20 best movies like Babylon (2014)

Keeping these streets clean is a Herculean task, enough to demoralize even the keenest rookie – but there’s a reason why this hotchpotch of committed cops are on this force, on this side of town. Drug labs, arsonists, neo-Nazis and notorious murderers are all in a day’s work for this close-knit team, led by the dizzyingly capable but unquestionably unhinged DI Vivienne Deering. But when a particularly twisted serial killer emerges it leaves even the most hardened of these seasoned coppers reeling.

1994, a small town in central Scotland. Best mates Johnno and Spanner, despite being total opposites, have a deep bond. Now on the cusp of adulthood, life is destined to take them in different directions – Johnno’s family are moving him to a new town and a better life, leaving Spanner behind to face a precarious future. But this summer is going to be different for them, and for the country. The explosion of the free party scene and the largest counter-cultural youth movement in recent history is happening across the UK.

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 SHANK delivers a ruthless vision of forthcoming urban life, where guns have been superseded by knives and are fiercely wielded by aimless youths.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.

Two boys, still grieving the death of their mother, find themselves the unwitting benefactors of a bag of bank robbery loot in the week before the United Kingdom switches its official currency to the Euro. What's a kid to do?

American couple Jake and Tina are living in an expensive London hotel above their means, incurring a sizeable debt. When they are asked to pay a lavish dinner bill and Jake's card is declined, he suggests they sell Tina's tiny, expensive Henry Moore sculpture to cover the debt. After they hatch a scheme to claim the sculpture was stolen in order to collect insurance on it, the sculpture mysteriously goes missing.

Kenneth (who likes to call himself Kay) begins to realise he's just another wannabe bad boy... even less than a loser in fact. After quitting his job at Laimsbury's, Kay vows to become a respected gangster... or cry trying. A pulls-no-punches, coming-of-age story, centering on one directionless hopeless "shotter", who finds his true worth in the face of urban adversity.

Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.

Sam & Fordy run a credit card fraud scheme, but when they steal from the wrong man, they find themselves threatened by sadistic gangster. They need to raise £5m and pull off a daring diamond heist to clear their debt.

Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.

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.

A group of people who feel betrayed by their government and let down by their police force form a modern-day outlaw posse in order to right what they see as the wrongs of society.

Detective Yvonne is the widow of police chief Santi, a local hero in a town on the French Riviera. When she learns he was in fact a crooked cop, she tries to right his wrongs. Crossing paths with Antoine, a victim of Santi, sets off a series of wild events.

Will Plunkett and Captain James Macleane, two men from different ends of the social spectrum in 18th-century England, enter a gentlemen's agreement: They decide to rid the aristocrats of their belongings. With Plunkett's criminal know-how and Macleane's social connections, they team up to be soon known as "The Gentlemen Highwaymen". But when one day these gentlemen hold up Lord Chief Justice Gibson's coach, Macleane instantly falls in love with his beautiful and cunning niece, Lady Rebecca Gibson. Unfortunately, Thief Taker General Chance, who also is quite fond of Rebecca, is getting closer and closer to getting both.

After spending 12 years in prison for keeping his mouth shut, notorious safe-cracker Dom Hemingway is back on the streets of London looking to collect what he's owed.

Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce. In a storm of razor-sharp verbal jousting and large-scale set pieces, Four Lions is a comic tour de force; it shows that-while terrorism is about ideology-it can also be about idiots.

The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.

The two tradesmen Ib and Edward are tired of their lifeless marriages and dream of living the good life from the stash of money they've earned moonlighting for years. After a huge fight with their wives the two men get drunk and hire a Russian contract killer to do a hit on their spouses. But they have badly underestimated their wives, and this becomes the start of an absurd journey where Ib and Edward to their own horror end at the top of a kill list.

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.

Dick died last night, and Zeke and Earl don’t want anybody finding out how. That’s too bad though, cause news travels fast in small-town Alabama.

Fate, the pensions crisis and a steadfast refusal to accept the injustice of old age have contrived to force law abiding, retired couple, Arthur and Martha Goode into a life of crime.

An old Jewish baker struggles to keep his business afloat until his young Muslim apprentice accidentally drops cannabis in the dough and sends sales sky high.

A video camcorder, a store security camera, and concealed cameras candidly expose lives in three loosely linked tales.

A crooked cop, a mob boss and the young girl they abuse are the denizens of a city's criminal underworld. It's a world that ordinary Arthur Poppington doesn't understand and doesn't belong in, but is committed to fighting when he changes into a vigilante super-hero of his own making, Defendor. With no power other than courage Defendor takes to the streets to protect the city's innocents.

A private investigator helps a former flame solve the murder of her wealthy grandfather, who lived in a sprawling estate surrounded by his idiosyncratic family.

Paulette lives alone in a housing project in the Paris suburbs. With her meager pension, she can no longer make ends meet.

In this luminous tale set in the former Yugoslavia, Perhan, an engaging young Romany with telekinetic powers, is seduced by the quick-cash world of petty crime that threatens to destroy him and those he loves.

Based in a London suburb Mahmud Nasir lives with his wife, Saamiya, and two children, Rashid and Nabi. His son plans to marry Uzma, the step-daughter of Egyptian-born Arshad Al-Masri, a so-called 'Hate Cleric' from Waziristan, Pakistan. Mahmud, who is not exactly a devout Muslim, he drinks alcohol, and does not pray five times, but does agree that he will appease Arshad, without whose approval the marriage cannot take place. Shortly thereafter Mahmud, while going over his recently deceased mother's documents, will find out that he was adopted, his birth parents were Jewish, and his name is actually Solly Shimshillewitz.

A thief is caught up in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse between a maverick cop and London crime boss.

A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.

This remake of 1981’s Goodbye Pork Pie tracks the escapades of a trio of accidental outlaws as they travel the length of New Zealand protesting conformity and chasing lost love, with a posse of cops and a media frenzy in pursuit.

When a disc containing memoirs of a former CIA analyst falls into the hands of Linda Litzke and Chad Feldheimer, the two gym employees see a chance to make enough money for her to have life-changing cosmetic surgery. Predictably, events whirl out of control for the duo doofuses and those in their orbit.

While working undercover as a bodyguard to arms dealer Harry, former-soldier-turned-secret-service-agent Ewan survives a bloody shootout with a member of an Islamic terrorist cell who steals Harry's briefcase full of Semtex explosives and escapes. Ewan's spymasters task Ewan with hunting down the cell members and retrieving the briefcase.

Hours after his release from prison, Jesus Quintana pairs up with fellow misfits Petey and Marie for a freewheeling joyride of petty crime and romance.

A Romanian police officer teams up with a small crew of bank robbers to pull off a heist by convincing everyone at the scene of the crime that they are only filming a movie.

Happy Valley is a dark, funny, multi-layered thriller revolving around the personal and professional life of Catherine, a dedicated, experienced, hard-working copper. She is also a bereaved mother who looks after her orphaned grandchild.

Fed up with the cruelty and stupidity of American culture, an unlikely duo goes on a killing spree, killing reality TV stars, bigots and others they find repugnant in this black comedy.

In a misguided attempt to protect his family and pay back gambling debts to the local Mobster, Jimbo robs a fish market, which is coincidentally owned by the same Mobster. On the run, Jimbo is cornered in a local curio shop, where he takes hostage an assortment of colourful characters, including a man who may be his illegitimate father. Surrounded by the Police, the SAS and the Mobster's crew, the young man must find a way out of his precarious predicament with the help of his oddball captives.

Mad Dogs is a British black comedy and psychological thriller television series created by Cris Cole that began airing on Sky1 on 10 February 2011. It is produced by Left Bank Pictures, and co-produced by Palma Pictures. The series stars John Simm, Marc Warren, Max Beesley, and Philip Glenister as four long-time and middle-aged friends getting together in a villa in Majorca to celebrate the early retirement of their friend Alvo. However, after Alvo is murdered, the group find themselves caught up in the world of crime and police corruption. The series was initially a story about a rock band, but changed after a feeling that bands have been "done to death". After gaining interest from some terrestrial networks, the series was commissioned by British Sky Broadcasting. Filming took place on location throughout the island of Majorca in May 2010, and took around four million euros and 44 days to make. The main themes are friendship and growing older; Glenister said it is about ageing and "getting closer to death". Photographer David LaChapelle directed three 30-second advertisements for the series. Mad Dogs opened with 1.61 million viewers, the 17th highest rated programme ever for Sky1, and attracted positive reactions from critics. They noted similarities with British gangster films, more predominantly the 2000 film Sexy Beast.

Tells of the daring heist of The Stone of Destiny in the 1950s by a charming group of idealistic Scottish undergraduates, whose action rekindled Scottish nationalistic pride.

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.

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.

Comedy sequel to "East Is East". Manchester, North of England, 1975. The now much diminished, but still claustrophobic and dysfunctional, Khan family continues to struggle for survival. Sajid, the youngest Khan, the runt of the litter, is deep in pubescent crisis under heavy assault both from his father's tyrannical insistence on Pakistani tradition, and from the fierce bullies in the schoolyard. So, in a last, desperate attempt to 'sort him out', his father decides to pack him off to Mrs Khan No 1 and family in the Punjab, the wife and daughters he had abandoned 35 years earlier. It is not long before Ella Khan (Mrs Khan No2) with a small entourage from Salford, England, swiftly follows to sort out the mess, past and present.

Álvaro, a man obsessed with the idea of writing what he brands as “high literature,” manipulates the lives and feelings of the people around him to write about the consequences caused by his devious acts.

Detective Inspector Richard Poole is transferred to Sainte Marie, an island in the Caribbean. Totally unsuited to the Caribbean way of life, Richard hates the sun, sea and sand and isn't used to the Sainte Marie style of policing. Working with the exotic Camille each week Richard investigates intricate and intriguing murders.

After 10 years, Eddie Franks is out of prison and trying to stay on the straight and narrow, but his drug-mule brother, Sean has other ideas. Rival gangster brothers demand Sean repay his debt to them, causing Eddie to get tangled in the crossfire, and he ends up using his life savings to calling in favours with mobster friends to try and help.

A soldier protects a mule during the Spanish Civil War.

Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.

Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.

This story concerns a hapless civil servant who gets more than he bargains for when he moves into an apartment in Limerick with a gay fashion student and becomes a star on the catwalk. A contemporary story embracing the essence of what it is to be young in today's Ireland.

Upon retirement, cranky control freak Kamal Kishore Khosla obsesses about procuring a plot of land in Delhi, where he plans to build his dream house. After investing his entire life's savings to acquire the land, he discovers the plot's been stolen by a greedy land shark. Now, Khosla must rely on his comically dysfunctional family to pull off a scam on the biggest goon in real estate and win back.