Movies that feel like Midnight Express (1978)

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.

After being released on parole, a burglar attempts to go straight, get a regular job, and just go by the rules. He soon finds himself back in jail at the hands of a power-hungry parole officer.

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.

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.

Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

In a struggling post-Soviet community, Lilya a teenage girl is abandoned when her mother moves to the United States with her boyfriend. Facing neglect and poverty, she meets Andrei, who offers her a job in Sweden, giving her hope for a better life — and a journey that will change everything.

10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.

A former narcotics smuggler, now living peaceably in the Calabrian hills, is drawn back into his family’s drug-trade dynasty by his impetuous teenage son.

Imprisoned for violent assault, Rune is placed in the hardcore ward, where his survival depends on quickly learning the prison's parallel world of rules, honor, and obligations.

In the 1930s, bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow, and together they start a violent crime spree throughout the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.

Marshall Jed Cooper survives a hanging, vowing revenge on the lynch mob that left him dangling. To carry out his oath for vengeance, he returns to his former job as a lawman. Before long, he's caught up with the nine men on his hit list and starts dispensing his own brand of Wild West justice.