Movies like Mapantsula (1988)
The best movies like Mapantsula (1988) are Belly (1998), Menace II Society (1993) and Paid in Full (2002). If Mapantsula hooked you with its crime and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBoyz n the Hood (1991)7.6/10 from 2,393 votes
- NewestAbsolution (2024)Released 2024
Belly (1998)
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 for a come up, will their reign last?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMenace II Society (1993)
A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies 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 crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDisgrace (2008)
Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShaft (1971)
Cool Black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
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 drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSiberian Education (2013)
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 this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 crime & drama
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 crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIll Manors (2012)
Ensemble film revolving around characters living in Forest Gate, London. Over the course of a few days, six inter-linking stories explore issues of drug use, prostitution and urban poverty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlood Ties (2013)
Two brothers, on either side of the law, face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoodlum (1997)
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 must resist an invasion from a merciless mobster.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBoyz n the Hood (1991)
Three friends growing up in South Central Los Angeles navigate a neighborhood plagued by violence, unemployment, and crime, each responding differently to the harsh realities of street life. As tragedy strikes close to home, their friendship, choices, and hopes for a better future are put to the ultimate test.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNew Jack City (1991)
A gangster, Nino, is in the Cash Money Brothers, making a million dollars every week selling crack. A cop, Scotty, discovers that the only way to infiltrate the gang is to become a dealer himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSharky's Machine (1981)
Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClean (2022)
Tormented by a past life, garbage man Clean attempts a life of quiet redemption. But when his good intentions mark him a target of a local crime boss, Clean is forced to reconcile with the violence of his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Air I Breathe (2007)
A gambler’s bet spiraling into chaos, a gangster's prophetic visions, a pop star’s dark entanglement, a doctor’s desperate race against time to rescue his beloved... Four interconnected stories reveal life unfolding through four emotional pillars — joy, passion, grief, and love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrue Believer (1989)
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. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
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 crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisSleepless (2017)
Undercover Las Vegas police officer Vincent Downs, who has a lot of enemies, is caught in a high stakes web of corrupt cops and the mob-controlled casino underground. When a heist goes wrong, a crew of homicidal gangsters kidnap Downs’ teenage son T. In one sleepless night, Downs will have to rescue his son, evade an internal affairs investigation, and bring the kidnappers to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisGangs of New York (2002)
In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle. Vallon's journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGomorrah (2008)
An inside look at Italy's modern-day crime families, the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano. Power, money and blood: these are the "values" that the residents of the Province of Naples and Caserta have to face every day. They hardly ever have a choice and are forced to obey the rules of the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLorna's Silence (2008)
Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTransfusion (2023)
Ryan Logan, a former Special Forces operative, is battling to cope with life after the loss of his wife. He is thrusted into the criminal underworld to keep his only son from being taken from him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoffa (1992)
A portrait of union leader James R. Hoffa, as seen through the eyes of his friend, Bobby Ciaro. The film follows Hoffa through his countless battles with the RTA and President Roosevelt.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOfficer O'Brien (1930)
Bill O'Brien is promoted to lieutenant in the police department for his arrest of Mike Patello, gang leader and racketeer, for murder. Ruth Dale, who loves Bill, is concerned when her brother, Johnny, who witnessed the murder, proposes to testify against the racketeer. Meanwhile, Captain Antrim informs Bill that his father has just been released from prison and does not know his son is a policeman. On the way from prison, O'Brien (J. P.) meets Limo, a former cockney pal who recognizes Bill and keeps J. P. from seeing his son; later, J. P. arrives intoxicated and is enraged, forcing Bill to knock him unconscious. J. P. is arrested for robbery but returns the loot to save his son from disgrace; Johnny is killed before testifying against Patello, who is released but confronted by J. P., who proves his guilt and, when he struggles with the police, kills him. Bill plans to resign, but confident of Ruth's love, he decides to remain on the force.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Passionate Deceptions (2002)
This lurid erotic thriller follows Tucker and Susan, two investigators working in the Internet Sex Crime division of the Los Angeles Police Department. The officers begin working on a missing person case, and soon wind up at a bizarre mansion where a sleazy reality show is routinely filmed by the owners. To catch the murderer, Susan poses as one of the girls on the series - little realizing what lies in store for her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Gangster No. 1 (2000)
An old gangster is advised that Freddie Mays would leave jail after thirty years in prison. His mood changes and he recalls when he was a young punk and who joined Freddie's gang—a man he both envied and ultimately betrayed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRapture (1980)
José Sirgado is a low-budget filmmaker whose heroin addiction distorts his perspective of the real world. Although he is a depressed and unstable individual, his mood improves when he receives the mysterious films of Pedro, with whom he shares his passion for cinema.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMadigan's Millions (1968)
When a deported gangster dies in Italy, the U.S. Treasury Department is very interested in the one million dollars Madigan owed the government, but managed to take to Italy with him. They send Agent Jason Phister over to Italy to nose out the million. His criteria for the job is that no one would ever guess he's an agent of the United States government.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Like Mapantsula and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Mapantsula?
The closest matches to Mapantsula are Belly (1998), Menace II Society (1993) and Paid in Full (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Mapantsula?
Start with Belly (1998), the closest match to Mapantsula.
What is the highest-rated movie like Mapantsula?
Boyz n the Hood (1991), rated 7.6/10 by 2,393 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Mapantsula?
Absolution (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Mapantsula chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Mapantsula, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.