20 best movies like Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

A gritty coming of age thriller about a young girl sent to juvenile prison for the murder of her abusive step father. The film follows Anna Nix's journey into the dark world of an all girls jail where she discovers complex relationships, drugs, mental illness and her eventual search for redemption.

An unfortunate and naive girl is set-up by her boyfriend and convicted of drug smuggling. She is sent to a women's correctional facility where she must constantly struggle to survive.

Earl Stone, a man in his eighties, is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he is offered a job that simply requires him to drive. Easy enough, but, unbeknownst to Earl, he's just signed on as a drug courier for a Mexican cartel. He does so well that his cargo increases exponentially, and Earl hit the radar of hard-charging DEA agent Colin Bates.

An attorney is terrorized by the criminal he put away years ago when he was a cop.

A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's farm in West Texas.

Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.

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 gritty crime saga which follows the lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff's Dept. and the state's most successful bank robbery crew as the outlaws plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank.

A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.

A former mob enforcer who is released from prison after serving 22 years for a crime he didn't commit sets out on a path for revenge against the people who wronged him.

As investigative reporter Ward Jansen and his partner Yardley Acheman chase a sensational, career-making story with the help of Ward's younger brother Jack and sultry death-row groupie Charlotte Bless, the pair tries to prove violent swamp-dweller Hillary Van Wetter was framed for the murder of a corrupt local sheriff.

Based on a true story: Norwegian winter, 1915. On the island Bastøy, outside Oslo, a group of young boys aged 11 to 18, are held in an institution for delinquent youth, notorious for its sadistic regime. One day a new boy, Erling, arrives, determined to escape from the island. After a tragic incident, he ends up leading the boys in a violent uprising. When the boys manage to take over the island, 150 soldiers are sent in to restore order.

Construction company owner John Matthews learns that his estranged son, Jason, has been arrested for drug trafficking. Facing an unjust prison sentence for a first time offender courtesy of mandatory minimum sentence laws, Jason has nothing to offer for leniency in good conscience. Desperately, John convinces the DEA and the opportunistic DA Joanne Keeghan to let him go undercover to help make arrests big enough to free his son in return. With the unwitting help of an ex-con employee, John enters the narcotics underworld where every move could be his last in an operation that will demand all his resources, wits and courage to survive.

A young woman is falsely convicted of a bank robbery and sent to a maximum-security prison run by a corrupt warden, where she is forced to suffer various indignities.

After a heist goes awry, a bank robber spends a night trying to free his brother from Riker's Island prison.

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.

California teen Anita Minteer struggles in the face of an absentee mother, her mom's abusive boyfriend, Rooney, and a lack of respect from her classmates. This all changes when a pen-pal school project connects her with convict Howard. Anita secures Howard's parole and violently squares off against Rooney after he rapes her. Soon enough, the gun-crazy teen is on the run with Howard, with his parole officer in pursuit.

Massachusetts, 1892. An unmarried woman of 32 and a social outcast, Lizzie lives a claustrophobic life under her father's cold and domineering control. When Bridget Sullivan, a young maid, comes to work for the family, Lizzie finds a sympathetic, kindred spirit, and a secret intimacy soon blossoms into a wicked plan.

A gang of criminals and corrupt cops plan the murder of a police officer in order to pull off their biggest heist yet across town.

A woman framed for her husband's murder suspects he is still alive; as she has already been tried for the crime, she can't be re-prosecuted if she finds and kills him.

Frank Castle is staying in a bad neighborhood, where he encounters a gang that terrorizes its residents.

When a retiring assassin realizes that he is the target of a hit, he winds up back in the game going head to head with a gang of younger, ruthless killers.

A man with the ability to enter peoples' memories takes on the case of a brilliant, troubled sixteen-year-old girl to determine whether she is a sociopath or a victim of trauma.

Four boyhood friends return to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina, to find their home decimated and prospects for work swept away. Turning to a local gangster for employment, the crew is hired to pull off a daring casino heist, right in the heart of the city.

A doctor desperately tries to save his wife and their 5 year old son after their vacation in the Bahamas takes an unexpected turn.

Gloria finds a power she never knew she had when she is drawn into a dangerous world of cross-border crime. Surviving will require all of her cunning, inventiveness, and strength.

A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of a murder. Lara Brennan is arrested for murdering her boss with whom she had an argument. It seems she was seen leaving the scene of the crime and her fingerprints were on the murder weapon. Her husband, John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. And when the strain of being separated from her family, especially her son, gets to her, John decides to break her out. So he does a lot of research to find a way.

In November 2009, French security van driver Toni Musulin makes off with nearly 12 million euros, then turns himself over to the authorities a week later.

A psychologist interviews a death row inmate to determine whether or not a stay of execution should be granted.

A psychosexual noir love story, set in Las Vegas and Paris, about love, obsession, sex, betrayal, revenge and, ultimately, the search for redemption.

A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.

A revenge-seeking gangster is sent to prison after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. After seducing a beautiful young woman, he uses her to help him carry out his plot for vengeance, leading him to the crazy pyromaniac who set him up.

A network of older spies from the West recruits a young intelligence officer with a photographic memory to accompany them on a mission inside Russia. They must recover a letter written by the CIA that promises American assistance to Russia if China gets the atomic bomb.

Dispatched to a small Italian town to await further orders, assassin Jack embarks on a double life that may be more relaxing than is good for him.

After assuming his dead cellmate's identity to get with his girlfriend, an ex-con finds himself the reluctant participant in a casino heist.

A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.

A dispossessed, violent man's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, he descends to the level of a cave dweller and falls deeper into crime and degradation.

Inspired by a true story. A petty criminal sent to Alcatraz in the 1930s is caught attempting to make an escape. As punishment he is put in solitary confinement. The maximum stay is supposed to be 19 days, but Henri spends years alone, cold and in complete darkness, only to emerge a madman and soon to be a murderer. The story follows a rookie lawyer attempting to prove that Alcatraz was to blame.

When his daughter's criminal boyfriend becomes an increasing threat to the family, a father must take action to protect them.

The gruesome death of a prostitute brings suspicion on one of her clients, James Wayland, a brilliant, self-destructive and epileptic heir to a textile fortune. So detectives Braxton and Kennesaw take Wayland in for questioning, thinking they can break the man. But despite his troubles, Wayland is a master of manipulation, and during the interrogation, he begins to turn the tables on the investigators, forcing them to reveal their own sinister sides.

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.

A chronicle of the interaction between college student Jason Moss and the object of his obsession, serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

In the midst of a searing Florida heat wave, a woman convinces her lover, a small-town lawyer, to murder her rich husband.

Two brothers, both with troubled paths, find themselves in the middle of one last bank job.

Bobby Earl is facing the electric chair for the murder of a young girl. Eight years after the crime he calls in Paul Armstrong, a professor of law, to help prove his innocence. Armstrong quickly uncovers some overlooked evidence to present to the local police, but they aren't interested - Bobby was their killer.

A newspaper photographer, Jean, researches the lurid and sensational axe murder of two women in 1873 as an editorial tie-in with a brutal modern double murder. She discovers a cache of papers that appear to give an account of the murders by an eyewitness.

An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.

A retired lawman works with a new sheriff when a botched Mexican drug deal and a vicious hit man threaten their border town.

Escaped convicts terrorize a suburban family they're holding hostage.

Harper is brought to Louisiana to investigate an attempted blackmail scheme. He soon finds out that it involves an old flame of his and her daughter. He eventually finds himself caught in a power struggle between the matriarch of the family and a greedy oil baron, who wants their property. Poor Harper! Things are not as straight-forward as they initially appeared.