Movies Like Desperate Lives

If you liked Desperate Lives (1982), a drama and tv movie movie directed by Robert Michael Lewis, 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
The Principal (1987)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the…
2
Beautiful Boy (2018)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.
3
The Basketball Diaries (1995)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.
4
Lean On Me (1989)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels…
5
What We Hide (2025)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
After their mother dies of an overdose, two sisters hide her body to avoid being separated by the foster system, but as their secret threatens to unravel, they must confront the consequences of their desperate choice.
6
Less Than Zero (1987)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
A college freshman returns to Los Angeles for Christmas at his ex-girlfriend's request, but discovers that his former best friend has an out-of-control drug habit.
7
Braven (2018)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
A logger defends his family from a group of dangerous drug runners.
8
Blow (2001)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
The story of how George Jung, together with the Medellín Cartel led by Pablo Escobar, established the billion-dollar cocaine empire in the United States in the 1970s.
9
The Baker (2023)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
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…
10
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
★ 7.3/10Also drama and tv movie
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
11
Cheaters (2000)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
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.
12
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
★ 8/10Also drama
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
13
The Florida Project (2017)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
The story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.
14
The Smashing Machine (2025)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
In the late 1990s, up-and-coming mixed martial artist Mark Kerr aspires to become the greatest fighter in the world. However, he must also battle his opioid dependence and a volatile relationship with his girlfriend…
15
TalhotBlond (2012)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
16
River's Edge (1986)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
A group of high-school friends must come to terms with the fact that one of them, Samson, killed another, Jamie. Faced with the brutality of death, each must decide whether to turn their friend in to the police, or to…
17
The Brotherhood of Justice (1986)
★ 6/10Also drama and tv movie
High-school students start a vigilante group in their neighbourhood but, as their power increases, they become more abusive and dangerous.
18
The Substitute (1996)
★ 7/10Also 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…
19
Hot Summer Nights (2018)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
In 1991, a sheltered teenager comes of age during a wild summer on Cape Cod, getting rich from selling pot to gangsters, falling in love for the first time, partying, and eventually realizing that he's in way over his…
20
Trainspotting (1996)
★ 8/10Also drama
Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends --Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning…