressing, tense, sincere, atmospheric, rough, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Cyclo (1995)
Plot Summary:
Follows a young cyclo (bicycle cab) driver on his poverty-driven descent into criminality in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City. The boy's struggles to scratch out a living for his two sisters and grandfather in the mean streets of the city lead to petty crime on behalf of a mysterious Madame from whom he rents his cyclo.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Vietnam, France, Hong Kong
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: disturbing, bleak, stylized, intellectual, neo noir, controversial, rough, serious, realistic, crying
Similar in 84%
Little Athens (2005)
Plot Summary:
A day in Athens, Arizona, as teens and twenty-somethings navigate life without a compass. Jimmy has gambling debts and sees a chance to steal and sell a dead-man's stash of drugs. The corpse's cousin smells a rat. Jessica, who is babysitting, abandons her charge to seek someone to defend her from a boyfriend angry that he's caught an STD. Corey is responsible for his teen sister, and he and his pal Pedro have been evicted, so they plot to steal a car, sell it, and get back in their apartment. Heather, an EMT, thinks her cop boyfriend is cheating, and she confides in her best friend. There's a party that night where all comes to a head.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspense, independent film, crying
Similar in 89%
Blue Ridge Fall (1999)
Plot Summary:
After a boy kills his father he must turn to his frinds to cover his tracks with tests their loyality and friendship.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: crime drama, tense, serious, realistic, crying
Similar in 81%
First, Last and Deposit (2000)
Plot Summary:
Thirteen-year-old Tessa (Jessica White) faces more than the usual tribulations of adolescence. When bad times hit, she and her mother find themselves living on the streets. The injustice of poverty is emphasized by the fact that Tessa's school chums are the children of very wealthy parents, and the only way to fit in is by lying. Add the gorgeous and expensive trappings of their Santa Barbara community, and you get a portrait of cruel contradictions seen through the eyes of a young girl.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 78
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: rough, touching, serious, realistic, independent film, bleak, gloomy, crying
Similar in 84%
Rodents (1999)
Plot Summary:
The world of Salvador, a young and naive petty thief is changed by the arrival of his cousin Angel, an ex-convict in search of easy money, and with a hideout. Salvador gets wrapped up in Angel's twisted dealings in an attempt to escape from his suffocating family, dragging along his family and friends, in his criminal path. Where will this all lead?.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 894
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Ecuador
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Hurricane Streets (1997)
Plot Summary:
Marcus is a kid on Manhattan's mean streets. He's turning 15, his father is dead, his mother is in prison for smuggling undocumented aliens. His grandmother is raising him. He has four close buddies who have a basement clubhouse; they shoplift and sell the wares to kids. One is moving toward selling drugs. Marcus wants to take a breather from the city and visit family in New Mexico. He also meets Melena, 14, a sweet kid who dreams of going to Alaska; her father is not just protective but angry and uncommunicative. The gang pressures Marcus to move up to burglary and car theft. He just wants to breathe open air. Can anything go right?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: independent film, realistic, rough, bleak, serious, disturbing, clever, bad ending, sad, harsh
Similar in 88%
Life Is Hot in Cracktown (2009)
Plot Summary:
Various stories of how crack cocaine has infiltrated the inner-city streets. Based on Buddy Giovinazzo's novel "Life is Hot in Cracktown".
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: disturbing, thought provoking, serious, bleak, realistic, captivating, adaptation directed by original author
Similar in 86%
Joe the King (1999)
Plot Summary:
A destitute 14 year old struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's hands, harsher abuse at his father's, and a growing separation from his slightly older brother. Petty thefts for food grow into more major takes until he steals a cash box from the diner where he works. Although Joe uses the money to pay off some of his father's debts and to replace his mother's records that his father smashed in a fit of temper, Joe gets no thanks.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: emotional, harsh, tense, rough, grim, realistic, art house, semi autobiographical, serious, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Our Lady of the Assassins (2000)
Plot Summary:
World-weary arthur Fernando has returned to his native Colombia to live out his days in peace. But Fernando's once-quiet hometown has become a hotbed of violence, drugs and corruption. On the brink of despair, Fernando meets Alexis, a beautiful but hardened street kid who lives by the rule of the gun. Together, they forge an unlikely relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Spain, France, Colombia
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: disturbing, meditative, rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, contemplative, crying, sexy, enigmatic
Similar in 83%
From the Edge of the City (1998)
Plot Summary:
Minority-group Greeks from an outer suburb of Athens struggle with their life on society's fringe and exploitation of one another.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy, neo noir, lgbt cinema, disgusting, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 87%
Pianese Nunzio, Fourteen in May (1996)
Plot Summary:
A young priest crusades against organized crime in his Naples neighbourhood but falls in love with a 13-year old boy. It's the chance the gangsters were waiting for to get rid of the thorn in their side. Will they be able to force the boy to accuse the priest of sexual harassment and have his reputation destroyed?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 424
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sexual, crying, sexy, gay cinema, baroque
Similar in 76%
River's Edge (1986)
Plot Summary:
A group of high school friends discover that they are in the presence of a killer. One of them, Samson, has murdered his girlfriend Jamie. He brags to his friends about killing her, and when they discover he is telling the truth, their reactions vary.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: disturbing, independent film, dark, grim, creepy, cult classic, controversial, psychological, bleak, retro
Similar in 76%
Sweet Sixteen (2002)
Plot Summary:
Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK, Germany, Spain
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: disturbing, sentimental, bleak, realistic, depressing, heartbreaking, compassionate, touching, sincere, emotional
Similar in 75%
Pixote (1980)
Plot Summary:
Pixote, a 10-year-old runaway boy, is arrested on the streets of Sao Paulo during a police round-up homeless people. Pixote endures torture, degradation and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of the runaways are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old transvesite hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape where they make their living by the life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, depressing, bleak, realistic, rough, atmospheric, serious, political, controversial, hood
Similar in 80%
White Boy Rick (2018)
Plot Summary:
The story of teenager, Richard Wershe Jr., who became an undercover informant for the police during the 1980s and was ultimately arrested for drug-trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 42000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: suspense, hood, disturbing, retro, rough, neo noir, sad, independent film, non fiction, anamorphic
Similar in 83%
Tsotsi (2005)
Plot Summary:
The South African multi-award winning film about a young South African boy from the ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster. Tsotsi, who left home as a child to get away from helpless parents, finds a baby in the back seat of a car that he has just stolen. He decides that it his responsibility to take care of the baby and in the process learns that maybe the gangster life isn’t the best way.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK, South Africa
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, bleak, emotional, harsh, rough, captivating, dramatic, art house, realistic, inspirational
Similar in 90%
Blood In, Blood Out (1993)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true life experiences of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, the film focuses on half-brothers Paco and Cruz, and their bi-racial cousin Miklo. It opens in 1972, as the three are members of an East L.A. gang known as the "Vatos Locos", and the story focuses on how a violent crime and the influence of narcotics alter their lives. Miklo is incarcerated and sent to San Quentin, where he makes a "home" for himself. Cruz becomes an exceptional artist, but a heroin addiction overcomes him with tragic results. Paco becomes a cop and an enemy to his "carnal", Miklo.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 33000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: intense, bad ending, entertaining, rough, serious, realistic, disturbing, cult classic, inspirational, retro
Similar in 76%
My Crazy Life (1993)
Plot Summary:
Mousie and Sad Girl are childhood best friends in a contemporary Los Angeles poor Hispanic neighborhood. But when Sad Girl becomes pregnant by Mousie's boyfriend, a drug dealer named Ernesto, the two become bitter enemies. While their dispute escalates towards violence, the violence of the world around them soon also impacts their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: realistic, talky, serious, hood, cult classic, independent film, bleak, hispanic, crime drama, sincere
Similar in 82%
Straight Out of Brooklyn (1991)
Plot Summary:
A Special Jury Award winner at the Sundance Film Festival, this drama stars a then-19-year-old Matty Rich (who also wrote and directed it). Rich plays Larry, a troubled teen living in the rough Red Hook section of Brooklyn who decides he wants out and turns to crime to fund his escape. But his plan involves scamming the neighborhood's biggest drug kingpin, a heist that's dangerous at best.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 659
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: hood, independent film, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 80%
Squeeze (1997)
Plot Summary:
Ty, Hector, and Bao are close friends in a tough section of Boston, where they're called "the PG-13 crew." They're 14, decent kids with few skills who've bailed out of school. A small gang of older tough guys, led by Marcus and Tommy, menace them, and when the PG-13s fight back and rob one of the gang, Marcus and Tommy vow to kill them. They seek protection from Derick, a drug dealer, who agrees to help if they'll sell drugs. Meanwhile, Ty is recruited to work at a community center by J.J., its quiet leader. Ty and his friends are in a squeeze: surrounded by violence, drugs, and no opportunities, is there any way out?.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 344
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: crime drama, independent film, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 82%
Gomorrah (2008)
Plot Summary:
An inside look at Italy's modern-day crime families, the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano. Power, money and blood: these are the "values" that the residents of the Province of Naples and Caserta have to face every day. They hardly ever have a choice and are forced to obey the rules of the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 51000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: disturbing, tense, harsh, realistic, serious, brutal, depressing, bleak, anthology, thought provoking
Similar in 80%
City of Men (2007)
Plot Summary:
Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, suspense, harsh, disturbing, rough, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
Similar in 81%
New Jersey Drive (1995)
Plot Summary:
New Jersey Drive is a 1995 film about black youths in Newark, New Jersey, the unofficial "car theft capital of the world". Their favorite pastime is that of everybody in their neighborhood: stealing cars and joyriding. The trouble starts when they steal a police car and the cops launch a violent offensive that involves beating and even shooting suspects.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: realistic, hood, brutal, melancholic, rough, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, cult classic, independent film
Similar in 85%
Boyz n the Hood (1991)
Plot Summary:
Boyz n the Hood is the popular and successful film and social criticism from John Singleton about the conditions in South Central Los Angeles where teenagers are involved in gun fights and drug dealing on a daily basis.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 151000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: disturbing, tense, thought provoking, hood, cult classic, brutal, bleak, independent film, rough, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
City of God (2002)
Plot Summary:
Cidade de Deus is a shantytown that started during the 1960s and became one of Rio de Janeiro’s most dangerous places in the beginning of the 1980s. To tell the story of this place, the movie describes the life of various characters, all seen by the point of view of the narrator, Buscapé. Buscapé was raised in a very violent environment. Despite the feeling that all odds were against him, he finds out that life can be seen with other eyes.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 788000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil, France, Germany
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, bleak, hood, stylized, visual, cult classic, visually stunning, captivating, emotional