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Movies that feel like First Cow (2020)

If you loved First Cow, the closest films we have are The Rider (2018), Hell or High Water (2016) and Molly's Game (2017). All three share First Cow's contemplative and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 8 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max and fuboTV and others, checked against today's data.

In the 1820s, a taciturn loner and skilled cook travels west to Oregon Territory, where he meets a Chinese immigrant also seeking his fortune. Soon the two team up on a dangerous scheme to steal milk from the wealthy landowner’s prized Jersey cow—the first, and only, in the territory.

🍅 95% Rotten Tomatoes7.1 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Kelly Reichardtcontemplativegritty

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If First Cow hit the spot, these will too

The Rider poster
The Rider
2018 · dir. Chloé Zhao
🍅 97%7.4drama · western

Contemplative where it counts, gritty underneath

Once a rising star of the rodeo circuit, and a gifted horse trainer, young cowboy Brady is warned that his riding days are over after a horse crushed his skull at a rodeo. In an attempt to regain control of his own fate, Brady undertakes a search for a new identity and what it means to be a man in the heartland of the United States.

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Hell or High Water poster
Hell or High Water
2016 · dir. David Mackenzie
🍅 97%7.6western · crime · drama

Contemplative drama, and it commits to that

The difference: Leans crime where First Cow does not

A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's farm in West Texas.

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

Western with a pulse of grit, in both cases

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

Both trade on stillness more than on being drama

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

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

The same drama 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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The Wizard of Lies poster
The Wizard of Lies
2017 · dir. Barry Levinson
🍅 73%6.8crime · drama · tv movie

Both are drama through and through

A look behind the scenes at Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, how it was perpetrated on the public and the trail of destruction it left in its wake, both for the victims and Madoff's family.

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Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey poster
7.2drama · tv movie · crime

Cut from the same drama cloth

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 when she returns home, no one believes her story except for one detective, who suspects she was abducted by a serial killer. Based on horrifying true events.

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

Drama approached the same way

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

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

The same drama instincts

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

The same drama instincts

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

The same drama instincts

The difference: Reviewed a good deal more coolly

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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In the mood for more contemplative?

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The best-reviewed films that share First Cow's defining feeling.