Movies Like Kids Return

If you liked Kids Return (1996), a drama and crime movie directed by Takeshi Kitano, 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
All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001)
★ 7.5/10Also drama and crime
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…
2
Tokyo Drifter (1966)
★ 7.1/10Also crime
After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable…
3
47 Ronin (2013)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the…
4
Creed II (2018)
★ 7/10Also drama
Between personal obligations and training for his next big fight against an opponent with ties to his family's past, Adonis Creed is up against the challenge of his life.
5
Kid Galahad (1962)
★ 6.2/10Also drama and crime
After completing military service, Walter Gulick takes a job as a sparring partner at a gym, the owner of which sees potential in Walter as a professional fighter—and takes him under his wing.
6
Creed III (2023)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed has thrived in his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian Anderson, resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is…
7
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid (2023)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Finally, the day of Mai's high school graduation has arrived. While Sakuta eagerly waits for his girlfriend, an elementary schooler who looks exactly like her appears before him. Suspicious, and for all the wrong…
8
The Power of One (1992)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and…
9
Giant (2026)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
Follows Prince Naseem Hamed from his humble beginnings on the tough working-class streets of Sheffield and his discovery by Ingle, himself a steel industry worker turned boxing trainer. Their unlikely partnership…
10
The Hurricane (1999)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.
11
Resurrecting the Champ (2007)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the…
12
Detective Conan: The Raven Chaser (2009)
★ 7.3/10Also crime
A new member from the Black Organization that shrunk Shinichi's body manages to find out about Shinichi's transformation into Conan. This discovery starts to put those around him in danger as Gin and the other Black…
13
American Wrestler: The Wizard (2017)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
In 1980, a teenage boy escapes the unrest in Iran only to face more hostility in America, due to the hostage crisis. Determined to fit in, he joins the school's floundering wrestling team.
14
Tokyo Revengers (2021)
★ 7.8/10Also drama and crime
An unemployed man learns that his ex-girlfriend was murdered. He suddenly finds himself travelling through time to his middle school years and has chance to change the future and save the girl. He aims to rise to the…
15
Bleach the Movie: Fade to Black (2008)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A strange disturbance in the World of the Living sends Ichigo and Kon to the Soul Society, where the Seireitei has been devastated by an explosion of reishi and Rukia is missing. Stranger still, none of the Soul…
16
The War (1994)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
The son of a Vietnam War Veteran must deal with neighborhood bullies as well as his dad's post-traumatic stress disorder while growing up in the deep south in the 1970's.
17
The Parts You Lose (2019)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and crime
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
18
BlackFox (2019)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Rikka is a ninja descendant. Her grandfather Hyoe is the last chief of their ninja clan and her father is a cyborg researcher. Both are killed when a weapons' company raids his lab to use his research. Rikka sets out…
19
The Tale of Zatoichi (1962)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing.
20
The Flyboys (2008)
★ 7.6/10Also crime
Two boys from a small town find their courage tested when they accidentally stow away aboard an airplane owned by the mob...