Movies like Knights of the City (1986)
The best movies like Knights of the City (1986) are Patti Cake$ (2017), Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005) and Bodied (2018). If Knights of the City hooked you with its action and music, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Warriors (1979)7.7/10 from 2,548 votes
- NewestThe System (2022)Released 2022
Patti Cake$ (2017)
Straight out of Jersey comes Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$, an aspiring rapper fighting through a world of strip malls and strip clubs on an unlikely quest for glory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGet Rich or Die Tryin' (2005)
A tale of an inner city drug dealer who turns away from crime to pursue his passion, rap music.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBodied (2018)
A progressive graduate student finds success and sparks outrage when his interest in battle rap as a thesis subject becomes a competitive obsession.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHoney 2 (2011)
After a brush with the law, Maria has returned to her gritty Bronx roots to rebuild her life with nothing but a talent for street dance and a burning ambition to prove herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like this8 Mile (2002)
For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Substitute (1996)
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 he discovers a conspiracy of criminals at work, and must reassemble his team from his last jungle raid to stop them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHoney: Rise Up and Dance (2018)
Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPaid in Full (2002)
Ace is an impressionable young man working for a dry cleaning business. His friend, drug dealer Mitch, goes to prison. In an unrelated incident, he finds some cocaine in a pants pocket. Soon, Ace finds himself dealing cocaine for Lulu. Via lucky breaks and solid interpersonal skills, Ace moves to the top of the Harlem drug world. Of course, unfaithful employees and/or rivals conspire to bring about Ace's fall.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHustle & Flow (2005)
With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeats (2019)
An agoraphobic hip-hop prodigy and a disgraced former music manager cross paths in Chicago’s South Side and help each other face demons of their pasts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNotorious (2009)
"Notorious" is the story of Christopher Wallace. Through raw talent and sheer determination, Wallace transforms himself from Brooklyn street hustler (once selling crack to pregnant women) to one of the greatest rappers of all time: The Notorious B.I.G. Follow his meteoric rise to fame and his refusal to succumb to expectations - redefining our notion of "The American Dream."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSavage Streets (1984)
Brenda, vivacious leader of the "Satins", a fun-loving group of pretty high school girls, searches for deadly vengeance against the gang members who assaulted her deaf-mute sister.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBiggie & Tupac (2002)
In 1997, rap superstars Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace (aka Biggie Smalls, The Notorious B.I.G.) were gunned down in separate incidents, the apparent victims of hip hop's infamous east-west rivalry. Nick Broomfield's film introduces Russell Poole, an ex-cop with damning evidence that suggests the LAPD deliberately fumbled the case to conceal connections between the police, LA gangs and Death Row Records, the label run by feared rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFame (1980)
A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPitch Perfect (2012)
College student Beca knows she does not want to be part of a clique, but that's exactly where she finds herself after arriving at her new school. Thrust in among mean gals, nice gals and just plain weird gals, Beca finds that the only thing they have in common is how well they sing together. She takes the women of the group out of their comfort zone of traditional arrangements and into a world of amazing harmonic combinations in a fight to the top of college music competitions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTuff Turf (1985)
The new guy in a Los Angeles high school, Morgan, does some singing and fights hotshot Nick over disco dancer Frankie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
SnoozefestMovies like thisBad Boys (1995)
Marcus Burnett is a henpecked family man. Mike Lowrey is a footloose and fancy free ladies' man. Both Miami policemen, they have 72 hours to reclaim a consignment of drugs stolen from under their station's nose. To complicate matters, in order to get the assistance of the sole witness to a murder, they have to pretend to be each other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Born Losers (1967)
A biker gang incites a reign of terror in a California coastal town that culminates in four teenage girls being raped. Vietnam veteran Billy Jack has had enough, however, and takes on the depraved bikers single-handedly. He rescues young Vicky Barrington from their clutches, but then has to contend with not only the thugs, but also the ineffectual and racist local lawmen, who have it out for the half-Native American Billy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe System (2022)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRomeo Must Die (2000)
Two warring gang families (one African-American, the other Chinese) maneuver for bragging rights to the Oakland, California docks. Han Sing and Trish O'Day uncover a trail of deceit that leaves most of the warring factions dead... or worse!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLionheart (1990)
Lyon Gaultier is a deserter in the Foreign Legion arriving in the USA entirely hard up. He finds his brother between life and death and his sister-in-law without the money needed to heal her husband and to maintain her child. To earn the money needed, Gaultier decides to take part in some very dangerous clandestine fights.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrassed Off (1996)
A Yorkshire coal mine is threatened with closure and the only hope is for the men to enter their Grimley Colliery Brass Band into a national competition. They believe they have no hope until Gloria appears carrying her Flugelhorn. At first mocked for being a woman, she soon becomes the only chance for the band to win.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Meteor Man (1993)
One night Jefferson Reed gets hit in the chest by a souped-up chunk of meteor. So he can fly, but he's scared of heights. He can master the information in any book ... for about thirty seconds. Now his friends and family want him to protect their community from the dreaded Golden Lords.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Warriors (1979)
Prominent gang leader Cyrus calls a meeting of New York's gangs to set aside their turf wars and take over the city. At the meeting, a rival leader kills Cyrus, but a Coney Island gang called the Warriors is wrongly blamed for Cyrus' death. Before you know it, the cops and every gangbanger in town is hot on the Warriors' trail.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGreen Day: Bullet in a Bible (2005)
Bullet in a Bible documents one of the two biggest shows that Green Day have performed in their career. They played in front of a crowd of over 130,000 people at the Milton Keynes National Bowl in United Kingdom on June 18–19, 2005. The band was supported by Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, and Hard-Fi during their American Idiot world tour. Fourteen of the twenty songs performed at these shows were included on the disc; missing out "Jaded", "Knowledge", "She", "Maria", "Homecoming" and "We Are The Champions". Bullet in a Bible was released as a double-LP set on November 10, 2009, as part of the band's 2009 vinyl re-release campaign.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979)
A group of rock-music-loving students, with the help of the Ramones, take over their school to combat its newly installed oppressive administration.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Carter (2009)
An in-depth look at the artist Dwayne "Lil Wayne" Carter Jr, proclaimed by many as the "greatest rapper alive" With comprehensive and personal interviews with Lil Wayne, this film will also feature insight from those that know him best. The world will finally get to know the history surrounding one of the most prolific artists of this generation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
3:15 the Moment of Truth (1986)
Violent crime is routine. Organized drug trade runs rampant in the face of powerless authority. And a vicious street gang holds dominion with a savage reign of terror. Welcome to Lincoln High! Here the cobras rule the school and everyone in it. Everyone except for Jeff Hanna.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Big Pun: The Legacy (2009)
His rhymes caught the attention of millions. His flow is un-matched by any. His story is captivating and triumphant. "Big Pun: The Legacy" chronicles the life of the Grammy Nominated artist "Big Pun" aka Christopher Rios, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx who made history by becoming the first Latino rapper to sell over a million records.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
Imagine: John Lennon (1988)
The biography of former Beatle, John Lennon—narrated by Lennon himself—with extensive material from Yoko Ono's personal collection, previously unseen footage from Lennon's private archives, and interviews with David Bowie, his first wife Cynthia, second wife Yoko Ono and sons Julian and Sean.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Knights of the City?
The closest matches to Knights of the City are Patti Cake$ (2017), Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005) and Bodied (2018). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Knights of the City?
Start with Patti Cake$ (2017), the closest match to Knights of the City.
What is the highest-rated movie like Knights of the City?
The Warriors (1979), rated 7.7/10 by 2,548 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Knights of the City?
The System (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Knights of the City?
Yes: Patti Cake$ (2017), Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005) and Bodied (2018).
How are movies similar to Knights of the City chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Knights of the City, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.