Movies Like Joyless Street

If you liked Joyless Street (1925), a drama movie directed by G.W. Pabst, 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
Pimp (2018)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
An urban love story set on the hard streets of the Bronx. A struggling female pimp, named Wednesday, grows up learning the game from her dad. Once he's gone she's left to look out for her prostitute mother and…
2
Cheaters (2000)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
3
Antares (2004)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
A deadly car crash sets off three parallel stories of women at crisis points, faltering behind the doors of the same, plain Vienna apartment block.
4
The Ron Clark Story (2006)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
Passionate and innovative teacher Ron Clark leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to the students, he must use unconventional methods, including his…
5
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even…
6
Mammal (2016)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the…
7
Import/Export (2007)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
A nurse from Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason. Both are looking for work, a new beginning, an existence, struggling to…
8
In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Elvira Weishaupt, once a burly working-class butcher, has made an enormous sacrifice for love. She has undergone a sex change for a romantic interest who has abandoned her, and she now must struggle to reconcile her…
9
Unthinkable (2010)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
The government gets wind of a plot to destroy America involving a trio of nuclear weapons for which the whereabouts are unknown. It's up to a seasoned interrogator and an FBI agent to find out exactly where the nukes…
10
Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
In 2015, thirty year old refugee Francis, the sole survivor of a boat that illegally crossed the Mediterranean, is drawn into Berlin's seedy underbelly.
11
Class of 1984 (1982)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Andy is a new teacher at an inner city high school that is unlike any he has seen before. There are metal detectors at the front door and the place is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and…
12
Crimes of Passion (1984)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
Fashion designer Joanna Crane leads a double life. By night she is China Blue, a prostitute who's attracted the attention of a sexually frustrated private detective, and a psychopathic priest in possession of a…
13
Hinterland (2021)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
Vienna, 1920. The Austro-Hungarian Empire has collapsed. Peter Perg returns home from the Great War, after years of captivity. But the Vienna he comes home to is nothing like the place he once knew. The new Austrian…
14
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2011)
★ 8.1/10Also drama
A former assassin, known simply as The Bride, wakes from a coma four years after her jealous ex-lover Bill attempts to murder her on her wedding day. Fueled by an insatiable desire for revenge, she vows to get even…
15
Taxi Driver (1976)
★ 8.1/10Also drama
Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.
16
Trafficked (2017)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
In this story inspired by real characters, three girls from America, Nigeria and India are trafficked through an elaborate global network and enslaved in a Texas brothel, and must together attempt a daring escape to…
17
Vice Squad (1982)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
An unlikely Hollywood hooker helps a detective set a trap for a mutilator pimp.
18
Rise of the Footsoldier 3 (2017)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
In the late 1980s, Pat Tate journeys from peddling pills in Marbella to his time in prison, where he solidifies his power before his release to reclaim his turf.
19
Escape from Sobibor (1987)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.
20
Jawbone (2017)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
A former youth boxing champion, Jimmy McCabe is a man in search of hope but looking in all the wrong places. When he hits rock bottom he turns to his childhood boxing club and the only family he has left: gym owner…