Best movies like Scum

Similar in 78%

Awaydays (2009)

Plot Summary:

On the Wirral in the grim early years of Margaret Thatcher's premiership, the opportunities for thrill seeking young men looking to escape 9 to 5 drudgery are what they've always been: sex, drugs, rock n' roll, fashion, football and fighting.

Similar in 83%

Screwed (2011)

Plot Summary:

The film is a semi-biographical story based on the experiences of former prison guard Ronnie Thompson who spent seven years working in some of the UK's most dangerous prisons. Based on Thompson's book of the same name, the project stars James D'Arcy (Master & Commander), Noel Clarke (Kidulthood), Frank Harper (The Football Factory), Jamie Foreman (Layer Cake), Andrew Shim (This Is England) and Kate Magowan (Stardust). The story revolves around former soldier Sam Norwood who takes a job as a prison officer when he returns from Iraq and becomes exposed to the underworld of prison culture - including corrupt guards and drug trafficking.

Similar in 89%

Face (1997)

Plot Summary:

Ray is an aging ex-socialist who has become a bankrobber after seeing the demise of socialism in 1980s Britain. Teaming up with a gang of other has-beenish crims, he commits one bank job too many. The gang dissolves in a murderous flurry of recriminations.

Similar in 88%

44 Inch Chest (2009)

Plot Summary:

Provocative, outrageously profane and surprisingly tender amidst an explosion of unbridled testosterone, 44 INCH CHEST explores the masculine ego at breaking point, testing whether fear is stronger than love. Colin (Ray Winstone) is in agony, shattered by his wife’s (Joanne Whalley) infidelity, so his friends kidnap the wife's lover so he can have his revenge.

Similar in 77%

Stoic (2009)

Plot Summary:

A heated game of poker causes three men incarcerated for nonviolent offenses to brutalize their cellmate before taking drastic measures in order to cover up their crime.

Similar in 75%

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.

Similar in 88%

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.

Similar in 84%

Carandiru (2003)

Plot Summary:

Carandiru, a story based on real facts and on the book written by the doctor Drauzio Varella, starts when he decides to carry out an AIDS prevention program inside Latin America’s largest prison: the Casa de Detenção de São Paulo, Carandiru, the victim of one of the darkest days in Brazilian History, when the State of São Paulo’s Military Police, with the excuse for law enforcement, shot to death 111 people.

Similar in 82%

Starred Up (2013)

Plot Summary:

19-year-old Eric, arrogant and ultra-violent, is prematurely transferred to the same adult prison facility as his estranged father. As his explosive temper quickly finds him enemies in both prison authorities and fellow inmates — and his already volatile relationship with his father is pushed past breaking point — Eric is approached by a volunteer psychotherapist, who runs an anger management group for prisoners. Torn between gang politics, prison corruption, and a glimmer of something better, Eric finds himself in a fight for his own life, unsure if his own father is there to protect him or join in punishing him.

Similar in 86%

McVicar (1980)

Plot Summary:

John McVicar was a London Bad Boy. he graduated to armed bank robbery and was Britain's "Public Enemy No. 1". He was captured and put into a high security prison. Will even the highest security prison be able to hold him? This is the true story of his life, his criminal exploits and his eventual rehabilitation.

Similar in 90%

A Prophet (2009)

Plot Summary:

Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.

Similar in 84%

Animal Factory (2000)

Plot Summary:

A young man goes to prison and a tough, older convict takes him under his wing as a mentor.

Similar in 80%

This Is England (2006)

Plot Summary:

A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.

Similar in 81%

The Proposition (2005)

Plot Summary:

Set in the Australian outback in the 1880s, the movie follows the series of events following the horrific rape and murder of the Hopkins family, allegedly committed by the infamous Burns brothers gang. Captain Morris Stanley captures Charlie Burns and gives him 9 days to kill his older dangerous psychopathic brother, or else they'll hang his younger mentally slow brother on Christmas Day.

Similar in 87%

Dog Pound (2010)

Plot Summary:

Three juvenile delinquents arrive at a correctional center and are put under the care of an experienced guard.

Similar in 80%

Scum (1979)

Plot Summary:

This is the hard and shocking story of life in a British Borstal for young offenders. The brutal regime made no attempt to reform or improve the inmates and actively encouraged a power struggle between the 'tough' new inmate and the 'old hands'. The film was originally made as a BBC play but it was banned before ever being shown.

Similar in 79%

Brubaker (1980)

Plot Summary:

The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.

Similar in 75%

American History X (1998)

Plot Summary:

Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two thugs who tried to break into/steal his truck. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.