Movies like Zenigata (2018)
The best movies like Zenigata (2018) are Hardball (2001), Hands of Stone (2016) and Jungleland (2020). If Zenigata 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
- In JapaneseBlood and Bones (2004)Also in Japanese
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 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 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 Cut (2025)
A retired boxer intends to return to the ring for one last shot at the title, but first he must make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas with an unscrupulous trainer, he embarks on an intensive and illegal weight-cutting program.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisBlood 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGigi & Nate (2022)
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Nest (2020)
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHouse of Bamboo (1955)
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.
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 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 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 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 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 thisLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisSakuran (2006)
Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.
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 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 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 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
Barbershop (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 thisUshijima the Loan Shark Part 2 (2014)
Ushijima runs Kaukau Fiance, a black market lending agency which scourges its clients with interest rates as high as 50% for 10 days. Ushijima chases down his debtors, who normally come from the bottom of society, with ruthless efficacy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Scott 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
The Sentimentalists (2014)
An aged, above suspicion, bourgeois man known as ‘The Master’ lives isolated in a luxurious beachfront villa with his teenage daughter. In reality, however, he is involved in an illicit trade in antiquities, acts as a loan shark, and trades antiquities on the black market. The ‘Master’ has two henchmen, Mercury and John, who both commit fatal mistakes. Mercury falls for the daughter of ‘Master’, while John becomes obsessed with a prostitute. Both of them, as ‘sentimentalists’, must be eliminated.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Breathless (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 thisRounders (1998)
Poker addict Mike McDermott knows the game inside out, but loses his money one night in a game to Russian-American gangster Teddy KGB. Promising his partner Jo he'll give up, he meets up with best friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy, just out of prison and owing lots of money to the wrong kind of people. McDermott becomes his co-guarantor and now there's only one way to raise the money, the pair have to get back into the game.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWest of Sunshine (2018)
A father has less than a day to pay back a debt to a violent loan shark, while looking after his young son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Stray Dogz 8 (2018)
When a greedy family pockets their son's disability payments with no intention of repaying their loan, Ando hatches a plan to get his money back.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Zenigata?
The closest matches to Zenigata are Hardball (2001), Hands of Stone (2016) and Jungleland (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Zenigata?
Start with Hardball (2001), the closest match to Zenigata.
What is the highest-rated movie like Zenigata?
Beast (2026), rated 7.5/10 by 227 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Zenigata?
Beast (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Zenigata?
Yes: Blood and Bones (2004), Sakuran (2006) and Ushijima the Loan Shark Part 2 (2014).
How are movies similar to Zenigata chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Zenigata, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.