Movies like Alien Nights (2023)
The best movies like Alien Nights (2023) are The Principal (1987), Sharky's Machine (1981) and Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005). If Alien Nights hooked you with its drama and crime, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedElite Squad (2007)8.1/10 from 2,864 votes
- NewestIn Cold Light (2026)Released 2026
The Principal (1987)
Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSharky's Machine (1981)
Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGet Rich or Die Tryin' (2005)
A tale of an inner city drug dealer who turns away from crime to pursue his passion, rap music.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBelly (1998)
Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Valachi Papers (1972)
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to break the sacred code of silence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkin Trade (2014)
After his family is killed by a Serbian gangster with international interests. NYC detective Nick goes to S.E. Asia and teams up with a Thai detective to get revenge and destroy the syndicates human trafficking network.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like this7 Prisoners (2021)
An impoverished teen seeking to escape the clutches of a human trafficker must weigh living up to his moral code against his struggle to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Public Eye (1992)
A crime photographer gets involved in a conspiracy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Enforcer (2022)
A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisElite Squad (2007)
In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisKing Ivory (2025)
Based on extensive research involving law enforcement and gang members, a never-before-seen, authentic look inside the underworld of fentanyl trafficking from gangs inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester a.k.a. "Big Mac."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPaid in Full (2002)
Ace is an impressionable young man working for a dry cleaning business. His friend, drug dealer Mitch, goes to prison. In an unrelated incident, he finds some cocaine in a pants pocket. Soon, Ace finds himself dealing cocaine for Lulu. Via lucky breaks and solid interpersonal skills, Ace moves to the top of the Harlem drug world. Of course, unfaithful employees and/or rivals conspire to bring about Ace's fall.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIll Manors (2012)
Ensemble film revolving around characters living in Forest Gate, London. Over the course of a few days, six inter-linking stories explore issues of drug use, prostitution and urban poverty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAssassination Games (2011)
Brazil is a contract killer, willing to take any job if the price is right. Flint left the assassin game when a ruthless drug dealer’s brutal attack left his wife in a coma. When a contract is put out on the same coldblooded drug dealer, both Brazil and Flint want him dead – one for the money, the other for revenge. With crooked Interpol agents and vicious members of the criminal underworld hot on their trail, these two assassins reluctantly join forces to quickly take out their target before they themselves are terminated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
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 drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn Cold Light (2026)
Fresh out of prison, Ava's attempt to reclaim her drug operation collapses when she witnesses a brutal crime, forcing her to flee into a nightmarish underworld where allies are scarce and enemies multiply by the minute.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisBreaking In (2018)
Shaun Russell takes her son and daughter on a weekend getaway to her late father's secluded, high-tech vacation home in the countryside. The family soon gets an unwelcome surprise when four men break into the house to find hidden money. After managing to escape, Shaun must now figure out a way to turn the tables on the desperate thieves and save her captive children.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like this6 Bullets (2012)
An ex-mercenary known for finding missing children is hired by a mixed martial arts fighter whose daughter has been kidnapped.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisS.W.A.T.: Under Siege (2017)
When a D.E.A. and S.W.A.T. cartel takedown ends in a shootout, S.W.A.T. Agent Travis Hall seizes a mysterious prisoner taking him into custody. Before long, the S.W.A.T. compound is under siege by wave-after-wave of assault teams attempting to recover the prisoner known as “The Scorpion” for the tattoo blazed across his back. When Travis discovers that his prisoner is a Secret Ops double agent planted within the cartel, it’s up to him and his expert S.W.A.T. team to keep “The Scorpion” and his billion dollar secrets safe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisFar North (2008)
In the arctic, as Saiva is being born, a shaman declares that she is evil and will bring harm to all who become involved with her. Saiva is cast out of her tribe of herders and grows up to live a nomadic existence with Anja, a young woman she adopts as an infant. Then Loki, an injured and starving soldier, stumbles into their isolated lives. The women nurse him back to health, but treachery, violence and doom await them all.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChiko (2008)
This is the story of Isa, who grows up in a Hamburg suburb. It might be one of the world's richest cities but every beast has its belly and here, in the very underbelly, Chiko lives in a world where violence, staking and keeping a claim, and drug taking are the norm. Where down is not an option, Chiko is determined to rise to the top, whatever and whomever it costs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSicario (2015)
An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEl dinero no cae del cielo - El aerolito (2015)
Three ranchers discover the burial of some drug traffickers in the region. Without giving it much thought, they decide to dig it up and keep it, causing them unimaginable trouble.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Longest Day (1962)
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBurn Out (2018)
Tony, a promising young motorcycle racer, is forced to do perilous drug runs to save the mother of his child from a dangerous mobster.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlame & Citron (2008)
Gunman Flame and his partner Citron assassinate Nazi collaborators for the Danish resistance. Assigned targets by their Allies-connected leader, Aksel Winther, they relish the opportunity to begin targeting the Nazis themselves. When they begin to doubt the validity of their assignments, their morally complicated task becomes even more labyrinthine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisButcher's Crossing (2023)
In the 1870s, a young Harvard dropout seeks his destiny out West by tying his fate to a team of buffalo hunters led by a man named Miller. Together, they embark on a harrowing journey risking life and sanity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Condemned Village (1952)
East German propaganda film about an American army base trying to take away land from a West German village.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The White Rose (1982)
During the Second World War, a small group of students at Munich University begin to question the decisions and sanity of Germany's Nazi government. The students form a resistance cell which they name the "White Rose" after a newsletter that is secretly distributed to the student body. At first small in numbers and fearful of discovery, the White Rose begins to gain massive support after a Nazi Gauleiter nearly incites a student riot after a provokative speech. At this point, the matter is taken over by the German Gestapo, who pledge to hunt down and destroy the members of the White Rose.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Alien Nights?
The closest matches to Alien Nights are The Principal (1987), Sharky's Machine (1981) and Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Alien Nights?
Start with The Principal (1987), the closest match to Alien Nights.
What is the highest-rated movie like Alien Nights?
Elite Squad (2007), rated 8.1/10 by 2,864 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Alien Nights?
In Cold Light (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Alien Nights chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Alien Nights, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.