Movies Like Eighteen Years in Prison

If you liked Eighteen Years in Prison (1967), a drama and crime movie directed by Tai Katō, 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
Belly (1998)
★ 6.4/10Also 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…
2
Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973)
★ 7.3/10Also drama and crime
Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog…
3
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…
4
Female Yakuza Tale (1973)
★ 6.1/10Also crime and drama
Ocho is accidentally captured by a drug trafficking cartel who use Chinese women to smuggle drugs into Japan by hiding it in their vaginas. She is tortured, and manages to escape, fighting both the male yakuzas and a…
5
The Eel (1997)
★ 6.9/10Also drama and crime
A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.
6
Convict (2014)
★ 6.5/10Also crime and drama
Set in the dark and old Parramatta prison built by the original convicts our lead character Ray a war veteran finds himself serving 18 months for manslaughter after defending his fiance. He soon realizes that the…
7
Run (1991)
★ 6/10Also drama and crime
When a law student accidentally kills the son of a mob boss in a fight, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by the mob and the police.
8
The Unforgivable (2021)
★ 7.4/10Also drama and crime
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
9
The System (2022)
★ 7.3/10Also crime
When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.
10
Each Dawn I Die (1939)
★ 6.9/10Also crime and drama
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
11
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.
12
The Yakuza (1974)
★ 7.1/10Also crime and drama
When George Tanner does business with high-ranking Yakuza Tono, Tono kidnaps his daughter, and George summons his old friend, private eye Harry Kilmer, to Japan to investigate.
13
True Believer (1989)
★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama
Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet…
14
Panic (2000)
★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama
Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful…
15
The Valachi Papers (1972)
★ 6.5/10Also crime and drama
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to break the sacred…
16
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…
17
Beast (2026)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal…
18
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…
19
Hoodlum (1997)
★ 6.5/10Also crime and drama
In 1934, the second most lucrative business in New York City was running 'the numbers'. When Madam Queen—the powerful woman who runs the scam in Harlem—is arrested, Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson takes over the business and…
20
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.