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Movies that feel like My Name Ain't Johnny (2008)

If you loved My Name Ain't Johnny, the closest films we have are R (2010), Frozen River (2008) and Black Souls (2014). All three share My Name Ain't Johnny's gritty and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 9 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel and others, checked against today's data.

The true story of João Guilherme Estrella ("Johnny"), a young middle-class bon vivant who became a big-time cocaine dealer in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s.

7.2 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Mauro Limagrittycontemplative

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If My Name Ain't Johnny hit the spot, these will too

R poster
R
2010 · dir. Tobias Lindholm
🍅 91%7.1crime · drama

The same mix in both: grit, then stillness

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.

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

Both lean on grit more than on crime

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

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Black Souls poster
Black Souls
2014 · dir. Francesco Munzi
🍅 89%6.8crime · drama

Contemplative drama, and it commits to that

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.

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A Touch of Sin poster
A Touch of Sin
2013 · dir. Jia Zhangke
🍅 95%7.1crime · drama

Crime built on grit, twice over

Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. A young factory worker goes from one job to the next.

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7 Prisoners poster
7 Prisoners
2021 · dir. Alexandre Moratto
🍅 98%7.1drama · crime

Drama with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

An impoverished teen seeking to escape the clutches of a human trafficker must weigh living up to his moral code against his struggle to survive.

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Lilya 4-ever poster
Lilya 4-ever
2002 · dir. Lukas Moodysson
🍅 84%7.8drama · crime

Crime in the same key

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.

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Gomorrah poster
Gomorrah
2008 · dir. Matteo Garrone
🍅 90%7drama · crime

Drama approached the same way

An inside look at Italy's modern-day crime families, the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano. Power, money and blood: these are the "values" that the residents of the Province of Naples and Caserta have to face every day. They hardly ever have a choice and are forced to obey the rules of the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life.

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Straight Time poster
Straight Time
1978 · dir. Ulu Grosbard
🍅 82%7.4crime · drama

Both working the same crime territory

The difference: Made in the 1970s, in a different era of the craft

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.

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Blue Collar poster
Blue Collar
1978 · dir. Paul Schrader
🍅 96%7.5drama · crime

Both know what they want from drama

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.

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Leviathan poster
Leviathan
2014 · dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev
🍅 97%7.6drama · crime

Both play crime straight

In a Russian coastal town, Kolya is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.

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Pixote poster
Pixote
1980 · dir. Héctor Babenco
🍅 94%7.9crime · drama

The same drama instincts

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.

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Close-Up poster
Close-Up
1990 · dir. Abbas Kiarostami
🍅 89%8.2crime · drama

The crime is handled with the same confidence

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

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The best-reviewed films that share My Name Ain't Johnny’s defining feeling.