Movies like Cockfighter (1974)
The best movies like Cockfighter (1974) are Jungleland (2020), Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011) and Hands of Stone (2016). If Cockfighter hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRaging Bull (1980)7.9/10 from 4,980 votes
- NewestBeast (2026)Released 2026
Jungleland (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 thisNever Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011)
Four fighters from different backgrounds come together to train under an ex MMA rising star and then ultimately have to fight each other and the traitor in their midst.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
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 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 thisPrizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher (2022)
At the turn of the 19th century, Pugilism was the sport of kings and a gifted young boxer fought his way to becoming champion of England.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (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 thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJawbone (2017)
A former youth boxing champion, Jimmy McCabe is a man in search of hope but looking in all the wrong places. When he hits rock bottom he turns to his childhood boxing club and the only family he has left: gym owner Bill corner man Eddie and promoter Joe. Back in training, years after anyone thought he was a contender, he risks his life, as he tries to stand tall and regain his place in the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSeeking Justice (2011)
After his wife is assaulted, a husband enlists the services of a vigilante group to help him settle the score.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBring Them Down (2025)
When the ongoing rivalry between farmers Michael and Jack suddenly escalates, it triggers a chain of events that take increasingly violent and devastating turns, leaving both families permanently altered.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNever Back Down: No Surrender (2016)
Picking up after the events of Never Back Down 2, former MMA champion Case Walker is on the comeback trail to become champion once again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBruised (2021)
Jackie Justice is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after the fight, she's coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter who promises Jackie a life back in the Octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny - the son she gave up as an infant - shows up at her doorstep. A triumphant story of a fighter who reclaims her power, in and out of the ring, when everyone has counted her out
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this40 Acres (2025)
Hailey Freeman and her family are the last descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada after the Civil War. In a famine-decimated near future, they now struggle to safeguard their farm, as they make one last stand against a vicious militia hell-bent on taking their 40 Acres.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight Always Comes (2025)
Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
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 thisRaging Bull (1980)
The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDamage (2009)
An ex-con battles it out in the cage to pay for the operation that would save the daughter of his victim. Along the way he finds fatherly love, and friendship, in the most unlikely of places.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWarrior (2011)
The youngest son of an alcoholic former boxer returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament – a path that puts the fighter on a collision course with his estranged, older brother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlood and Bone (2009)
In Los Angeles, an ex-con takes the underground fighting world by storm in his quest to fulfill a promise to a dead friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Shanghai Gesture (1941)
A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOedipus Rex (1967)
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Oedipus, and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Oedipus that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLulu on the Bridge (1998)
A famous jazz saxophonist's life is forever changed after he is accidentally shot. After discovering a mysterious package, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful aspiring actress, but their happiness is cut short by a series of strange, dreamlike events.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Champ (1931)
A broken-down alcoholic prizefighter struggles to keep custody of his adoring son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMira corpora (2004)
The film appears like a ritual with splendids and crypteds psalms. The Great Master of Order (Marcel Mazé, new fetish actor after Aloual) seduces the young male prey with a running cinema projector which carves Murnau's Nosferatu extracts on their bodies. Metamorphosis, rituals passages, Eros and Thanotos, illusion and reality, film into the film are the themes and images in perpetual osmosis in this Stéphane Marti's opus.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Macon County Line (1974)
A vengeful Southern sheriff is out for blood after his wife is brutally killed by a pair of drifters. Low-budget film set in Georgia in 1953 and at the time of release, purported to be based on a true story.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Doll's House (1973)
Nora Helmer has years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed, and lives in fear of her husband finding out, and of the shame such a revelation would bring to his career. But, when the truth comes out, Nora is shocked to learn where she really stands in her husband's esteem.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)
Mike Vecchio and Susan Henderson are preparing for their upcoming wedding. However, they seem to be the only two people at the wedding that are happy. Mike's brother Richie and his wife Joan are going through a divorce, which is upsetting his overly devout Catholic mother Beatrice. Also, Susan's father is carrying on an affair and her sex starved older sister Wilma is going through her troubles with her husband Johnny. All this is going on while Mike's best friend Jerry is trying to bed the maid of honor, Susan's cousin Brenda.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Against the Current (2009)
Struggling with a tragic past, a man with an urgent calling enlists two friends to help him swim the length of the Hudson River.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jake's Corner (2008)
The fictional story of an ex-football star, Johnny Dunn, who moves far from the spotlight after a family tragedy to a small, desert town he owns called Jake's Corner. This dramatic comedy is a cross between Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and "Northern Exposure" (1990). Set in the real town of Jake's Corner, Arizona, it is a rest stop for travelers making their way through the Arizona desert, but for the people who live there, it's a rest stop for life. Johnny and the eclectic ensemble that live and work in the town occupy trailers behind the Corner Store and Jake's Corner Bar. Through the years, this cast of misfits has become closer than most families - they are kin. The dynamic of the town is changed forever when Johnny's young nephew comes to live with him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Cockfighter?
The closest matches to Cockfighter are Jungleland (2020), Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011) and Hands of Stone (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Cockfighter?
Start with Jungleland (2020), the closest match to Cockfighter.
What is the highest-rated movie like Cockfighter?
Raging Bull (1980), rated 7.9/10 by 4,980 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Cockfighter?
Beast (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Cockfighter?
Yes: Jungleland (2020), Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011) and Hands of Stone (2016).
How are movies similar to Cockfighter chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Cockfighter, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.