Best movies like The Principal

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Gleaming the Cube (1989)

Plot Summary:

An Orange County teenager's carefree life of ditching class and skateboarding abandoned pools comes to a screeching halt when his adopted Vietnamese brother dies. The cops rule the death a suicide, but the bereaved skater believes he was murdered. It's up to him to solve the case, with a skateboard.

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The Brotherhood of Justice (1986)

Plot Summary:

A group of high school students, led by a rich boy Derek, is sick of school violence and decides to become underground vigilantes named "Brotherhood of Justice". It starts with the idea "watching people", but things quickly get out of control. "Brotherhood of Justice" turns out another gang of violence. Derek wants to stop it but it is too late, so he takes responsibility for it and gives himself to the law.

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3:15 (1986)

Plot Summary:

Violent crime is routine. Organized drug trade runs rampant in the face of powerless authority. And a vicious street gang holds dominion with a savage reign of terror. Welcome to Lincoln High! Here the cobras rule the school and everyone in it. Everyone except for Jeff Hanna.

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Young Warriors (1983)

Plot Summary:

After a young woman is gang raped and murdered in a California college town, her brother takes up arms by night with a gang of like-minded vigilantes from his fraternity, brutally punishing any miscreants they catch in a criminal act.

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Fighting Back (1982)

Plot Summary:

It's a hard crime story about a Philadelphia shop owner who has enough of the criminals' violences and ravages. He organizes a patrol of civil people. It all starts to go wrong because his team's actions are taken as racial discrimination.

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Enemy Territory (1987)

Plot Summary:

An insurance salesman inadvertently gets trapped after dark in an apartment building that is terrorized by a street gang called "The Vampires.".

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Chains of Gold (1990)

Plot Summary:

Scott Barnes is an alcoholic turned social worker hellbent on saving a young boy named Tommy from self-destructing when he finds out he has begun selling crack in an organization called YIP, run by Carlos.

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The Substitute 2: School's Out (1998)

Plot Summary:

When teacher Randall Thomasson is killed during a carjacking, an unexpected visitor shows up at his funeral - his estranged brother, Karl Thomasson (Treat Williams). An ex-Green Beret turned mercenary. Karl signs on as a new substitute teacher in order to investigate Randall's murder.

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Stone Cold (1991)

Plot Summary:

Joe Huff (Brian Bosworth) is a tough, loner cop with a flair for infiltrating dangerous biker gangs. The FBI blackmail Joe into an undercover operation that entails infiltrating "The Brotherhood" - a powerful Mississippi biker gang linked in the murder of government officials as well as dealing drugs with the mafia.

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Dangerously Close (1986)

Plot Summary:

Rebel without a cause or a clue at an elite but uptight college discovers some of his classmates have formed an even more elite clique more or less hell-bent on ridding the school, and quite possibly American society, of what they deem to be its undesirables because of ethnicity, politics, etc. Our hero recruits a teacher and some other "less desirable" classmates to undermine the elitists, and, naturally, things get quite violent.

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Class of 1984 (1982)

Plot Summary:

Andy is a new teacher at a inner city high school that is like nothing he has ever seen before. There is metal detectors at the front door and everything is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and Stegman become enemies and Stegman will stop at nothing to protect his turf and drug dealing business.

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Gang Related (1997)

Plot Summary:

Two corrupt cops have a successful, seemingly perfect money making scheme- they sell drugs that they seize from dealers, kill the dealers, and blame the crimes on street gangs. Their scheme is going along smoothly until they kill an undercover DEA agent posing as a dealer, and then try to cover-up their crime.

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One Eight Seven (1997)

Plot Summary:

After surviving a stabbing by a student, teacher Trevor Garfield moves from New York to Los Angeles. There, he resumes teaching as a substitute teacher. The education system, where violent bullies control the classrooms and the administration is afraid of lawsuits, slowly drives Garfield mad.

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Boy Wonder (2010)

Plot Summary:

A young Brooklyn boy witnesses the brutal murder of his mother and grows up obsessed with finding her killer. Thus begins his life as a quiet, straight-A student by day and a self-appointed hero at night. But what is a real hero? And who decides what is right or wrong? As the boundaries blur, Sean's dual life wears on his psyche and his two worlds careen dangerously close to colliding. Like a graphic novel you can't put down, Boy Wonder challenges morality, distorting perceptions of what is right and what is justified, as it races to its shocking conclusion.

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Crack House (1989)

Plot Summary:

Rick and Melissa are a pair of young lovers hoping to get out of the slums for good and escape the poverty and crime their families and friends have gotten involved in. All this comes to an end when Rick feels he must rejoin his old gang to avenge the killing of his brother by a rival gang. In the course of getting even, Rick is arrested, leaving Melissa without anyone to protect her. She falls in with a crack dealer and quickly becomes addicted to the drug. When she gets sold to a drug kingpin by a minor dealer to pay off a debt, only Rick can save her.

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Judgment Night (1993)

Plot Summary:

While racing to a boxing match, Frank, Mike, John and Rey get more than they bargained for. A wrong turn lands them directly in the path of Fallon, a vicious, wise-cracking drug lord. After accidentally witnessing Fallon murder a disloyal henchman, the four become his unwilling prey in a savage game of cat & mouse as they are mercilessly stalked through the urban jungle in this taut suspense drama.

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Savage Streets (1984)

Plot Summary:

A teenage vigilante seeks revenge on a group of violent thugs who raped her handicapped sister and murdered her best friend.

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Death Wish II (1982)

Plot Summary:

Paul Kersey is again a vigilante trying to find five punks who murdered his housekeeper and daughter in Los Angeles.

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An Innocent Man (1989)

Plot Summary:

Jimmie Rainwood was minding his own business when two corrupt police officers (getting an address wrong) burst into his house, expecting to find a major drug dealer. Rainwood is shot, and the officers frame him as a drug dealer. Rainwood is convicted of drug dealing, based on the perjured evidence of a police informant. Thrown into a seedy jail, fighting to prove his innocence is diffucult when he has to deal with the realities of prison life, where everyone claims they were framed.

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Snitch'd (2003)

Plot Summary:

When the South Side Gang and the Cut Throat Mafia start a drug war at a local high school in Santa Ana, CA, detective McClure goes undercover to investigate the brutal murder of a young Latina student. The gang members are the key suspects but nobody is talking. And as McClure continues to dig for answers, it becomes clear that the two gangs are fighting for territory - and nobody is getting in their way.

IMDB Rating: 2.1

IMDB Votes: 205

Genere: Action, Adventure, Thriller, Crime, Drama

Country: USA

Duration: 86 min

Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film, bleak