Movies Like How Angels are Born

If you liked How Angels are Born (1996), a drama and crime movie directed by Murilo Salles, 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
Siberian Education (2013)
★ 6.8/10Also drama and crime
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…
2
Above the Rim (1994)
★ 7.1/10Also crime and drama
Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.
3
The Baker (2023)
★ 6.2/10Also drama and crime
A quiet, stoic man, lives a monk-like existence in self-imposed exile. When his estranged son is killed in a drug deal gone bad, he is left to look after a granddaughter he never knew existed, and he is forced back…
4
Belly (1998)
★ 6.3/10Also crime and drama
Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking…
5
Rise of the Footsoldier (2007)
★ 6.4/10Also crime
Carlton Leach rises from one of the most feared generals of the football terraces to becoming a member of a notorious gang of criminals who rampaged their way through London and Essex in the late '80s and early '90s.
6
The Substitute (1996)
★ 7/10Also crime and drama
When an inner-city Miami schoolteacher gets her knee broken after standing up to the school's gang leader, her mercenary combat specialist boyfriend goes undercover as a substitute teacher to take down the punk. Soon…
7
King Ivory (2025)
★ 7/10Also crime and drama
Based on extensive research involving law enforcement and gang members, a never-before-seen, authentic look inside the underworld of fentanyl trafficking from gangs inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester…
8
Vitória (2025)
★ 7.8/10Also drama and crime
Nina is an elderly woman who lives alone and feels distressed by the increasing violence in her neighborhood. Amidst conflicts with her neighbors, she decides to film the movement of drug traffickers from her window…
9
Elite Squad (2007)
★ 8.1/10Also drama and crime
In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the…
10
Winged Creatures (2009)
★ 5.9/10Also crime and drama
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an…
11
Outlaw (2024)
★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama
At the age of nine, Rebeca is sold by her grandmother to the bookseller who ran Rocinha. Disputed by bicheiros and drug dealers, the community is going through changes in power. Rebeca becomes the wife of the chief…
12
The Infiltrator (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also crime and drama
A U.S Customs official uncovers a massive money laundering scheme involving Pablo Escobar.
13
The Enforcer (2022)
★ 7/10Also crime and drama
A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to…
14
Year of the Dragon (1985)
★ 6.8/10Also crime
In New York, racist Capt. Stanley White becomes obsessed with destroying a Chinese-American drug ring run by Joey Tai, an up-and-coming young gangster as ambitious as he is ruthless. While pursuing an unauthorized…
15
Wire Room (2022)
★ 6/10Also crime
New recruit Justin Rosa must monitor arms-smuggling cartel member Eddie Flynn — and keep him alive at all costs. When a SWAT team descends on Flynn’s home, Rosa breaks protocol and contacts the gangster directly to…
16
Code 8 Part II (2024)
★ 6.4/10Also crime
In a world where superpowered people are heavily policed by robots, an ex-con teams up with a drug lord he despises to protect a teen from a corrupt cop.
17
My Name Ain't Johnny (2008)
★ 7.1/10Also crime and drama
The true story of João Guilherme Estrella ("Johnny"), a young middle-class bon vivant who became a big-time cocaine dealer in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s.
18
American Gangster (2007)
★ 7.6/10Also drama and crime
Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being…
19
In the Blood (2014)
★ 5.8/10Also crime
When her husband goes missing during their Caribbean vacation, a woman sets off on her own to take down the men she thinks are responsible.
20
The Public Eye (1992)
★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama
A crime photographer gets involved in a conspiracy.