Best movies like The Narrows
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A 19 year old Brooklyn boy who is torn between two worlds when his photography portfolio wins him a partial scholarship to NYU. He must figure out how to balance his Italian neighborhood roots with the expansive, sophisticated world on the other side of the East River. Based on Tim McLoughlin's novel "Heart of the Old Country".
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: serious, tense, captivating, psychological, suspense, realistic
Best tv shows and movies like The Narrows (2008):
Similar in 76%
The Girl (2012)
Plot Summary:
A young Texan mother who loses her child to foster care begins smuggling Mexicans across the border.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, tense, captivating, suspense, indie film, sincere, serious, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Homeland (2010)
Plot Summary:
In a country shaken by major political events, three generations of a Greek family clash over an inside-the-family adoption.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 455
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Greece
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, psychological, tense, captivating, gloomy, biting, suspense
Similar in 84%
King of the Jungle (2000)
Plot Summary:
Seymore is a young man with the mind of a child. He loves three things in life: basketball, sneaking out for cigarettes, and his mother. But all life's simple pleasures are brutally torn from him when he witnesses his mother gunned down by a neighborhood punk. Now Seymore must overcome the child within as he rises up to fight for some kind of justice. It's a fight that will take him out into the streets where there are few friends and many enemies -- and one of them is a killer who wants him silenced.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 590
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, tense, disturbing, independent film, bleak, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 76%
Affluenza (2014)
Plot Summary:
An aspiring young photographer finds himself caught up in a heady world of money, sex, and privilege when he moves to wealthy Long Island in the summer of 2008.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 764
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, independent film, suspense, tense, disturbing, biting
Similar in 85%
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1998)
Plot Summary:
In New York, armed men hijack a subway car and demand a ransom for the passengers. Even if it's paid, how could they get away?.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, realistic, suspenseful, serious, disaster movie
Similar in 80%
One Eyed King (2001)
Plot Summary:
Residents of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen attempt to balance family and friendship against the harsh street life that unfolds around them.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 454
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, realistic, independent film
Similar in 84%
Once Fallen (2010)
Plot Summary:
When Chance (Brian Presley) returns home after five years in jail, he is determined to escape his past, start a new life and make peace with his father, (Ed Harris, Golden Globe® winner), who is the head of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang and serving a life sentence for murder. Upon his release, his dreams of a crime-free future begin to disintegrate when he is forced to assume his best friend's outrageous debt to a local mobster. Despite being thrust back into a world of organized fighting, drug dealing and ties to corrupt police agents, Chance falls in love with Pearl (Academy Award® nominee Taraji P. Henson) and the prospect of living a normal life seems almost within reach. But will he be able to escape the crimes of his father and his past?.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: captivating, tense, serious, psychological, bleak, realistic, fast
Similar in 79%
No Turning Back (2001)
Plot Summary:
Mexican English teacher Pablo Fernandez seeks a better life for himself and his spoiled daughter Christina after losing his wife in a hurricane. Pablo becomes a tomato picker as illegal immigrant in California. While driving his illegal employer Charlie's truck, he accidentally runs over Dinah Knightly, who later dies. Dumb, arrogant detective Bryant and brighter but superstitious rookie Steven Lightning investigate and set chase.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 331
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, Spain, Australia
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: tense, touching, serious, suspenseful, realistic
Similar in 80%
Tommy (2014)
Plot Summary:
After a year abroad Estelle returns home to collect her husband's share of the loot from a major robbery.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Sweden, Sri Lanka
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, psychological, suspense, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 79%
After the Fall (2014)
Plot Summary:
Bill Scanlin loses his job and embarks on a life of crime. As Bill stays ahead of the law, he discovers that sometimes the only thing worse than getting caught is getting away with it.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, realistic, captivating, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 82%
Duress (2009)
Plot Summary:
Haunted with nightmares of his wife's recent suicide and struggling to mend the relationship with his only daughter, Richard is caught as a witness to the violence of Abner Solvie. He finds himself at the mercy of a charismatic killer and plagued by his involvement in the city's recent murders. As Abner's new found protégé, Richard is forced to adopt the mind of his sociopathic mentor in order to protect the one he loves. Richard must decide if he's willing to kill in order to keep his daughter alive.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, psychological, suspense, rough, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
Five Star (2014)
Plot Summary:
After John’s absent father is struck by a stray bullet, Primo takes it upon himself to verse the young boy in the code of the streets—one founded on respect and upheld by fear. A member of the Bloods since the age of twelve—both in the film and in reality—the streets of Brooklyn are all Primo has ever known. While John questions whether or not to enter into this life, Primo must decide whether to leave it all behind as he vows to become a better husband and father. Set during those New York summer weeks where the stifling heat seems to encase everything, Five Star plunges into gang culture with searing intensity. Director Keith Miller observes the lives of these two men with a quiet yet pointed distance, carefully eschewing worn clichés through its unflinching focus. Distinctions between fiction and real life remain intentionally ambiguous, allowing the story of these two men to resonate beyond the streets, as they face the question of what it means to be a man.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, hood, tense, sincere, rough, bleak
Similar in 77%
Bad Turn Worse (2013)
Plot Summary:
Three teenage friends get in way over their head when they cross a down-home crime syndicate. They hope to make a break for it and escape their dead-end existence in a cotton-mill town but get sucked into the seedy underbelly of organized crime when one of them steals from the wrong man.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: bleak, captivating, tense, serious, suspense, rough, neo noir, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 88%
Avenge the Crows (2017)
Plot Summary:
A former gang member and her young cousin become embroiled in a vendetta between L.A. gangs, as rivals seek revenge for old crimes.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 423
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: tense, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, crime drama
Similar in 80%
Marseille (2014)
Plot Summary:
Alex, the son of a gang boss from Marseilles, joins the French Foreign Legion to avoid a hit put out on him by the Corsican Mafia. Four years later, Alex deserts and returns to Marseilles to get back together with Katia, his former girlfriend. But in the city, relationships have changed.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 315
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: captivating, psychological, tense, suspense, rough, serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 89%
Steel City (2006)
Plot Summary:
After a tragic accident caused by the truck of the middle-aged Carl Lee where a woman dies with a crushed stern, he is arrested and sent to the county jail. His son PJ, who works washing dishes and cleaning tables in a restaurant, feels lost, without financial support to keep his father's house, and is fired from his job and evicted from his house.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 622
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: emotional, psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, independent film, gloomy
Similar in 87%
The Gambler (2014)
Plot Summary:
Literature professor Jim Bennett leads a secret life as a high-stakes gambler. Always a risk-taker, Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster and offers his own life as collateral. Staying one step ahead, he pits his creditor against the operator of an illicit gambling ring while garnering the attention of Frank, a paternalistic loan shark. As his relationship with a student deepens, Bennett must risk everything for a second chance.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 73000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: clever, psychological, suspense, suspenseful, serious, tense, rough, realistic, cynical, independent film
Similar in 84%
Choking Man (2006)
Plot Summary:
The social anxiety of a morbidly shy Ecuadorian dishwasher working in a Queens diner provides the psychological engine that powers this blend of drama and magical realism.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 597
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, touching, captivating, psychological, sentimental, serious, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie (2003)
Plot Summary:
A troubled teen is given the chance to redeem his criminal debt to society.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 594
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK, USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
Illegal Tender (2007)
Plot Summary:
After the gangsters who killed his father come to settle a score, a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on the killers - one Latino family's quest for honor and revenge as the hunted become the hunters.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, captivating, psychological, suspense, crime drama, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
West 32nd (2007)
Plot Summary:
When John Kim, an ambitious young lawyer, takes on a pro bono case to exonerate a fourteen-year-old boy from a first degree murder charge, he finds a world he never knew existed in the underbelly of Manhattan - the Korean underworld.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 534
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: South Korea, USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: tense, atmospheric, captivating, psychological, suspense, crime drama, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 89%
The Ministers (2009)
Plot Summary:
A NYPD detective attempts to avenge the death of her father, but unwittingly becomes involved with one of his killers.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, psychological, suspense, rough, realistic, suspenseful, independent film, detective
Similar in 87%
Gloria (1999)
Plot Summary:
Sharon Stone plays a street-wise, middle-aged moll standing up against the mobs, all of which is complicated by a 6 year old urchin with a will of his own who she reluctantly takes under her wing after his family has been gunned down.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: suspense, serious, suspenseful, touching, erotic, neo noir, tense, rough, emotional, realistic
Similar in 82%
Cymbeline (2014)
Plot Summary:
War erupts between dirty cops and outlaw bikers as a drug kingpin (Ed Harris) tries to protect his empire.
IMDB Rating: 3.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: rough, suspenseful, tense, clever, serious, realistic, independent film, retro, sweet
Similar in 76%
Real Gangsters (2013)
Plot Summary:
Real Gangsters tells the story of the Lo Giacamo family, one of the most successful crime syndicates in New York City. Run by cousins Vincent Lo Giacamo and Jack Lo Giacamo, Real Gangsters shows how these two men maintain control of their dangerous extended family and volatile business ventures by very different means.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Canada
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, captivating, cynical, rough, independent film
Similar in 83%
Laws of Gravity (1992)
Plot Summary:
Jimmy and Jon are a couple of Brooklyn guys who somehow never found their way into workaday society; they never found their way into big-time crime, either.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: neo noir, independent film, tense, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, neorealism, cult film
Similar in 84%
Strays (1997)
Plot Summary:
Rick (Diesel) is frustrated by the repetitious grind of one-night stands and aimless hustling. Whilst looking for more to his life he meets Heather (Lanza), a neighbour. Rick takes the opportunity to escape his boring life style with her, but soon finds that his volatile behaviour threatens to finish their relationship before it even really begins.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: cult classic, tense, serious, realistic
Similar in 75%
Outlaw Country (2012)
Plot Summary:
A crime thriller/family drama set against the backdrop of southern organized crime and Nashville royalty where music, love, hope and tragedy collide. Created as a pilot for a TV Series which was not taken up, this has now been aired as a TV Movie.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 715
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, suspenseful, captivating, tense, independent film, rough
Similar in 86%
Gang Tapes (2001)
Plot Summary:
When a brutal carjacking yields a videocamera, a teenage boy decides to document his life and the lives of his fellow gangbangers.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, hood, tense, suspense, crime drama, realistic
Similar in 82%
Of Boys and Men (2008)
Plot Summary:
Robert Townsend stars as the patriarch of a family devastated when his wife is killed in a senseless auto accident. Reeling with grief, each family member must find courage and vision to carry on, ultimately eager to do the mother proud.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, touching, serious, independent film