Movies like Dead or Alive (1999)
The best movies like Dead or Alive (1999) are American Yakuza (1993), Branded to Kill (1967) and Outrage (2010). If Dead or Alive hooked you with its action and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBranded to Kill (1967)7.2/10 from 266 votes
- NewestTrap House (2025)Released 2025
- In JapaneseBranded to Kill (1967)Also in Japanese
American Yakuza (1993)
When Nick Davis leaves prison after one year in solitairy, he is hired to operate a forklift in a warehouse in the harbor owned by the Japanese Yakuza patriarch Isshin Tendo. The place is assaulted by the Italian Mafia lead by Dino Campanela and Nick rescues and saves the life of Shuji Sawamoto, who is the representative of Yakuza interests in America. Shuji hires Nick to work for Yakuza and becomes his godfather in the family after his oath to join Yakuza. However, Nick is a lonely FBI undercover agent assigned to penetrate the criminal organization. When the FBI discovers that Campanela is organizing a massive attack to destroy the Yakuza, Nick's boss Littman calls off the operation to leave the dirty work to the Italian Mafia. But the connection of Nick with Shuji and his goddaughter Yuko forces him to help his Japanese family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
SnoozefestMovies like thisBranded to Kill (1967)
After botching his latest assignment, a third-ranked Japanese hit man becomes the target of another assassin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOutrage (2010)
When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHell Dogs (2022)
Bent on revenge, a traumatized ex-police officer must infiltrate a yakuza organization by befriending one of the group's most unhinged members.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOutrage Coda (2017)
Five years after the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a noted fixer. When tensions rise between Chang and the Hanabishi, and Chang's life is endangered, Otomo returns to Japan to settle things once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCode of Silence (1985)
A Chicago cop is caught in the middle of a gang war while his own comrades shun him because he wants to take an irresponsible cop down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe International (2009)
An interpol agent and an attorney are determined to bring one of the world's most powerful banks to justice. Uncovering money laundering, arms trading, and conspiracy to destabilize world governments, their investigation takes them from Berlin, Milan, New York and Istanbul. Finding themselves in a chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbsolution (2024)
An aging ex-boxer gangster working as muscle for a Boston crime boss receives an upsetting diagnosis. Despite a faltering memory, he attempts to rectify the sins of his past and reconnect with his estranged children. He is determined to leave a positive legacy for his grandson, but the criminal underworld isn’t done with him and won’t loosen their grip willingly.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisColombiana (2011)
After witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, Cataleya Restrepo grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target: the mobster responsible for her parents' death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFemale Yakuza Tale (1973)
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 gang of female thieves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrap House (2025)
An undercover DEA agent and his partner embark on a game of cat and mouse with an audacious, and surprising group of thieves – their own rebellious teenagers, who have begun robbing from a dangerous cartel, using their parents' tactics and top-secret intel to do it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Rain (1989)
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad City (2022)
Kensuke Sonomura directs the legendary Hitoshi Ozawa in this ultimate V-Cinema actioner. Kaiko City is plagued with poverty and crime. When a corrupt businessman decides to run for mayor and starts eliminating opponents from the rival mafia, a former police captain serving time for murder is secretly released and put in charge of a special task force to arrest him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeyond Outrage (2012)
As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West. What started as an internal strife in Outrage has now become a nationwide war in Outrage Beyond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBattles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973)
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 Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFirst Love (2019)
One night in Tokyo, Leo, a young boxer, meets his first love, Monica, an imprisoned sex worker. Caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, they find themselves pursued by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Yakuza (1974)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAl Capone (1959)
In this unusually accurate biography, small-time hood Al Capone comes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard of racketeer Johnny Torrio. Capone's rise in Chicago gangdom is followed through murder, extortion, and political fraud. He becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," but moves inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious end.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World of Kanako (2014)
When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Newton Boys (1998)
The story of the Newton gang, the most successful bank robbers in history, owing to their good planning and minimal violence.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKamikaze Cop, The Poison Gas Affair (1971)
Exciting fights between the police and a crime syndicate over the secret of poison gas.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
An Eye for an Eye (1981)
Sean Kane is forced to resign from the San Francisco Police Department's Narcotics Division when he goes berserk after his partner is murdered. He decides to fight alone and follows a trail of drug traffickers into unexpected high places.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlood Relative (2017)
After a botched robbery, a local crime syndicate sends a rookie enforcer to take care of a loose end. When the hit goes sideways and his civilian girlfriend ends up missing, her brother, Rodd, a mild-mannered guidance counselor, conducts an exhaustive search through the city to find her. With the support of a martial artist instructor, Bruce, the pair consistently becomes overwhelmed by a violent outfit of criminals looking to silence them. However, Rodd has a mysterious and dangerous past of his own, and with the help of his friend, they formulate a plan to take on the organization in this nail-biting action thriller.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & action
The Maizuru Showdown between The Yakuza Brothers (1974)
With a Kansai syndicate vying for Tokyo, one man reunites with his roguish half-brother in the midst of negotiations, when all hell breaks loose.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & action
The Mysterians (1957)
In Japan, scientifically advanced invaders from the war-destroyed planet Mysteroid cause an entire village to vanish, then send a giant robot out to storm the city by night, after which they request a small patch of land on Earth and the right to marry earthling women, claiming to be pacifists. Mankind must decide whether to capitulate or to resist.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLaw of the Wild (1965)
The story centers on a young yakuza, played by Keiji Takamiya, who teams up with a group of delinquent girls to commit crimes and make money. The second film in Shochiku's series the Law / Okite.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & action
Escape and the Law (1965)
Minami Yoichiro is a gang member who has killed the boss of opponent clan. Before leaving Japan forever, he visits his sister's grave and becomes involved with a rival gang. He then discovers that his sister was murdered; also it becomes apparent that the pursuing detective has a personal reason for trying to capture him. In the end both he and the girl who was escaping with him are killed. The third film in Shochiku's series Law / Okite.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & action
Kanto Wanderer (1963)
Handsome young Katsuta tries to follow the yakuza code, but even his boss doesn't believe in it. Diamond Fuyu is less ethical, and allows the idiotic Tetsu to trick a schoolgirl he fancies, Hanako, into a type of bonded prostitution. Because of gang conflict, the Izu family (to whom Katsuta belongs) has their last gambling den taken over, and he seeks revenge. This brings him back into contact with a former lover who is also a card trickster - she is also Diamond Fuyu's sister, and is now married to Okaru-Hachi, who has mastered a clever card cheating trick called Okaru, which involves the deft use of mirrors.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Auf Scheisser schiesst man nicht (1969)
A group of outlaw-style thugs lives on a house boat. They recruit a new member, a girl. Because she steals money from their boss they decide to flee, but they need to make money first.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Like Dead or Alive and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Dead or Alive?
The closest matches to Dead or Alive are American Yakuza (1993), Branded to Kill (1967) and Outrage (2010). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Dead or Alive?
Start with American Yakuza (1993), the closest match to Dead or Alive.
What is the highest-rated movie like Dead or Alive?
Branded to Kill (1967), rated 7.2/10 by 266 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Dead or Alive?
Trap House (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Dead or Alive?
Yes: Branded to Kill (1967), Outrage (2010) and Hell Dogs (2022).
How are movies similar to Dead or Alive chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Dead or Alive, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.