Movies like Alcatraz Island (1937)
The best movies like Alcatraz Island (1937) are You Only Live Once (1937), They Live by Night (1949) and Supercross (2005). If Alcatraz Island hooked you with its romance and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPrimal: Tales of Savagery (2019)8.4/10 from 373 votes
- NewestIslands (2025)Released 2025
You Only Live Once (1937)
Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThey Live by Night (1949)
An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSupercross (2005)
Faced with the suspicious death of their father, two brothers must motivate one another to get back on their bikes and take the Las Vegas Motocross Championships by storm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFallen Angel (1945)
An unemployed drifter, Eric Stanton wanders into a small California town and begins hanging around the local diner. While Eric falls for the lovely waitress Stella, he also begins romancing a quiet and well-to-do woman named June Mills. Since Stella isn't interested in Eric unless he has money, the lovelorn guy comes up with a scheme to win her over, and it involves June. Before long, murder works its way into this passionate love triangle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wild One (1953)
The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club ride into the small California town of Wrightsville, eager to raise hell. Brooding gang leader Johnny Strabler takes a liking to Kathie, the daughter of the local lawman, as another club rolls into town.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSahara (1983)
Intent on winning a competition in place of her distinguished late father, beautiful young heiress Dale takes on the guise of a man and competes in his spot, embarking on a car race that crosses the unforgiving Sahara desert.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisEdge of the City (1957)
A male army deserter and a black male dock worker join forces against a corrupt manager, in a corrupt environment, and as their connection blossoms they must face the oppressive and morally decaying city they live in.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThey Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPoint Blank (1967)
After being double-crossed and left for dead, a mysterious man named Walker single-mindedly tries to retrieve the rather inconsequential sum of money that was stolen from him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Quiller Memorandum (1966)
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisThey Won't Believe Me (1947)
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTime Without Pity (1957)
Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIslands (2025)
In this twisty thriller, a tennis coach at a tropical resort finds himself at the center of a missing persons mystery. Tom teaches tennis during the day and parties at night. When an enigmatic tourist arrives, Tom is unable to shake the feeling he has met her before. Tension and attraction grow, until her husband disappears, and the police suspect Tom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEach Dawn I Die (1939)
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIndemnity (2022)
An ex-fireman with PTSD goes on the run when accused of a crime he doesn't even remember committing, leading him down a rabbit hole of conspiracy to the highest degree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWitness to Murder (1954)
A woman fights to convince the police that she witnessed a murder while looking out her bedroom window.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYield to the Night (1956)
Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGarage Sale Mystery: A Case Of Murder (2017)
Jenn buys an old reel-to-reel recorder at a garage sale only to find that it includes the sound of a man pleading for his life. When the former owner of the recorder, a retired therapist, is found murdered in a patient’s apartment, Jenn’s investigation leads to other patients whose love lives are more entangled than she was first led to believe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPrimal: Tales of Savagery (2019)
Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal: Tales of Savagery features a caveman and a dinosaur on the brink of extinction. Bonded by tragedy, this unlikely friendship becomes the only hope of survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLove Finds You in Valentine (2016)
Kennedy Blaine, a Californian girl, inherits a ranch in the small town of Valentine in Nebraska. Before she sells the property, she decides to spend the summer in her house and learn more about her family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like this3-Iron (2004)
A drifter lives in people's houses while they are away and repays them by doing chores for them. His life changes when he meets a beautiful woman who wants to escape her unhappy marriage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Real McCoy (1993)
Karen McCoy is released from prison with nothing but the clothes on her back. Before being incarcerated, Karen was the bank robber of her time, but now she wishes for nothing more than to settle down and start a new life. Unfortunately, between a dirty parole officer, old business partners, and an idiot ex, she will have to do the unthinkable in order to save her son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisCool Hand Luke (1967)
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Docks of New York (1928)
A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBirdman of Alcatraz (1962)
After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFirst Blood (1982)
When former Green Beret John Rambo is harassed by local law enforcement and arrested for vagrancy, he is forced to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDown by Law (1986)
A disc jockey, a pimp and an Italian tourist escape from jail in New Orleans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Castle (2001)
A court-martialed general rallies together 1200 inmates to rise against the system that put him away.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisReindeer Games (2000)
After assuming his dead cellmate's identity to get with his girlfriend, an ex-con finds himself the reluctant participant in a casino heist.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Unspoken Truth (1995)
Despite her parents' misgivings, Brianne marries Clay, and the couple soon have a daughter. It's then that Clay begins to show the first signs that he's unhinged. When he sees Brianne innocently talking to a man, Clay shoots him dead. At first, Brianne believes that her love for her husband can prevail. But when authorities threaten to take away custody of her daughter, she learns a horrible truth about her past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Like Alcatraz Island and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Alcatraz Island?
The closest matches to Alcatraz Island are You Only Live Once (1937), They Live by Night (1949) and Supercross (2005). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Alcatraz Island?
Start with You Only Live Once (1937), the closest match to Alcatraz Island.
What is the highest-rated movie like Alcatraz Island?
Primal: Tales of Savagery (2019), rated 8.4/10 by 373 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Alcatraz Island?
Islands (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Alcatraz Island?
Yes: You Only Live Once (1937), They Live by Night (1949) and Supercross (2005).
How are movies similar to Alcatraz Island chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Alcatraz Island, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.