Movies Like Shinjuku Messy District : I’ll Be There

If you liked Shinjuku Messy District : I’ll Be There (1977), a drama movie directed by Chūsei Sone, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1971)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
An experimental, psychedelic odyssey through Japanese subculture experienced via the eyes of a disillusioned young man, who must contend with intense familial dysfunction, psychosexual alienation, and existentialist…
2
Gate of Flesh (1988)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
Prostitutes in burnt out Tokyo ghetto of post-WWII Japan peddle their flesh and save one-third of their money for a proposed dancehall to be named Paradise. The hookers live in a bombed-out building, but they accept…
3
Sakuran (2006)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.
4
Love & Pop (1998)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an…
5
Swallowtail Butterfly (1996)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
The struggles of a group of outcasts living in "Yentown", in an alternate-future Japan.
6
The End of Summer (1961)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.
7
Intentions of Murder (1964)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
8
The Outsider (2018)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
A former American G.I. joins a yakuza family after his release from prison in post-World War II Osaka.
9
All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yūichi Hasumi and Shūsuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yūichi's love for the dreamy and abstract…
10
Salomé (2013)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé…
11
Gate of Flesh (1964)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos…
12
A Perfect Murder (1998)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Millionaire industrialist Steven Taylor is a man who has everything but what he craves most: the love and fidelity of his wife. A hugely successful player in the New York financial world, he considers her to be his…
13
The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it…
14
Café Lumière (2004)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry…
15
Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.
16
Girl in the Box (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
17
Red Beard (1965)
★ 8.2/10Also drama
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto…
18
Outrage (2010)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.
19
From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
Yokohama, 1963. Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics—and the mood is one of both optimism and conflict as the young generation struggles to throw off…
20
Effie Gray (2014)
★ 6/10Also drama
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.