Movies like A Bad Debt (2021)
The best movies like A Bad Debt (2021) are Hardball (2001), The Gambler (2014) and Life Without Principle (2011). If A Bad Debt hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBeast (2026)7.5/10 from 227 votes
- NewestBeast (2026)Released 2026
Hardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Gambler (2014)
Literature professor Jim Bennett leads a secret life as a high-stakes gambler. Always a risk-taker, Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster and offers his own life as collateral. Staying one step ahead, he pits his creditor against the operator of an illicit gambling ring while garnering the attention of Frank, a paternalistic loan shark. As his relationship with a student deepens, Bennett must risk everything for a second chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLife Without Principle (2011)
A criminal, a bank clerk and a police officer find their destinies entwined when a loan shark gets assaulted after having withdrawn $10 million from the bank in the midst of the world financial crisis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJungleland (2020)
Stanley manages his boxer brother Lion but when a devastating loss in the ring leaves the pair in debt, an opportunity to recoup the cash leads to a series of misadventures that threaten to break the bond between them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFast Girls (2012)
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHome Run (2013)
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeast (2026)
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFanny Lye Deliver'd (2019)
On an isolated English farm in 1657, Fanny lives a quiet life with her oppressive husband John and their young son. One day their life is rocked with the arrival of young couple Thomas and Rebecca who claim to have been robbed and need a place to stay. But are these strangers really who they say they are?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlicka (2006)
Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmbattled (2020)
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrange Weather (2016)
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAdopt a Highway (2019)
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBarbershop (2002)
A day in the life of a barbershop on the south side of Chicago. Calvin, who inherited the struggling business from his deceased father, views the shop as nothing but a burden and waste of his time. After selling the shop to a local loan shark, Calvin slowly begins to see his father's vision and legacy and struggles with the notion that he just sold it out.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFear (1946)
B-movie film noir take on Crime and Punishment. A college student gets deeper and deeper in trouble when he takes a loan from a shady college professor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blood and Bones (2004)
In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreathless (2009)
Sang-hoon is a lowlife gangster, a debt collector exercising thuggish ways to collect his money. The recipient of nothing but anger since his childhood, he expresses himself through violence. When he finally encounters someone who can stand up to him, feisty school-girl Yoon-hee they become unlikely friends.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUshijima the Loan Shark (2012)
Mirai Suzuki (Yuko Oshima) becomes responsible for her mother's debt which is owed to loan shark Kaoru Ushijima (Takayuki Yamada). To begin paying off her mother's debt, Mirai begins working at a dating cafe. Meanwhile, Jun (Kento Hayashi) is the ambitious and greedy company president for an event group. To borrow money, Jun visits Kaukau Finance owned by Kaoru Ushijima.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Loan Shark (1952)
A vicious loan shark ring has been preying on factory workers. When several workers at a tire factory suffer violence at the hands of the loan sharkers, a union leader and the factory owner try to recruit ex-con Joe Gargan to infiltrate to the gang. At first Joe does not want to get involved, but changes his mind when his brother-in-law dies at the hands of a savage loan shark hood. Joe works his way into the mob, but in order to keep his cover, Joe can't tell anyone what he is up to. This results in him being disowned by his sister and girl friend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Zenigata (2018)
Two brothers run a bar called Zenigata in a backstreet of a fishing port. At midnight, the bar changes to a lending place, where the brothers lend money and charge high interest. One day, they hire a former boxer
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Strange Pair (1988)
An unreliable narrator recounts the love story of a loan shark, his wife, and their recently released from jail childhood friend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Coin Locker Girl (2015)
Il-young tries to get away from her adoptive mother because she does not want to get involved in her mother's criminal activities.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisScott and Sid (2018)
From their first encounter as teenagers in high school, Scott and Sid seem unlikely friends. Scott is a shambolic dreamer, intent on carving out his own path in life and holding up a metaphorical middle finger to anyone who tries to stop him. He is a quintessential troubled teen: on his fifth high school by the age of fifteen, alienated from his peers, crippled by recurring nightmares and disliked by his own foster parents. Sid, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to be liked. An unconfident, awkward recluse through circumstance, Sid's impoverished and dysfunctional background leave him no time for friends and no money for hobbies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like A Bad Debt?
The closest matches to A Bad Debt are Hardball (2001), The Gambler (2014) and Life Without Principle (2011). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after A Bad Debt?
Start with Hardball (2001), the closest match to A Bad Debt.
What is the highest-rated movie like A Bad Debt?
Beast (2026), rated 7.5/10 by 227 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like A Bad Debt?
Beast (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to A Bad Debt chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside A Bad Debt, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.