20 best movies like Mean Streets (1973)

Terry Noonan returns home to New York's Hells Kitchen after a ten year absence. He soon hooks up with childhood pal Jackie who is involved in the Irish mob run by his brother Frankie. Terry also rekindles an old flame with Jackie's sister Kathleen. Soon, however, Terry is torn between his loyalty to his friends and his loyalties to others.

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.

A New York nightclub manager tries to save his brother and father from Russian mafia hitmen.

In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don, Michael Corleone seeks forgiveness for his sins while taking a young protege under his wing.

To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop curries favor with the mob kingpin, a career criminal rises through the police ranks. But both sides soon discover there's a mole among them.

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.

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.

A saga centered on a multi-generational family of New York City Police officers. The family's moral codes are tested when Ray Tierney, investigates a case that reveals an incendiary police corruption scandal involving his own brother-in-law. For Ray, the truth is revelatory, a Pandora's Box that threatens to upend not only the Tierney legacy but the entire NYPD.

Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.

Harry Kilmer returns to Japan after several years in order to rescue his friend George's kidnapped daughter - and ends up on the wrong side of the Yakuza, the notorious Japanese mafia...

Michael is a 12-year-old drug pusher who lives in a crowded house with his cousins and aunt. His father has become a street bum, but still meets with Fresh on occasion to play chess. Fresh is rather quiet in a crazy world. Fresh's sister is a junkie who sleeps with the dealers that Fresh sells for. As the story progresses Fresh realizes that he doesn't want to sell drugs anymore, he wants revenge.

Clarence marries hooker Alabama, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood, while the owners of the coke try to reclaim it.

Reynolds plays an ex-soldier-of-fortunish character in Vegas, taking "Chaperone" jobs, fighting with the mob, and trying to get enough money together to move to Venice, Italy.

Depicts a heist of old bills, retired from circulation and destined by the government to be "money to burn". However, more broadly, it addresses the issues of Black Americans' involvement in the Vietnam War and their subsequent disillusionment with progress in social issues and civil rights back home in the United States, during the 1960s.

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.

A hired killer from Cleveland has a job to do on a second-string mob boss in New York. But a special girl from his past, and a fat gun dealer with pet rats, each gets in his way.

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 former drug lord returns from prison determined to wipe out all his competition and distribute the profits of his operations to New York's poor and lower classes in this stylish and ultra violent modern twist on Robin Hood.

Amsterdam, 1970s. A wealthy grammar school student Klaas and his friend start trafficking hash and become entangled in the brutal criminal scene.

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.

One night in the New Orleans slums, vicious hoodlum Blackie and his friends kill an illegal immigrant who won too much in a card game. Next morning, Dr. Clint Reed of the Public Health Service confirms the dead man had pneumonic plague. To prevent a catastrophic epidemic, Clint must find and inoculate the killers and their associates, with the reluctant aid of police captain Tom Warren, despite official skepticism, and in total secrecy, lest panic empty the city. Can a doctor turn detective? He has 48 hours to try...

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.

Literature professor Jim Bennett leads a secret life as a high-stakes gambler. Always a risk-taker, Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster and offers his own life as collateral. Staying one step ahead, he pits his creditor against the operator of an illicit gambling ring while garnering the attention of Frank, a paternalistic loan shark. As his relationship with a student deepens, Bennett must risk everything for a second chance.

Suave, charming and volatile, Reggie Kray and his unstable twin brother Ronnie start to leave their mark on the London underworld in the 1960s. Using violence to get what they want, the siblings orchestrate robberies and murders while running nightclubs and protection rackets. With police Detective Leonard "Nipper" Read hot on their heels, the brothers continue their rapid rise to power and achieve tabloid notoriety.

A drug kingpin's return home touches off a turf war.

Two young officers are marked for death after confiscating a small cache of money and firearms from the members of a notorious cartel during a routine traffic stop.

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.

Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and — if he has his way — every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop… except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara and Jerry Wooters who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart.

Young police officer Shane Cooper's first day on duty, after relocating to the small town of Red Hill, rapidly turns into a nightmare. News of a prison break, involving convicted murderer Jimmy Conway, sends the local law enforcement officers - led by the town's ruling presence, Old Bill - into a panic and leads to a terrifying and bloody confrontation.

Two brothers, on either side of the law, face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s.

Some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.

When carrying out a hit, assassin Joe (Cage) always makes use of the knowledge of the local population. On arriving in Bangkok, Joe meets street kid Kong and he becomes his primary aide. But when Kong is nearly killed, he asks Joe to train him up in the deadly arts and unwittingly becomes a target of a band of killers.

When a stunt man dies in Miami, his uncle, a New York mob boss, sends a hit man to tail the stunt coordinator, whom the boss wants dead. The hit man, Eric O'Bryne, gets close to his mark's daughter, and through her he asks her dad to teach him to do stunts. While waiting for the word to kill this mentor, Eric discovers the joy of stunt work and of being part of a family. Meanwhile, several people are looking for the dead man's briefcase of money and a cloth bag of illegal drugs that he stole from an undercover FBI agent now desperate to get the borrowed drugs back to the bureau. The stunt coordinator says that 'we dance in the shadows of death.' Can Eric step out into the sun?

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

When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York.

The tragic death of a beautiful young girl starts a tense and atmospheric game of cat and mouse between hunter John Moon and the hardened backwater criminals out for his blood.

Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.

The story of America's most famous mobsters and their rise to power. Examine Al Capone's ascension through the eyes of his second in command, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn.

Forced to work under slave-like conditions in a "prison for profit" program, the inmates of a mostly-African-American female prison, Whitehead Correctional, try to take over the institution. At the core of the story is Frances, who finds herself in prison after being falsely convicted of murder, and who is told that her baby has been murdered, sparking her to lead her fellow inmates in the protest

After a group of Irish mobsters in Hell's Kitchen are sentenced to jail, their wives take their place—and do as good of a job, if not better.

Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

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.

Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.

A retired thief swears revenge on the lunatic who murdered his brother and partner, while going on the run with the loot they stole.

Ray Liotta (Goodfellas) delivers an intense, electrifying performance in this explosive follow-up to the gritty urban crime thriller Street Kings. Liotta plays Detroit detective Marty Kingston, the leader of an undercover narcotics team, whose members are being systematically murdered one by one. To solve the brutal killings, Kingston joins forces with a cocky, young homicide detective. But neither of them is prepared for the shocking corruption their investigation will uncover — stunning secrets that will set both men on a violent collision course with betrayal and vengeance.

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.

Wanted by the mafia, a New York City bike messenger escapes into the world of parkour after meeting a beautiful stranger.

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.

An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.

How can a split-second decision change your life? While investigating noises in his house one balmy Texas night in 1989, Richard Dane puts a bullet in the brain of low-life burglar Freddy Russell. Although he’s hailed as a small-town hero, Dane soon finds himself fearing for his family’s safety when Freddy’s ex-con father, Ben, rolls into town, hell-bent on revenge.