Movies like Cruz De Madera (1996)
The best movies like Cruz De Madera (1996) are The Protector (1985), The Substitute (1996) and Absolution (2024). If Cruz De Madera hooked you with its action and crime, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEl Infierno (2010)8.0/10 from 839 votes
- NewestHunting Season (2025)Released 2025
- In SpanishRedeemer (2014)Also in Spanish
The Protector (1985)
Billy Wong is a New York City cop whose partner is gunned down during a robbery. Billy and his new partner, Danny Garoni, are working security at a fashion show when a wealthy man's daughter, Laura Shapiro, is kidnapped. The Federal authorities suspect that Laura's father is involved with Mr. Ko, a Hong Kong drug kingpin, so the NYC police commissioner sends the two cops to Hong Kong to investigate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies 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 action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies 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 action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisNinja: Shadow of a Tear (2013)
Fight everyone and trust no one: it's the code of survival practiced by martial-arts master Casey Bowman after his life of domestic bliss is shattered by a savage act of violence. Vowing revenge, the fearless American stealthily tracks the killer from Osaka to Bangkok to Rangoon with the help of a wise and crafty sensei. His only clues: a series of victims whose necks bear the distinctive mark of strangulation by barbed wire. Fighting to avenge as well as to survive, Casey must sharpen his razor-like responses and take his battle skills to the next level, even using deep meditation to fake his own death. His target: the sinister drug lord Goro, who is flooding the streets with deadly meth cooked at his remote jungle factory. To prepare for his ultimate confrontation, Casey must finally become an invisible warrior worthy of the name Ninja. But just when his prey is cornered, an unexpected twist shows Casey that his battle is only beginning: he truly can trust no one.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRedeemer (2014)
A former hit-man for a drug cartel becomes a vigilante to pay for his sins and find redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWar (2007)
FBI agent Jack Crawford is out for revenge when his partner is killed and all clues point to the mysterious assassin Rogue. But when Rogue turns up years later to take care of some unfinished business, he triggers a violent clash of rival gangs. Will the truth come out before it's too late? And when the dust settles, who will remain standing?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisState Property (2002)
A Philadelphia gang member becomes a drug kingpin and starts a feud with vicious rivals in his quest for the American Dream.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Infierno (2010)
After being deported back to Mexico, a man has no choice but to join the vicious drug cartel that has corrupted his hometown in order to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisWire Room (2022)
New recruit Justin Rosa must monitor arms-smuggling cartel member Eddie Flynn — and keep him alive at all costs. When a SWAT team descends on Flynn’s home, Rosa breaks protocol and contacts the gangster directly to save his life. As gunmen break into the Wire Room and chaos erupts, Mueller and Rosa make a final, desperate stand against the corrupt agents and officials who seek to destroy evidence and kill them both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRise of the Footsoldier (2007)
Carlton Leach rises from one of the most feared generals of the football terraces to becoming a member of a notorious gang of criminals who rampaged their way through London and Essex in the late '80s and early '90s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe System (2022)
When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Agent Matt Graver teams up with operative Alejandro Gillick to prevent Mexican drug cartels from smuggling terrorists across the United States border.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGringo (2018)
An American businessman with a stake in a pharmaceutical company that's about to go public finds his life is thrown into turmoil by an incident in Mexico.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisTrap House (2025)
An undercover DEA agent and his partner embark on a game of cat and mouse with an audacious, and surprising group of thieves – their own rebellious teenagers, who have begun robbing from a dangerous cartel, using their parents' tactics and top-secret intel to do it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl padrino: The Latin Godfather (2004)
In the streets of East Los Angeles, Manny is a formidable drug dealer. Impressed by his extravagant lifestyle and prowess, his young son, Kilo, yearns to follow in his footsteps. Kilo resolves to learn how to prosper in the drug world, and his new life as a dealer begins. In a world where a man wants everything, he may end up with nothing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWanted Man (2024)
Follows a police officer who must retrieve an eyewitness and escort her after a cartel shooting leaves several DEA agents dead, but then he must decide who to trust when they discover that the attack was executed by American forces.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBorder Hunters (2025)
After his police officer brother is killed by a drug dealer who flees to the protection of his cartel-connected uncle in Mexico, an American man with a diverse law enforcement/military background goes south of the border to get revenge
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Black Book (2023)
After his son is wrongly accused of kidnapping, a deacon who has just lost his wife takes matters into his own hands and fights a crooked police gang to clear him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHunting Season (2025)
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Way of the Gun (2000)
Two criminal drifters without sympathy get more than they bargained for after kidnapping and holding for ransom the surrogate mother of a powerful and shady man.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Net (1995)
Angela Bennett is a freelance computer systems analyst who tracks down software viruses. At night, she hooks up to the internet and chats to others 'surfing the net'. While de-bugging a new high-tech game for a cyber friend, she comes across a top secret program and becomes the target of a mysterious organization, who will stop at nothing to erase her identity and her existence in order to protect the project.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLos cómplices del infierno (1995)
Sandra and Deborah are two women trying to escape from a tragic recent event. They go for a vacation on a beach house but are then followed by an evil cult.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
Bandidas (2006)
When a ruthless robber baron takes away everything they cherish, a rough-and-tumble, idealistic peasant and a sophisticated heiress embark on a quest for justice, vengeance…and a few good heists.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngel in the Night (1988)
A respectable family is shot by a gang brutally together. Only the mother survives the perfidious raid. They, although psychiatrist, finds the way back only laboriously in the everyday life. However, then you play the chance one of the members of a gang in the hands. A young fellow which does not finish on his part the recollections and takes up unsuspectingly the help of the doctor. This recognizes immediately that the illustrated case is more own to her. Now the woman knows only one: Revenge. Under drugs her patient reveals details and names. As a result through various tricks and in varying disguising she approaches to the single members of a gang. It begins a hunt on life and death...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
Treinta Segundos Para Morir (1981)
Three brothers smuggle arms and drugs from Mexico into the US.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Chase (1994)
Jack Hammond is sentenced to life in prison, but manages to escape. To get away from the police he takes a girl as hostage and drives off in her car. The girl happens to be the only daughter of one of the richest men in the state. In a while the car chase is being broadcast live on every TV-channel.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisInhale (2010)
A couple goes to dangerous lengths to find a lung donor for their daughter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNarcotráfico: Sentencia De Muerte (1985)
It’s the Feds vs. the Cartel as both sides of the law race through the desert to snag a hidden dope stash in New Drug City.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Like Cruz De Madera and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Cruz De Madera?
The closest matches to Cruz De Madera are The Protector (1985), The Substitute (1996) and Absolution (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Cruz De Madera?
Start with The Protector (1985), the closest match to Cruz De Madera.
What is the highest-rated movie like Cruz De Madera?
El Infierno (2010), rated 8.0/10 by 839 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Cruz De Madera?
Hunting Season (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like Cruz De Madera?
Yes: Redeemer (2014), El Infierno (2010) and Los cómplices del infierno (1995).
How are movies similar to Cruz De Madera chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Cruz De Madera, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.