Movies like Iron Dan
The best movies like Iron Dan are They Drive by Night (1940), Hell Drivers (1957) and Over the Top (1987). If Iron Dan hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRocky (1976)7.8/10 from 9,072 votes
- NewestAmerican Solitaire (2025)Released 2025
They Drive by Night (1940)
Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle distributors, rivals and loan collectors, while trying to make a success of their transport company.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHell Drivers (1957)
An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company owner who encourages competion amongst his drivers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOver the Top (1987)
Lincoln Hawk a hard-luck big-rig trucker takes us under the glaring Las Vegas lights for all the boisterous action of the World Armwrestling Championship. Relying on wits and willpower, Hawk tries to rebuild his life by capturing the first-place prize money, and the love of the son he abandoned years earlier into the keeping of his rich, ruthless father-in-law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisParadise Highway (2022)
A truck driver has been forced to smuggle illicit cargo to save her brother from a deadly prison gang. With FBI operatives hot on her trail, Sally's conscience is challenged when the final package turns out to be a teenage girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisScarecrow (1973)
Two drifters bum around, visit earthy women and discuss opening a car wash in Pittsburgh.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThieves' Highway (1949)
Nick Garcos comes back from his tour of duty in World War II planning to settle down with his girlfriend, Polly Faber. He learns, however, that his father was recently beaten and burglarized by mob-connected trucker Mike Figlia, and Nick resolves to get even. He partners with prostitute Rica, and together they go after Mike, all the while getting pulled further into the local crime underworld.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFat City (1972)
The story of two men, a veteran boxer who is down and out, and a young man who is just starting his life and boxing career. Their fighting careers cross paths as their lives and fortunes head in opposite directions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisWhite Line Fever (1975)
An independent trucker with a pregnant wife fights cargo crooks and the big shot they work for.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBorn to Be Bad (1950)
Christabel Caine has the face of angel and the heart of a swamp rat. She'll step on anyone to get what she wants, including her own family. A master of manipulation, she covertly breaks off the engagement of her trusting cousin, Donna, to her fabulously wealthy beau, Curtis Carey. Once married to Curtis herself, Christabel continues her affair with novelist Nick Bradley, who knows she's evil, but loves her anyway.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Rain People (1969)
When a housewife finds out she is pregnant, she runs out of town looking for freedom to reevaluate her life decisions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSky (2016)
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
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 thisOf Mice and Men (1939)
An intellectually disabled giant and his level headed guardian find work at a sadistic cowboy's ranch in depression era America.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRocky (1976)
Rocky Balboa is a Philadelphia club fighter who seems to be going nowhere. But when a stroke of fate puts him in the ring with a world heavyweight champion, Rocky knows that it's his one shot at the big time — a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go the distance and come out a winner!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNomadland (2021)
A woman in her sixties embarks on a journey through the western United States after losing everything in the Great Recession, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisThe Shooting (1966)
Two miners agree to guide a mysterious woman, who has appeared in their camp from nowhere, to a nearby town; but soon, because of her erratic behavior, they begin to suspect that her true purpose is quite different.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDrink and Be Merry (2025)
At a struggling New York dive bar in the days leading up to Christmas 2019, Chet, a beleaguered bartender in a state of extended arrested development, must balance caring for his misanthropic, aging regulars — who have nowhere else to go, and rely on him for far more than pouring drinks — with his naive desires to muster some Christmas spirit.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Great White Throne Judgment (TBA)
Follows a group of bikers who run a small town through a drug and human trafficking trade; a preacher who lost his way; and a pre-med student who has a dark secret. Angels watch them trying to direct them on to a noble path.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Howl Coyote Howl (TBA)
After a bloody exchange with some bounty hunters, Anna, a veteran of the War in Afghanistan, and Gloria, her ill-prepared God-fearing friend, team up with a pair of coyotes to escape into Mexico.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood (1986)
Faustus is a clerk in St. John's at the Newfoundland Department of Education. He dreams of becoming ruler of Newfoundland and seceding from Canada. In the real world, Faustus' boss Eddie Peddle plans to indoctrinate the citizenry of Newfoundland with a cult-like geometric theory known as Total Education, but Peddle may be foiled by the revelation of a secret from his past career.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Clarissa (2026)
Across a single day in Lagos, Nigeria, Clarissa prepares to host a high society party at her home, as her complicated past begins to consume her, in the form of now-distant friends and loves from her youth. Simultaneously, Septimus, a young soldier, is haunted by his own memories of the horrors he has witnessed and endured. As the perspectives traverse past and present, across the bourgeois class and those too easily forgotten by society, a delicate portrait of contemporary Nigeria emerges.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Coming SoonMovies like thisWhere Demons Hide (2019)
A neo Noir tragedy that leads one man on a revenge path to seek a sense of Justice. Joshua was brought up only knowing despair and deception through years of both physical and emotional abuse. After the death of his mother left him with his self destructive and alcoholic father, the torment became too much leaving him to make a choice. Years later after putting himself through university, Joshua is a psychiatrist and has a plan for revenge. Singling out those who have done wrong to him, he influences his patient Lewis to take action for him. What Joshua doesn’t fully understand is the extent of Lewis’s own dark past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Runt (2024)
In the Australian town of Upson Downs, ten-year-old Annie and Runt, her stray dog, attempt to win the Agility Course Championship at the Krumpets Dog Show in London in order to save their family's farm from drought and misery.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Dirty Deal (2024)
A goon named Johnny goes to collect a parcel full of money at the mall for his boss Teja, but before he arrived the bag was already gone. To know who took the money and what's the plan behind it, Watch our short film 'Dirty Deal'.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
American Solitaire (2025)
A U.S. soldier struggles to make sense of civilian life when he is confronted with the complexities of gun violence in America
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Iron Dan?
The closest matches to Iron Dan are They Drive by Night (1940), Hell Drivers (1957) and Over the Top (1987). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Iron Dan?
Start with They Drive by Night (1940), the closest match to Iron Dan.
What is the highest-rated movie like Iron Dan?
Rocky (1976), rated 7.8/10 by 9,072 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Iron Dan?
American Solitaire (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Iron Dan?
Yes: They Drive by Night (1940), Hell Drivers (1957) and Over the Top (1987).
How are movies similar to Iron Dan chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Iron Dan, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.