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Movies that feel like Animal Kingdom (2010)

If you loved Animal Kingdom, the closest films we have are Force of Evil (1950), The Big Combo (1955) and The Set-Up (1949). All three share Animal Kingdom's gritty and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 8 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on YouTube TV, TCM and Philo and others, checked against today's data.

Joshua “J” is taken in by his extended family after his mother dies of an overdose. The clan, ruled by J’s scheming grandmother, is heavily involved in criminal activities, and J is soon indoctrinated into their way of life. But J is given a chance to take another path when a cop seeks to help him.

🍅 94% Rotten Tomatoes7.2 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. David Michôdgrittycontemplativeatmospheric
Stream it:Prime Video

When is Animal Kingdom streaming? →

If Animal Kingdom hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Force of Evil poster
Force of Evil
1950 · dir. Abraham Polonsky
🍅 100%7.2crime · drama

The same mix in both: grit, then stillness

The difference: A 1950s film, from a different era of filmmaking

Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.

Feels alike?
The Big Combo poster
The Big Combo
1955 · dir. Joseph H. Lewis
🍅 93%7.3drama · crime

Both trade on atmosphere more than on being crime

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.

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The Set-Up poster
The Set-Up
1949 · dir. Robert Wise
🍅 85%7.8drama · crime

Drama with a pulse of grit, in both cases

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

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The Grifters poster
The Grifters
1990 · dir. Stephen Frears
🍅 92%6.9crime · drama

Neo-noir is the engine of both

A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.

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American Gangster poster
American Gangster
2007 · dir. Ridley Scott
🍅 81%7.8drama · crime

Both built around heroin

The difference: None of the atmosphere that defines Animal Kingdom

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, before being detained by a task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.

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The Place Beyond the Pines poster
The Place Beyond the Pines
2013 · dir. Derek Cianfrance
🍅 79%7.3drama · crime

Contemplative crime in both cases

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.

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Molly's Game poster
Molly's Game
2017 · dir. Aaron Sorkin
🍅 82%7.4drama · crime

Trial sits at the heart of each

Molly Bloom, a young skier and former Olympic hopeful becomes a successful entrepreneur (and a target of an FBI investigation) when she establishes a high-stakes, international poker game.

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Frozen River poster
Frozen River
2008 · dir. Courtney Hunt
🍅 88%7.1drama · crime

Drama built on grit, twice over

A financially strapped mother joins a Mohawk woman to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States.

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The Drop poster
The Drop
2014 · dir. Michaël R. Roskam
🍅 88%7drama · crime

Contemplative crime, and it commits to that

Bob Saginowski finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighborhood's past where friends, families, and foes all work together to make a living - no matter the cost.

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A Prophet poster
A Prophet
2009 · dir. Jacques Audiard
🍅 96%7.8crime · drama

Crime approached the same way

Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.

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Blow poster
Blow
2001 · dir. Ted Demme
🍅 56%7.5crime · drama

Cut from the same drama cloth

The difference: Critics were much harder on this one

The story of how George Jung, together with the Medellín Cartel led by Pablo Escobar, established the billion-dollar cocaine empire in the United States in the 1970s.

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri poster
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2017 · dir. Martin McDonagh
🍅 90%8.1crime · drama

The same crime instincts

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 Bill Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Jason Dixon, an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.

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In the mood for more gritty?

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The best-reviewed films that share Animal Kingdom's defining feeling.