43 Movies Like Lawless (2012) You Need to Watch Next
Updated August 2026
View Lawless details →John Hillcoat's 1931-set crime western follows the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, whose backwoods establishment fronts a thriving bootlegging trade. Forrest supplies the brains, Howard the muscle and young Jack the nerves, an arrangement that holds until a sadistic Chicago lawman arrives determined to break them. It's a muddy, period-textured story of loyalty and survival under Prohibition, drawn with a slow-burning menace rather than quick thrills. If you like Depression-era Americana, morally weathered characters and violence that carries weight, this rewards patience. Viewers wanting tidy heroes or brisk pacing may find its brooding tone heavy, but the atmosphere and family dynamics are its real draw.
If you loved Lawless (2012) by John Hillcoat, here are 43 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 Public Enemies, Once Upon a Time in America, City of God. 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.
The Best Movies Similar to Lawless
Selected for their real similarity in content, these are the movies that share the most with Lawless in terms of theme, narrative tone, and cinematic style. Every recommendation goes beyond genre — we evaluate the type of conflict, pacing, dramatic context, and the experience they create for viewers.
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
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
City of God
2002 · Fernando Meirelles
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
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
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
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
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
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
Hell or High Water
2016 · David Mackenzie
A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's farm in West Texas.
In common: Crime · Drama · Western
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1969 · George Roy Hill
As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.
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
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
Once Upon a Time in the West
1968 · Sergio Leone
As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.
In common: Drama · Western
El Dorado
1966 · Howard Hawks
Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah. Together with a fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is tryi
In common: Drama · Western
True Grit
1969 · Henry Hathaway
The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', a
In common: Drama · Western
Rio Bravo
1959 · Howard Hawks
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
In common: Drama · Western
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
2024 · Kevin Costner
In 1859, families discover the lure of the Old West as they settle in territories from Wyoming to Kansas. Meanwhile, a gruff cowboy finds himself on the run with a prostitute and a young boy after kil
In common: Drama · Western
Django Unchained
2012 · Quentin Tarantino
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
In common: Drama · Western
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
2007 · Andrew Dominik
Outlaw Jesse James is rumored to be the 'fastest gun in the West'. An eager recruit into James' notorious gang, Robert Ford eventually grows jealous of the famed outlaw and, when Robert and his brothe
In common: Drama · Western
Papillon
1973 · Franklin J. Schaffner
A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Shawshank Redemption
1994 · Frank Darabont
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an a
In common: Crime · Drama
Just Mercy
2019 · Destin Daniel Cretton
The powerful true story of Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned — including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despi
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
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
The Place Beyond the Pines
2013 · Derek Cianfrance
A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.
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
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2017 · Martin McDonagh
After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at Bil
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
Blow
2001 · Ted Demme
A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950's. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family. It is finally revealed that George's father canno
In common: Crime · Drama
The Mule
2018 · Clint Eastwood
Earl Stone, a man in his eighties, is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he is offered a job that simply requires him to drive. Easy enough, but, unbeknownst to Earl, he's just
In common: Crime · Drama
American Hustle
2013 · David O. Russell
A conman and his seductive partner are forced to work for a wild FBI agent, who pushes them into a world of Jersey power-brokers and the Mafia.
In common: Crime · Drama
The Searchers
1956 · John Ford
As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.
In common: Western
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
1962 · John Ford
Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed
In common: Western
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
1966 · Sergio Leone
While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing
In common: Western
A Fistful of Dollars
1964 · Sergio Leone
The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold i
In common: Western
Popular Crime series
Breaking Bad
2008 · Michelle MacLaren
Walter White, a New Mexico chemistry teacher, is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given a prognosis of only two years left to live. He becomes filled with a sense of fearlessness and an unrelenting
Better Call Saul
2015 · Diane Mercer
Six years before Saul Goodman meets Walter White. We meet him when the man who will become Saul Goodman is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny, and, more immediately,
The Sopranos
1999 · Terence Winter
The story of New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he
Banana Fish
2018 · Nobumasa Sawabe
A teenaged gang leader in New York City faces his abuser and rival gangs alongside a photojournalist from Japan as they investigate a deadly new drug.
The Rookie
2018 · Nathan Fillion
Starting over isn't easy, especially for small-town guy John Nolan who, after a life-altering incident, is pursuing his dream of being an LAPD officer. As the force's oldest rookie, he's met with skep