20 best movies like Once Were Warriors (1994)

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.

In this true story, Veronica Guerin is an investigative reporter for an Irish newspaper. As the drug trade begins to bleed into the mainstream, Guerin decides to take on and expose those responsible. Beginning at the bottom with addicts, Guerin then gets in touch with John Traynor, a paranoid informant. Not without some prodding, Traynor leads her to John Gilligan, the ruthless head of the operation, who does not take kindly to Guerin's nosing.

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.

On February 15, 1992 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, one of the world's most infamous serial killers, was convicted of 15 counts of murder and sentenced to 937 years in federal prison. This movie is based on events from his life. Certain characters and events are fictional.

A man who has failed as a father and husband commits a heist to make money for his fledging business, but things become complicated when his wife interferes.

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.

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.

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.

13-year-old Sinikka vanishes on a hot summer night. Her bicycle is found in the exact place where a girl was killed 23 years ago. The dramatic present forces those involved in the original case to face their past.

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.

Inspired to a true story, on November 5th 1991, Rita Atria a young 17-year-old Sicilian girl, goes to see an anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino to denounce the Mafia system that was responsible for the murder of her father and her brother. It is the first time that such a young woman from a Mafia family rebels and betrays the Mafia. From that moment on, Rita's days are numbered. She only has nine months to live...

A young Texan mother who loses her child to foster care begins smuggling Mexicans across the border.

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.

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.

Set in the Little Saigon district outside of Sydney, a woman trying to escape her past becomes embroiled in a drug deal.

"To Catch a Killer" tells the true gruesome story of John Wayne Gacy - a good friend and helpful neighbour, a great child entertainer, a respectful businessman, and a violent serial killer who raped and murdered over 30 young boys.

A police officer leaves the force in the face of harrowing personal and professional difficulties. Spiraling into a depression, he makes questionable decisions.

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.

It's fire and brimstone time as grieving mother Karen McCann takes justice into her own hands when a kangaroo court in Los Angeles fails to convict Robert Doob, the monster who raped and murdered her 17-year-old daughter.

Follows veteran police officer Dave Brown, the last of the renegade cops, as he struggles to take care of his family, and fights for his own survival.

A regular family living in the outskirts of Lisbon sees the serenity of their lives shaken beyond any remedy within a week.

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

A robber escapes from prison with a single objective in mind: to track down his former cellmate, a serial killer who intends to pin his crimes on him. A cop is sent after the robber who, despite his best efforts, soon becomes Public Enemy Number One. As the protagonists are driven to their limits, it becomes increasingly unclear who is the hunter and who is the prey.

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

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

A Jewish homicide detective investigates a seemingly minor murder and falls in with a Zionist group as a result.

When a notorious German serial killer is captured after committing some of the most heinous acts against humanity ever imaginable, a farmer and police officer from a sleepy rural community on the outskirts of Berlin is drawn into the case as he searches for the answers to a murder that has shaken his tight-knit community.

The South African multi-award winning film about a young South African boy from the ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster. Tsotsi, who left home as a child to get away from helpless parents, finds a baby in the back seat of a car that he has just stolen. He decides that it his responsibility to take care of the baby and in the process learns that maybe the gangster life isn’t the best way.

After being brutally murdered, 14-year-old Susie Salmon watches from heaven over her grief-stricken family -- and her killer. As she observes their daily lives, she must balance her thirst for revenge with her desire for her family to heal.

Wealthy and precocious teenager Juliet transfers from England to New Zealand with her family, and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. When their parents begin to suspect that their increasingly intense and obsessive bond is becoming unhealthy, the girls hatch a dark plan for those who threaten to keep them apart.

A Texas cop (Kevin Kline), whose own daughter might have been forced into sexual slavery, joins forces with a Mexican youth (Cesar Ramos) to find the boy's sister, who was abducted and forced into prostitution. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian woman who was promised a better life in America also becomes a victim.

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.

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.

Bruno Hamel is a thirty eight year old surgeon. He lives in Drummondville with his wife Sylvie, and their eight year-old daughter Jasmine. Like many happy people, he is leading an uneventful life until a beautiful fall afternoon, when his daughter is raped and murdered. From then on, the world of the Hamel family collapses. When the murderer is arrested, a terrible project germinates in Bruno's darkened mind. He plans to capture the "monster" and make him pay for his crime. The day the murderer appears in Court, Hamel, who had prepared his plan in great detail, kidnaps the monster and later sends the police a brief message stating that the rapist and murderer of his daughter was going to be tortured for 7 days and then executed. Once this task accomplished, he will then give himself up.

Mika is the wife of celebrated pianist Andre Polonski and stepmother to his son, Guillaume, whose mother died in a car wreck on his sixth birthday. Their lives are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Jeanne, a young woman who has learned that she was almost switched at birth with Guillaume whilst in hospital. Also a pianist, Jeanne harbors a suspicion that she may be Andre's daughter. Andre undertakes to continue her piano tuition, but, on entering the Polonski family, Jeanne begins to notice the icily controlled Mika behaving strangely. Her suspicions aroused, Jeanne begins the dangerous task of unraveling Mika's dark past of secrets and lies...

San Francisco police officer Frank Connor is in a frantic search for a compatible bone marrow donor for his gravely ill son. There's only one catch the potential donor is convicted multiple murderer Peter McCabe who sees a trip to the hospital as the perfect opportunity to get what he wants most: freedom. With McCabe's escape, the entire hospital becomes a battleground and Connor must pursue and, ironically, protect the deadly fugitive who is his son's only hope for survival.

From the perspective of two Palestinian men who are preparing to perform a suicide attack in Israel, this is the first film to deal with the subject of suicide bombers.

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

Set in Brazil, three kids who make a discovery in a garbage dump soon find themselves running from the cops and trying to right a terrible wrong.

Bruno and Sonia, a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son.

A woman subject to mental, physical, and sexual abuse on a remote island seeks a way out.

When neighborhood kids begin vanishing, Jenny suspects her child psychologist husband, Carter, may be resuming the deranged experiments his father performed on Carter when he was young. Now, it falls to Jenny to unravel the mystery. And as more children disappear, she fears for her own child's safety.

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.

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

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.

In the Texas bayous, a local homicide detective teams up with a cop from New York City to investigate a series of unsolved murders.

Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

A young Austrian girl is kidnapped and held in captivity for eight years. Based on the real-life case of Natascha Kampusch.

When affluent executive Wayne Hayes is kidnapped by a disgruntled employee and held for ransom in a forest, Wayne’s wife is forced to reckon with the FBI agents as they negotiate with the kidnapper.

Ma Barker and her sons rob banks, shoot people and wind up at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list in the 1930s.