20 best movies like Trainspotting (1996)

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.

After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.

When a young man's unemployment benefits run out, the IRS freezes his bank account, and his druggie brother needs help, things can't get any worse...until he discovers his girlfriend is cheating on him!

ECSTASY is a dark romantic comedy, based on the controversial book, “Ecstasy”, by Irvine Welsh. “Ecstasy”, was translated into 20 languages and was a number one bestseller in over 20 countries. Mr. Welsh’s first book, “Trainspotting”, published in 1993, (and voted by Waterstone, Europe’s largest bookstore chain, as one of the Ten Best Books of the Century), sold over 1 million copies in the UK alone, and has its own Cinematic Cinderella success story.

A bigoted junkie cop suffering from bipolar disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way through the festive season in a bid to secure promotion and win back his wife and daughter.

Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

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.

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.

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 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.

A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.

Based on a play by David Rabe, Hurlyburly is about the intersecting lives of several Hollywood players and wannabes, whose dysfunctional personal lives are more interesting than anything they're peddling to the studios.

Eka and Natia leave their childhood behind and ignore societal customs to escape from their turbulent family lives.

A tough, Jewish ex-con just released from prison crosses a powerful drug dealer and former prison rival in his return to a life of crime.

All that exists now is clubs, drugs, pubs and parties. I've got 48 hours off from the world, man I'm gonna blow steam out of my head like a screaming kettle. I'm gonna talk cods hit to strangers all night. I'm gonna lose the plot on the dance floor, the free radicals inside me are freaking man! Tonight I'm Jip Travolta, I'm Peter Popper, I'm going to Never Never Land with my chosen family, man. We're going to get more spaced out than Neil Armstrong ever did. Anything could happen tonight, you know? This could be the best night of my life! I've got 73 quid in my back burner. I'm gonna wax the lot, man. The milky bars are on me! Yeah!

A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary.

Harmless prank or violent revenge? Three high school students, sick of living in fear of bullies, plan the ultimate payback. But when their prank goes way too far, they come to realize that getting even can have deadly consequences. Packed with unpredictable twists and turns, this cutting-edge thriller pulls no punches and delivers a shocking conclusion you'll never forget. Just remember...no matter how sweet revenge might taste, there's always a price to pay

Two suicidal paraplegic junkies hustle their way through the city streets trying to find a reason to live.

This tells the story of a strong friendship between a young boy with Morquio's syndrome and an older boy who is always bullied because of his size. Adapted from the novel, Freak the Mighty, the film explores a building of trust and friendship. Kevin, an intelligent guy helps out Maxwell to improve his reading skills. In return, Kevin wants Maxwell to take him out places since he is not allowed out unauthorized. Being the social outcasts of the town, Kevin and Maxwell come to realize that they are similar to each other and accept that they are "freaks" and nothing will stop them.

When unemployed dockworker Joey Coyle finds $1.2 million that fell off of an armored car, he decides to do the logical thing: take the money and run. After all, he says, finders keepers. He turns to his ex-girlfriend Monica, who works in an investment firm, for advice, before turning to the mob for help laundering the money. While Joey makes plans to leave the country, however, a detective is following his ever-warmer trail in order to recover the cash.

In a war ridden country a woman watches over the husband reduced to a vegetable state by a bullet in the neck, abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.

A socially awkward young man kidnaps an aspiring actress with the hope that they will fall in love. A psychosexual noir that explores power dynamics between men and women.

Julian (Álex González) and his friend Luis (Miguel Angel Silvestre) are two neighborhood boys who are part of a gang of violent neo-Nazis, led by Solis (Javier Bardem). After start training in a gym, Julian is transformed gradually thanks to the discipline of boxing, the nobility of his coach (Carlos Bardem) and the love of a young latin girl (Judith Diakhate). All of this takes away from the group, but Luis is not ready to accept that leave the "herd".

Solomon and Tummler are two teenagers killing time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.

Laura Collins, single mom to daughter Sarah, has had a history of rocky relationships, so when Sarah begins dating the popular and charismatic Rob Tennison, Laura is thrilled with what she sees. But when it becomes increasingly clear that Rob has a darker, possessive side, Laura lives in a state of denial about her daughter’s relationship until Sarah goes missing. Laura must find the will to fight for justice for Sarah when a case against Rob is brought to trial and presided over by a powerful judge.

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.

When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.

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.

This South African movie tracks the rise of a once-petty criminal to the heights of the criminal underworld. After cutting his teeth on hijacking, before moving onto bigger game, an ambitious man hits a setback when most of his gang are shot.

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.

An ex-con moves to L.A. to find work and creates a disturbance by fighting for a position. More importantly he touches the lives of many of his neighbors including an older man dying of cancer, a young married couple whose husband is too proud to accept a lesser position which causes strife with his wife, and a young boy on the verge of getting in trouble with street gangs.

An unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but taking as main focus the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte.

3 of Reagan High School's most popular girls pretend to kidnap their friend by shoving a jawbreaker into the victim's mouth to keep her from screaming. Their plan goes awry when the girl swallows the jawbreaker, choking to death. Now the leader of the pack will do anything to keep the accident a secret.

Undercover cop Jim Raynor (Jason Patric) is a seasoned veteran. His partner, Kristen Cates (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is lacking in experience, but he thinks she's tough enough to work his next case with him: a deep cover assignment to bring down the notoriously hard-to-capture drug lord Gaines (Gregg Allman). While their relationship turns romantic during the assignment, they also turn into junkies, and will have to battle their own addictions if they want to bring down Gaines once and for all.

Russian poet, singer and actor Vladimir Vysotsky was an idol of the 1970s and '80s. In 1980, at the age of 42, he passed away during the Moscow Olympic Games. This is the story of his last great love as handed down to his son from a family friend. Written by nitorch.

Cal is a dedicated cop who also serves as a sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve. When his reckless half brother lands in jail for accidentally killing a man, Cal and his buddies hatch a plan to break him out of prison -- no matter what the cost.

Fifteen year old Deborah meets Jennifer who steers her into a career as an escort. Under the alias Bo she begins a new life that she cannot handle and starts a downward spiral that only she can end.

Ginger Baker is known for playing in Cream and Blind Faith, but the world's greatest drummer didn’t hit his stride until 1972, when he arrived in Nigeria and discovered Fela Kuti's Afrobeat. After leaving Nigeria, Ginger returned to his pattern of drug-induced self-destruction, and countless groundbreaking musical works, eventually settling in South Africa, where the 73-year-old lives with his young bride and 39 polo ponies. This documentary includes interviews with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Carlos Santana and more. Beware of Mr. Baker! With every smash of the drum is a man smashing his way through life.

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.

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.

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

On the Wirral in the grim early years of Margaret Thatcher's premiership, the opportunities for thrill seeking young men looking to escape 9 to 5 drudgery are what they've always been: sex, drugs, rock n' roll, fashion, football and fighting.

In Barrow, Alaska, teenagers Qalli and Aivaaq find their bond tested when a seal-hunting trip goes wrong, resulting in the death of their friend.

American Matt Quigley answers Australian land baron Elliott Marston's ad for a sharpshooter to kill the dingoes on his property. But when Quigley finds out that Marston's real target is the aborigines, Quigley hits the road. Now, even American expatriate Crazy Cora can't keep Quigley safe in his cat-and-mouse game with the homicidal Marston.

Three friends discover their new flatmate dead but loaded with cash.

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.

Eliciting images of cancer, this drama explores the illnesses that plague modern Croatia. Four young junkies in Zagreb maturing in the wake of war reflect the petty hatreds, violence, prejudices and mood hanging over the country like a disease that spreads with no cure in sight.

After five failed attempts to go to the United States, 18-year-old Ramón decides to look for a friend’s aunt in Germany, but never finds her. With no papers or money, and without knowing the language, he barely survives living on the street until he meets Ruth, an old retired nurse who doesn’t speak Spanish. Beyond language barriers and prejudices, they discover that solidarity and humanity make life bearable.