20 best movies like Awaydays (2009)

A thrilling and raw crime drama following a gang of drug dealers in Hackney, London - an honest and gripping rendition of inner-city drug and gang culture.

When a young woman is cruelly and indiscriminately attacked by a notorious gang led by the violent Trey, her little 16 year old sister Kayla wants revenge and will stop at nothing to get it, even if it means joining a rival girl gang led by the volatile and damaged man-hating Danielle.

From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.

NEDs (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize-winning schoolboy to knife-carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to NED, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to change back again, his new reality and recent past make conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable.

Mo Ali’s futuristic knife-crime drama brings the dystopian environment of CHILDREN OF MEN and DISTRICT 13 to London’s East 17. SHANK delivers a ruthless vision of forthcoming urban life, where guns have been superseded by knives and are fiercely wielded by aimless youths. Amidst the chaos is the Paper Chazers gang, a rare morally conscious group who trade scavenged food for money. After Chazers gang member, Junior (Kedar Williams-Stirling), witnesses his brother, murder he must decide whether to get revenge of stick to the gangs moral code... In this superbly paced and artistic film, present-day social issues, and murky city streets, provide a perfect canvas for imagination and action.

Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.

Set in the 1950s, a a group of young girls in upstate New York form their own gang.

Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.

Ensemble film revolving around characters living in Forest Gate, London. Over the course of a few days, six inter-linking stories explore issues of drug use, prostitution and urban poverty.

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.

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.

Nordvest is a gangsterfilm set in the suburbs of Copenhagen. Casper (18), the oldest of 3 siblings, survives life on the streets by committing burglaries for the neighbourhood boss, Jamal. When Casper gets an offer to work for Jamal’s rival Björn, he jumps at the chance for a better life, making his way into a world of drugs and prostitution. As things escalate between Björn and Jamal, Casper finds himself and his family dead center of a conflict, that threatens to destroy them.

Belfast, in 1970s. Victor Kelly is a young protestant man who hates the Catholics so much that one night he begins to brutally murder them. A reporter soon tries to uncover the murder and obtained prestige for himself, while Victor sinks deeper into madness.

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.

A dark, hip, urban story of a barren and anonymous city where the underclass' sport of choice is ram-raiding. An exciting game in which stolen cars are driven through shop windows to aid large-scale looting before the police arrive. For Tommy, it's a business, but for Billy and Jo, it's a labour of love. As the competition between Tommy and Billy grows more fierce, the stakes become higher and the "shopping" trips increasingly risky.

Deaf mute Sergey enters a specialized boarding school for deaf-and-dumb. In this new place, he needs to find his way through the hierarchy of the school’s network dealing with crimes and prostitution, the Tribe. By taking part of several robberies, he gets propelled higher into the organization. Then he meets one of the Chief’s concubines Anya, and unwillingly breaks all the unwritten rules of the tribe.

Set ahead of the 2012 London Olympics, the film follows Liam (Sam Claflin), an ex-con trying to win back the love and trust of his family. He has lost everything at the hands of a local crime syndicate run by Clifford Cullen (Spall), who has high-level connections in politics, finance and the police force. Liam's drive for redemption sees him caught up in a web of conspiracy, crime, and corruption.

A vending machine robbery by small time thief and drug addict Bobbie (Vincent Kartheiser) goes badly awry, and his friends contact street-wise thief and part-time druggie Mel (James Woods) to patch him up.Recognizing a kindred spirit, Mel befriends Bobbie and his girlfriend Rosie (Natasha Gregson Wagner), inviting them to join him and his long-suffering girlfriend Sid (Melanie Griffith) on a drug robbery which should set them up for life. The seemingly simple robbery is a great success, but the sale of the drugs afterward fails badly, and Mel and Bobbie are shot.The four take refuge with the Reverend, who charges them half of their haul from the robbery to care for them. In a desperate attempt to recover their losses, Mel involves the crew in a disastrous, ill-advised jewellery robbery, and they become caught up in a web of violence that rapidly spirals out of control.

Heli must try and protect his young family when his 12-year-old sister inadvertently involves them in the brutal drug world. He must battle against the drug cartel that have been angered as well as the corrupt police force.

Out on parole after 8 years inside Bill Hayward returns home to find his now 11 and 15 year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, an uncaring Bill is determined to move on.

The film follows the personal relationship between a father and his two sons, one of whom is a hit-man for the Russian mafia in Brooklyn.

The incredible true story of how an orphaned Jamaican baby, adopted by an elderly white couple and brought up in an all white area of London, became one of the most feared and respected men in Britain.

An underworld drama set in the early 1980s, about a lonely factory worker whose life is transformed when he becomes a nightclub doorman.

Based on the 1973 rock opera album of the same name by The Who, this is the story of 60s teenager Jimmy. At work he slaves in a dead-end job. While after, he shops for tailored suits and rides his scooter as part of the London Mod scene.

A gritty Brooklyn story about union corruption, violence, taboos and social norms. The stories told are of the sailors, the prostitute, the union bosses, the hooligans and the gay community set in the early 50s.

Based upon the true story of Bruce Johnston Sr., his son, and his brothers; together, they constituted one of suburban Philadelphia's most notorious crime families during the 1970s. Their criminal activities ranged from burglary, theft... and ultimately, murder.

George is a small-time crook just out of prison who discovers his tough-guy image is out of date. Reduced to working as a minder/driver for high class call girl Simone, he has to agree when she asks him to find a young colleague from her King's Cross days. That's when George's troubles just start.

A teen drama set during the fall potato harvest in a small northern Maine town.

When a brutal carjacking yields a videocamera, a teenage boy decides to document his life and the lives of his fellow gangbangers.

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.

A hyperactive boy and his best friend, a slow-witted youth with an affinity for horses, start collecting scrap metal for a shady dealer.

A man is put to prison for 10 years. Coming out of prison he wants to live a normal life and stop with crime but his son has yet followed the criminal path of his father.

The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.

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

Redheaded teen Remy is bullied by his soccer teammates and drawn into fights with his younger sister and mother in their cramped apartment. After a flare-up of domestic violence, he flees home and is tracked down by a bitter guidance counselor, Patrick, also a redhead. Patrick looks upon Remy’s sullen insolence with both sympathy and disdain and decides to toughen him up...

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.

1950s New York City. A bad and bloody gang war is about to erupt on the dysfunctional streets of Brooklyn. The Deuces at war with the vicious Vipers. Scott Kalvert directs this tale of lust, drugs, mayhem and madness during one hot summer on the streets of New York.

Sobering and incisive, this cautionary drama centers on a street tough 18-year-old facing a moral quandary while trying to turn his life around.

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.

A tough gang of teenage girls are looking for love and fighting for turf on the mean streets of the city! Bad girls to the core, these impossibly outrageous high school hoodlums go where they want ... and create mayhem wherever they go!

A lurid, dark look into the lives of sex workers, where victims of child abuse deal with the consequences later in life.

In 1995, drug suppliers and career criminals Tony Tucker, Patrick Tate and Craig Rolfe were blasted to death by a shot gun whilst waiting in a Range Rover in Rettendon, Essex. The film charts their rise to become the most prolific dealers and feared criminals in the south of England, maintaining the hold on their empire with fear and violence until their untimely death.

Charts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish.

Lucas, a 14-year-old boy inducted into the gang life in Washington D.C., is determined that his 10-year-old brother won't follow the same path. When an Afghanistan war veteran comes into the neighborhood, an opportunity arises.

While playing outside one day, nine-year-old Michele discovers Filippo, who is chained to the ground at the bottom of a hole. Michele witnesses town baddie Felice nearby and suspects something bad is happening. Michele is unsure whom he should tell about his discovery, eventually spilling the beans to his closest friend. Michele's parents learn of his discovery and warn him to forget what he saw

Ajami is an area of Tel Aviv in Israel where Arabs, Palestinians, Jews and Christians live together in a tense atmosphere. Omar, an Israeli Arab, struggles to save his family from a gang of extortionists. He also courts a beautiful Christian girl: Hadir. Malek, an illegal Palestinian worker, tries to collect enough money to pay for his mother's operation. Dando, an Israeli cop, does his utmost to find his missing brother who may have been killed by Palestinians.

Will Graham, a former London crime boss who has left his former life to live as a recluse in the forest. Haunted by the blood of those he has murdered, Will wishes never to return. But when his brother commits suicide, following a sexual assault at the hands of a volatile car dealer, Will returns to London to discover the cause of his brother's death and administer justice to those responsible.

Mick O'Brien is a young Chicago street thug torn between a life of petty crime and the love of his girlfriend. But when the heist of a local drug dealer goes tragically wrong Mick is sentenced to a brutal juvenile prison where violence is a rite of passage and respect is measured in vengeance.

Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.

Caged tells the story of a teenage newlywed, who is sent to prison for being an accessory to a robbery. Her experiences while incarcerated, along with the killing of her husband, change her from a very frightened young girl into a hardened convict.