20 best movies like Ash Wednesday (2002)

A thriller set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on a the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.

Brooklyn mobster and prolific hit man Jimmy Conlon has seen better days. Longtime best friend of a mob boss, Jimmy is haunted by the sins of his past—as well as a dogged police detective who’s been one step behind Jimmy for 30 years. But when Jimmy’s estranged son becomes a target, Jimmy must make a choice between the crime family he chose and the real family he abandoned long ago. Now, with nowhere safe to turn, Jimmy has just one night to figure out exactly where his loyalties lie and to see if he can finally make things right.

A hotel cabana boy falls for the wife of a powerful politico. But when she confesses to the affair, her husband determines to end it forever.

After witnessing her lover being murdered by his jealous wife, Angela seeks refuge in a church where she encounters a young priest named Michael, who gives her sanctuary. But the killing was not a simple act of passion, as the victim had ties to organized crime, and, surprisingly, so does Michael, whose father is a powerful don. When the priest finds himself falling in love with Angela, his religious vows and family ties are both severely tested.

Mary is a hit woman working for an organized crime family in Boston, whose life is completely turned around when she meets a young boy whose path she crosses when a professional hit goes bad.

The story of a group of friends in turn of the century New York, from their early days as street hoods to their rise in the world of organized crime...

The seemingly random killings of an assassin puzzle her former lover, a wealthy Greek crime boss whose organization is jeopardized by his love for her, and the detective following her rising body count

A Los Angeles detective is sent to New York where he must solve a case involving an old Sicilian Mafia family feud.

Eight years after fleeing the Congo following his assassination of that country's minister of mining, former assassin Jim Terrier is back, suffering from PTSD and digging wells to atone for his violent past. After an attempt is made on his life, Terrier flies to London to find out who wants him dead -- and why. Terrier's search leads him to a reunion with Annie, a woman he once loved, who is now married to an oily businessman with dealings in Africa.

Strippers in Manhattan are being stalked and murdered by a psycho. A hard-nosed police detective and a conflicted ex-boxer-turned-private-eye, hired by the strip club owners, set out to find him before he strikes again.

While Mike Keegan is celebrating his recent promotion to detective, in a fancy nightclub socialite Claire Gregory witnesses the murder of the owner by powerful mobster, Joey Venza. Mike is assigned to protect her in the night shift in her Manhattan apartment. When Venza threatens Claire, Mike and Claire eventually become closer—and Mike finds himself divided between the love for his family and his heated passion for Claire and his fascination of her world.

Upstanding community leader Nils has just won an award for "Citizen of the Year" when he learns the news that his son has died of a heroin overdose. Suspecting foul play, Nils begins to investigate, and soon finds himself at the center of an escalating underworld gang war between Serbian drug dealers and a sociopathic criminal mastermind known only as “The Count.”

The Limey follows Wilson, a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.

Valerie is a juror in the trail of a mob boss. When her young son's life is threatened, she has no option other than to see that justice isn't done.

A hit man and his partner try to find out why their latest victim, a former race-car driver, did not try to get away.

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.

Lionel Essrog, a private detective living with Tourette syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and best friend — a mystery that carries him from the gin-soaked jazz clubs of Harlem to the slums of Brooklyn to the gilded halls of New York's power brokers.

Paul Kersey is back at working vigilante justice when when his fiancée, Olivia, has her business threatened by mobsters

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.

Remake of the British classic. Jack Carter, a mob enforcer living in Las Vegas, travels back to his hometown of Seattle for his brother's funeral. During this visit, Carter realizes that the death of his brother was not accidental, but a murder. With this knowledge, Carter sets out to kill all those responsible.

After a violent encounter, Roy finds Rocky and sees something in her eyes that prompts a fateful decision. He takes her with him as he flees to Galveston, an action as ill-advised as it is inescapable.

A man is out for justice after a group of corrupt police officers are unable to catch his wife's killer.

Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives, but when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.

The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

An elite hitman returns to erase his past only to find that somebody has messed with his future.

Jeff, a young delinquent, is enrolled by his father in a kenpo school, in the hopes of teaching the boy some self-discipline. Years later, Jeff's mentor, Kim, is being threatened by one of the Korean mafia families. Jeff tries to help his old friend, but is too late to prevent Kim's death at the hands of an unknown hitman. Vowing revenge, Jeff takes on all of the families, using his martial arts skills to find the man who killed his friend.

When a robbery goes awry, the bandits all end up in a puddle of blood and only one lives and goes to jail for five years. Upon his release, the girlfriend wants her new boyfriend to kill him. Only trouble is the boyfriend knows that the fault was not the ex-con's and can't bring himself to do the task. Meanwhile, the ex-con tries to turn his life around by becoming a boxer and training under a former heavyweight contender.

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

Ernest (Stick) Stickley just out of prison agrees to help a friend deliver a package. It's a setup and his friend is killed. Stick is going to find out why!

An unconventional undercover Chicago cop and his partner are recruited to commit the murder of a New Orleans criminal kingpin.

A surrogate mother harbors a deadly secret desire for a family of her own with the husband who is expecting to raise her child.

In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.

When his partner is killed in the line of duty, Artie Lewis becomes the legal guardian of his three orphaned girls. But during his investigation of the case, Lewis finds his life – and that of his newfound family – on the line. That's when the guilty crime-lord comes face to face with one man's rage, one man's fury, one man's justice.

In the dark heart of a sprawling, anonymous city, two assassins carry out a sinister mission, a teacher battles a fatal illness, and an enigmatic janitor and a curious waitress lead dangerous double lives. Murderous consequences unravel in the dead of night, as their lives intertwine at the hands of a mysterious criminal mastermind who is hell-bent on revenge.

Sam Clayton's marriage to ex-stripper Freddie comes about when she's strong-armed into the match by Red, a club proprietor who once did her a favor. But Freddie falls in love with Jjaks, Sam's brother, and the pair tries to escape the situation together. It isn't long before both Sam and Red catch up with them, resulting in threats against the two of them -- although tension also starts to build between Sam and Red.

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

A law firm brings in its 'fixer' to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.

A man wakes up in an alley, bleeding and with no memory of who he is. He stumbles into a coffee shop and is befriended by a charitable ex-nun who is failing in her attempts to write marketable pornography.

John Gotti rises to the top of the New York underworld to become the boss of the Gambino crime family. His life takes a tumultuous turn as he faces tragedy, multiple trials and a prison sentence.

Retired cop Eddie Burns gave 15 years and the use of his left arm to the Reno homicide squad. When his wayward sister, Kassie, goes missing Eddie Burns finds himself subjected to a fiendish and ingenious campaign of revenge by the mysterious Charlie Strom. In order to protect his sister, Eddie - disabled, betrayed and alone - journeys into the heart of his own darkness: where he discovers that the reason for his ordeal lies in his own past sins and those of his adversary Charlie Strom.

After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner, former detective Johnny Blake publicly punches him, convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob. "Bugs" Fenner, meanwhile, is certain that Blake is a police agent.

Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.

New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.

Callum Crane, a lawyer and would-be federal judge, jeopardizes his chances at a judgeship by forcing himself on his secretary. He then worsens the situation by trying to have the woman murdered. Further complicating matters, he assigns the task to a young man who, unbeknownst to Crane, is actually his son, Nathan. Nathan refuses to do the deed, but not before informing several people, one of whom tries to take on the job.

Having both lost their jobs, two strangers become unlikely friends after a run in with a would be robber, who is actually a hitman with a grudge against the two.

Gino Felino (Steven Seagal) is an NYPD detective from Brooklyn who knows everyone and everything in his neighborhood. Killing his Partner was someone's mistake, because he's now Out For Justice.

In New York, the boys Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly are best friends and small time thieves. After a robbery, Rocky is arrested and sent to a reformatory school, where he begins his criminal career. Jerry escapes and later becomes a priest. After three years in prison, Rocky is released and demands the return of $100,000 deposited with his solicitor - prior to his jail term.

Millionaire industrialist Steven Taylor is a man who has everything but what he craves most: the love and fidelity of his wife. A hugely successful player in the New York financial world, he considers her to be his most treasured acquisition. But she needs more than simply the role of dazzling accessory.

Just retired from the Drug Enforcement Agency, John Hatcher returns to his hometown and quickly discovers that drugs have infiltrated his old neighborhood. Determined to drive the dealers out, Hatcher crosses paths with a ferocious Jamaican drug lord who vows that Hatcher and his family are now marked for death.