Movies like Cops vs. Thugs (1975)
The best movies like Cops vs. Thugs (1975) are Yakuza Graveyard (1976), Hell Dogs (2022) and Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973). If Cops vs. Thugs hooked you with its drama and action, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Yakuza (1974)7.1/10 from 240 votes
- NewestDetective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram (2024)Released 2024
- In JapaneseYakuza Graveyard (1976)Also in Japanese
Yakuza Graveyard (1976)
A police investigator cracks down on yakuza business, but once he realizes the police are in negotiations with certain factions, he sides with his own syndicate of choice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHell Dogs (2022)
Bent on revenge, a traumatized ex-police officer must infiltrate a yakuza organization by befriending one of the group's most unhinged members.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBattles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973)
Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOutrage Coda (2017)
Five years after the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a noted fixer. When tensions rise between Chang and the Hanabishi, and Chang's life is endangered, Otomo returns to Japan to settle things once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShinjuku Triad Society (1995)
Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe City of Lost Souls (2000)
Brazilian-Japanese gangster Mario rescues his Chinese girlfriend Kei as she's about to be deported from Japan. Desperate to escape, he hides in Tokyo's booming Japanese-Portuguese community and seeks passage from the country from a Russian mobster. To meet his price, they hold up a bigtime drug deal between the Chinese Mafia and the local Yakuza.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn Too Deep (1999)
Drug lord Dwayne Gittens rules Cincinnati with an iron fist. No wonder he's known as "God" on the streets. Determined to break Gittens' stranglehold on the city is undercover cop Jeffrey Cole. But as Cole takes on an assumed identity to penetrate Gittens' criminal empire, he makes a disturbing discovery -- he kind of likes being a gangster.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDead or Alive (1999)
Ryūichi and his small gang of Triad vie for control of the Japanese underworld in a crime-ridden Shinjuku quarter while Detective Jojima tries to bring it down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYouth of the Beast (1963)
When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo's underworld explodes with violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmerican Yakuza (1993)
When Nick Davis leaves prison after one year in solitairy, he is hired to operate a forklift in a warehouse in the harbor owned by the Japanese Yakuza patriarch Isshin Tendo. The place is assaulted by the Italian Mafia lead by Dino Campanela and Nick rescues and saves the life of Shuji Sawamoto, who is the representative of Yakuza interests in America. Shuji hires Nick to work for Yakuza and becomes his godfather in the family after his oath to join Yakuza. However, Nick is a lonely FBI undercover agent assigned to penetrate the criminal organization. When the FBI discovers that Campanela is organizing a massive attack to destroy the Yakuza, Nick's boss Littman calls off the operation to leave the dirty work to the Italian Mafia. But the connection of Nick with Shuji and his goddaughter Yuko forces him to help his Japanese family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlack Rain (1989)
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDetective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (2016)
On a dark night, the Japanese police is raided by a spy. Different countries' intelligence agencies - such as England's MI6, Germany's BDN, and America's CIA - as well as the FBI's secret files are going to be taken, but public safety officers lead by Tooru Amuro arrive just in time. The spy steals a car and escapes. The spy and Amuro are then locked in a dead heat on the highway, and just as it is about to cause an accident with multiple cars, the spy's car is hit by FBI agent Shuichi Akai's rifle bullet and falls of the roadway. The next day, Conan and his friends go to a newly-remodeled aquarium in Tokyo. Under the main attraction, a Ferris wheel, Conan finds an attractive woman alone and injured. Her left and right eyes are different colors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Yakuza (1974)
When George Tanner does business with high-ranking Yakuza Tono, Tono kidnaps his daughter, and George summons his old friend, private eye Harry Kilmer, to Japan to investigate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBad City (2022)
Kensuke Sonomura directs the legendary Hitoshi Ozawa in this ultimate V-Cinema actioner. Kaiko City is plagued with poverty and crime. When a corrupt businessman decides to run for mayor and starts eliminating opponents from the rival mafia, a former police captain serving time for murder is secretly released and put in charge of a special task force to arrest him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWelcome to the Punch (2013)
When notorious criminal Jacob Sternwood is forced to return to London, it gives detective Max Lewinsky one last chance to take down the man he's always been after.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisBeyond Outrage (2012)
As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West. What started as an internal strife in Outrage has now become a nationwide war in Outrage Beyond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe International (2009)
An interpol agent and an attorney are determined to bring one of the world's most powerful banks to justice. Uncovering money laundering, arms trading, and conspiracy to destabilize world governments, their investigation takes them from Berlin, Milan, New York and Istanbul. Finding themselves in a chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPsycho-Pass 3: First Inspector (2020)
Inspector Kei Mikhail Ignatov finds himself involved with an organization named Bifrost with the possibility of freeing his wife if he betrays Unit One. Koichi Azusawa coordinates an assault on the Public Safety Bureau tower using his hacker Obata, locking down the building and kidnapping Inspector Arata Shindo. Azusawa demands that governor Karina Komiya resign from her position.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDetective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram (2024)
A message has arrived from Kid the Phantom Thief, that he will steal a Japanese sword belonging to wealthy Onoe Family in Hakodate, Hokkaido. Conan and Heiji Hattori, who happened to be in Hakodate, are on the case to capture Kid. Coincidentally the family lawyer of Onoe is found murdered in the warehouse district, apparently slaughtered by a Japanese sword. The suspect is an investor/arms dealer who is said to be after Onoe family’s hidden treasure. In the North among cherry blossoms, the exciting hunt for treasure begins!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisColors (1988)
A confident young cop is shown the ropes by a veteran partner in the dangerous gang-controlled barrios of Los Angeles, where the gang culture is enforced by the colors the members wear.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCellular (2004)
A young man receives an emergency phone call on his cell phone from an older woman. She claims to have been kidnapped – and the kidnappers have targeted her husband and child next.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReno 911!: Miami (2007)
A rag-tag team of Reno cops are called in to save the day after a terrorist attack disrupts a national police convention in Miami Beach during spring break. Based on the Comedy Central series.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisShoot First: A Cop's Vengeance (1991)
A San Antonio, Texas policeman must stop his best friend, a fellow officer turned vigilante.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
7 Seconds (2005)
When an experienced thief accidentally makes off with a Van Gogh, his partner is kidnapped by gangsters in pursuit of the painting, forcing the criminal to hatch a rescue plan.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisDemolition Man (1993)
In 1996, brash L.A. detective John Spartan and maniac killer Simon Phoenix are both sentenced to decades in a cryogenic prison as punishment for a rescue mission gone wrong. When Phoenix escapes 36 years later to wreak havoc on the future, Spartan is awakened to capture his nemesis the old-fashioned way.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTattoo (2002)
Marc Schrader, a rookie cop caught red-handed with drugs in a police raid of an illegal rave, joins a homicide investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Minks. The victim is a naked young woman with the skin stripped off her back, killed as she staggered into traffic. As Schrader and Minks investigate the murder, the case is complicated by a finger found in the stomach of the victim. Forensic examination proves the finger belongs to Nobert Günzel, who was previously convicted of rape and assault. The police raid Günzel’s residence, and discover a blood-stained table with restraints and bits of human flesh in his basement. They also find video equipment and preserved, tattooed skin from the victim’s back. Soon, they found dead bodies buried in the garden. Günzel then goes missing.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOutlaw (2007)
A group of people who feel betrayed by their government and let down by their police force form a modern-day outlaw posse in order to right what they see as the wrongs of society.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisSolo for Clarinet (1998)
Berlin, Germany. A cruel murder took place in an appartment building. Somebody bit off quite a piece of the victim's penis, who then, of course, lost a lot of blood, before being struck down at the head. Leading investigator Bernhard Kominka, being in stress due to a mentally retarded son and a problematic wife, seems to be the only one to see a lady in a red coat. After a while, his theory of her being the murderer may prove to be true, but the Cop also kind of fell in love with this new, interesting person in both of his lives: professional and private as well. Borders dissolve. His decision may be disastrous in any way.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Like Cops vs. Thugs and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Cops vs. Thugs?
The closest matches to Cops vs. Thugs are Yakuza Graveyard (1976), Hell Dogs (2022) and Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Cops vs. Thugs?
Start with Yakuza Graveyard (1976), the closest match to Cops vs. Thugs.
What is the highest-rated movie like Cops vs. Thugs?
The Yakuza (1974), rated 7.1/10 by 240 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Cops vs. Thugs?
Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Cops vs. Thugs?
Yes: Yakuza Graveyard (1976), Hell Dogs (2022) and Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973).
How are movies similar to Cops vs. Thugs chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Cops vs. Thugs, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.