44 Movies Like City of God (2002) You Need to Watch Next
In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighbo
Updated June 2026
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Fernando Meirelles's 2002 landmark tears through decades of gang violence in Rio's favelas, following two boys whose paths diverge — one toward the camera, one toward the gun. Kinetic, dazzling and brutal, it turns real tragedy into breathless cinema. If its propulsive energy and moral weight gripped you, GoodFellas shares its electric crime chronicle, and the great gangster epics trade in the same intoxication and dread.
If you loved City of God (2002) by Fernando Meirelles, here are 44 movies that share its content DNA. iRankMovies measures real similarity using cosine similarity across eight weighted dimensions — genre (50%), tone (12%), pace (10%), structure (8%), era (7%), theme (6%), audience (4%) and narrative perspective (3%) — not just the rating. The closest matches according to our analysis are A Bronx Tale, Gangs of New York, Boyz n the Hood. Every title is ranked by how closely it matches and backed by the iRank Score, a composite of IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDb across 12,000+ analysed titles.
44 Movies Similar to City of God
A Bronx Tale
1993 · Robert De Niro
Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growi
In common: Crime · Drama
Gangs of New York
2002 · Martin Scorsese
In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigran
In common: Crime · Drama
Boyz n the Hood
1991 · John Singleton
In the middle of the Los Angeles ghetto, drugs, robberies and shootings dominate everyday life. During these times, Furious tries to raise his son Tre to be a decent person. Tre's friends, on the othe
In common: Crime · Drama
GoodFellas
1990 · Martin Scorsese
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conw
In common: Crime · Drama
American Gangster
2007 · Ridley Scott
Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, be
In common: Crime · Drama
Public Enemies
2009 · Michael Mann
Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger's charm and audacity endear him to much of America's downtrodden public, but he's also a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover and the fledgling FBI. Desperate
In common: Crime · Drama
The Godfather
1972 · Francis Ford Coppola
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his y
In common: Crime · Drama
Once Upon a Time in America
1984 · Sergio Leone
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Irishman
2019 · Martin Scorsese
Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chi
In common: Crime · Drama
The Godfather Part III
1990 · Francis Ford Coppola
In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don, Michael Corleone seeks forgiveness for his sins while taking a young protege under his wing.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Bikeriders
2024 · Jeff Nichols
After a chance encounter, headstrong Kathy is drawn to Benny, member of Midwestern motorcycle club the Vandals. As the club transforms into a dangerous underworld of violence, Benny must choose betwee
In common: Crime · Drama
Donnie Brasco
1997 · Mike Newell
An FBI undercover agent infiltrates the mob and identifies more with the mafia life at the expense of his regular one.
In common: Crime · Drama
Menace II Society
1993 · Allen Hughes
A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.
In common: Crime · Drama
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
2026 · Tom Harper
After his estranged son gets embroiled in a Nazi plot, self-exiled gangster Tommy Shelby must return to Birmingham to save his family — and his nation.
In common: Crime · Drama
Scarface
1983 · Brian De Palma
After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eve
In common: Crime · Drama
Lawless
2012 · John Hillcoat
In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operat
In common: Crime · Drama
The Outsiders
1983 · Francis Ford Coppola
In 1960s Tulsa, class divisions ignite a violent rivalry between the working-class Greasers and the privileged Socs. When a deadly encounter forces two Greasers, Ponyboy and Johnny, to flee, their str
In common: Crime · Drama
21
2008 · Robert Luketic
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot affo
In common: Crime · Drama
Gran Torino
2008 · Clint Eastwood
Disgruntled Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, Thao Lor, a Hmong teenager who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: a 1972 Gran Torino.
In common: Drama
The Unforgivable
2021 · Nora Fingscheidt
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
In common: Crime · Drama
Requiem for a Dream
2000 · Darren Aronofsky
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
In common: Crime · Drama
Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey
2018 · Jim Donovan
On the night she plans on taking her own life, 17-year-old 'Lisa McVey' is kidnapped and finds herself fighting to stay alive and is raped. She manages to talk her attacker into releasing her, but whe
In common: Crime · Drama
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
2019 · Joe Berlinger
A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Hate U Give
2018 · George Tillman Jr.
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two ver
In common: Crime · Drama
Cool Hand Luke
1967 · Stuart Rosenberg
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admi
In common: Crime · Drama
Cherry
2021 · Joe Russo
Cherry drifts from college dropout to army medic in Iraq—anchored only by his one true love, Emily. But after returning from the war with PTSD, his life spirals into drugs and crime as he struggles to
In common: Crime · Drama
Freedom Writers
2007 · Richard LaGravenese
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.
In common: Crime · Drama
Catch Me If You Can
2002 · Steven Spielberg
A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his
In common: Crime · Drama
Dogville
2003 · Lars von Trier
A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.
In common: Crime · Drama
Death Wish
1974 · Michael Winner
After his wife is murdered by street punks, a pacifistic New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad, prowling the streets for would-be muggers after dark.
In common: Crime · Drama
Carlito's Way
1993 · Brian De Palma
Free after years in prison, Carlito Brigante intends to give up his criminal ways, but it's not long before the ex-con is sucked back into the New York City underworld.
In common: Crime · Drama
New World
2013 · Park Hoon-jung
An undercover cop has his loyalties tested when the boss of the corporate gang he's spent years infiltrating dies.
In common: Crime · Drama
Thief
1981 · Michael Mann
Frank is an expert professional safecracker, specialized in high-profile diamond heists. He plans to use his ill-gotten income to retire from crime and build a nice life for himself complete with a ho
In common: Crime · Drama
The Client
1994 · Joel Schumacher
A street-wise kid, Mark Sway, sees the suicide of Jerome Clifford, a prominent Louisiana lawyer, whose current client is Barry 'The Blade' Muldano, a Mafia hit-man. Before Jerome shoots himself, he te
In common: Crime · Drama
Léon: The Professional
1994 · Luc Besson
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year
In common: Crime · Drama
Trading Places
1983 · John Landis
A snobbish investor and a wily street con-artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Departed
2006 · Martin Scorsese
To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop curries favor with the
In common: Crime · Drama
Undisputed
2002 · Walter Hill
Monroe Hutchens is the heavyweight champion of Sweetwater, a maximum security prison. He was convicted to a life sentence due to a passionate crime. Iceman Chambers is the heavyweight champion, who lo
In common: Crime · Drama
The Godfather Part II
1974 · Francis Ford Coppola
In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vega
Snatch
2000 · Guy Ritchie
Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookies, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewellers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.
In common: Crime
Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
1996 · Paris Barclay
When Ashtray moves to South Central L.A. to live with his father (who appears to be the same age he is) and grandmother (who likes to talk tough and smoke reefer), he falls in with his gang-banging co
In common: Crime
Legend
2015 · Brian Helgeland
Suave, charming and volatile, Reggie Kray and his unstable twin brother Ronnie start to leave their mark on the London underworld in the 1960s. Using violence to get what they want, the siblings orche
In common: Crime
The Untouchables
1987 · Brian De Palma
Elliot Ness, an ambitious prohibition agent, is determined to take down Al Capone. In order to achieve this goal, he forms a group given the nickname “The Untouchables”.
In common: Crime
Straight Outta Compton
2015 · F. Gary Gray
In 1987, five young men, using brutally honest rhymes and hardcore beats, put their frustration and anger about life in the most dangerous place in America into the most powerful weapon they had: thei
In common: Drama