Movies like The Hoodlum Priest (1961)
The best movies like The Hoodlum Priest (1961) are Outside In (2018), The River (1984) and Omaha (2025). If The Hoodlum Priest hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Asphalt Jungle (1950)7.5/10 from 562 votes
- NewestOmaha (2025)Released 2025
Outside In (2018)
An ex-con struggling to readjust to life in his small town forms an intense bond with his former high-school teacher.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOmaha (2025)
A young girl and her brother are awoken by their father and loaded into the car on an early morning in 2008. As they road trip across the American West, she discovers the truth about their seemingly spontaneous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEach Dawn I Die (1939)
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNational Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015)
As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll Together Now (2020)
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Christmas Shoes (2002)
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFramed (1947)
Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon a venomous seductress. When her boyfriend robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPlunder Road (1957)
A spectacular heist starts to unravel as the crooks take it on the lam.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisToo Late Blues (1961)
Ghost is an ideological musician and leader of a jazz band who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. His peripatetic performances lead him to cross paths with a singer, while his masculinity is thrown into question following a violent brawl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlue Chips (1994)
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThey Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFatima (2020)
In 1917, outside the parish of Fátima, Portugal, a 10-year-old girl and her two younger cousins witness multiple visitations of the Virgin Mary, who tells them that only prayer and suffering will bring an end to World War I. As secularist government officials and Church leaders try to force the children to recant their story, word of the sighting spreads across the country, inspiring religious pilgrims to flock to the site in hopes of witnessing a miracle..
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Proud Rebel (1958)
Searching for a doctor who can help him get his son to speak again--the boy hadn't uttered a word since he saw his mother die in the fire that burned down the family home--a Confederate veteran finds himself facing a 30-day jail sentence when he's unfairly accused of starting a brawl in a small town. A local woman pays his fine, providing that he works it off on her ranch. He soon finds himself involved in the woman's struggle to keep her ranch from a local landowner who wants it--and whose sons were responsible for the man being framed for the fight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Night of the Iguana (1964)
A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnwar: The Untold Story (2023)
It follows the story of Anwar's fight against corruption while in government between the years of 1993 and 1998, which led to his eventual imprisonment and the birth of the reformasi movement.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
AFR (2007)
The faux documentary broadcast surrounds the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his secret homosexual lover, Emil until the Prime Minister is assassinated. The film uses archival footage, actors, and computer effects to portray the assassination.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
I Am Michael (2015)
The controversial true story of a gay activist who rejects his homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMetamorphosis (TBA)
Metamorphosis is a documentary-style film giving the true account Bill Troester and the transformation he experienced by Jesus out of a life of violence, crime and drug addiction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Man Called Peter (1955)
Based on the true story of a young Scottish lad, Peter Marshall, who dreams of only going to sea but finds out there is a different future for him when he receives a "calling" from God to be a minister. He leaves Scotland and goes to America where after a few small congregations he lands the position of pastor of the Church of the Presidents in Washington, D.C. and eventually he becomes Chaplain of the U.S. Senate.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Minister and Me (1976)
Mateo Melgarejo is a notary public and scribe for the illiterate people of Santo Domingo, a neighborhood north of Mexico City's Zócalo. A squatter friend asks for his help in negotiating with the land census bureau to regularize a land title. After a great deal of frustration with the government bureaucracy, he writes a letter to the cabinet minister, earning an audience with him. The minister hires Melgarejo to reform the bureau, and the appointee proceeds to lecture the officials on their duties in a democratic society. At the end, he gives up the post, returning to Santo Domingo to help its poor residents.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBhagavan (2009)
When a group of terrorists kidnap the home minister of Kerala and three newborn babies from his hospital, Dr Balagopal takes it upon himself to rescue them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
College Kumaran (2008)
Kumaran is running a canteen in a well-reputed college and is on good terms with the students. But problems arise when he is falsely accused of causing an accident which took the lives of many.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
One Foot in Heaven (1941)
Episodic look at the life of a minister and his family as they move from one parish to another.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Hoodlum Priest?
The closest matches to The Hoodlum Priest are Outside In (2018), The River (1984) and Omaha (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Hoodlum Priest?
Start with Outside In (2018), the closest match to The Hoodlum Priest.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Hoodlum Priest?
The Asphalt Jungle (1950), rated 7.5/10 by 562 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Hoodlum Priest?
Omaha (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Hoodlum Priest?
Yes: Outside In (2018), The River (1984) and Omaha (2025).
How are movies similar to The Hoodlum Priest chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Hoodlum Priest, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.