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Movies that feel like Traffic (2000)

If you loved Traffic, the closest films we have are Side Effects (2013), Layer Cake (2004) and Blow (2001). All three share Traffic's contemplative and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 6 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Amazon Prime Video, Starz and Sundance Now and others, checked against today's data.

An exploration of the United States of America's war on drugs from multiple perspectives. For the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the war becomes personal when he discovers his well-educated daughter is abusing cocaine within their comfortable suburban home. In Mexico, a flawed, but noble policeman agrees to testify against a powerful general in league with a cartel, and in San Diego, a drug kingpin's sheltered trophy wife must learn her husband's ruthless business after he is arrested, endangering her luxurious lifestyle.

🍅 93% Rotten Tomatoes7.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Steven Soderberghtensecontemplativegritty

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If Traffic hit the spot, these will too

Side Effects poster
Side Effects
2013 · dir. Steven Soderbergh
🍅 82%7.1thriller · crime · drama

The same hand behind both of them: Steven Soderbergh

A woman turns to prescription medication as a way of handling her anxiety concerning her husband's upcoming release from prison.

Layer Cake poster
Layer Cake
2004 · dir. Matthew Vaughn
🍅 81%7.2drama · thriller · crime

Both are working the same pair: drug smuggling, drug trafficking

When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...

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

Both are built on the same subject: war on drugs

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.

John Q poster
John Q
2002 · dir. Nick Cassavetes
🍅 26%7.1drama · thriller · crime

The same mix in both: tension, then stillness

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

36th Precinct poster
36th Precinct
2004 · dir. Olivier Marchal
🍅 100%7.1crime · drama · thriller

Gritty thriller in both cases

In Paris, two cops are competing for the vacant job of chief of police, in the middle of the search for a gang of violent thieves. The movie is directed by Olivier Marchal, a former police officer who spent 12 years with the French police before creating this story, taken in part from real events of the 1980s.

Hyena poster
Hyena
2015 · dir. Gerard Johnson
🍅 78%6.2crime · drama · thriller

The same preoccupation in both: drug dealer

Good policing doesn't necessarily mean doing everything by the book. But as the business of crime in London turns to favour the Albanians and Turks, how does a "good" policeman survive?

A Time to Kill poster
A Time to Kill
1996 · dir. Joel Schumacher
🍅 66%7.5crime · drama · thriller

Tense drama, and it commits to that

A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.

Irreversible poster
Irreversible
2002 · dir. Gaspar Noé
🍅 60%7.3drama · thriller · crime

Crime with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

Red Rock West poster
Red Rock West
1993 · dir. John Dahl
🍅 95%7crime · drama · thriller

Thriller built on grit, twice over

When a promised job for Texan Michael fails to materialize in Wyoming, Mike is mistaken by Wayne to be the hitman he hired to kill his unfaithful wife, Suzanne. Mike takes full advantage of the situation, collects the money, and runs. During his getaway, things go wrong, and soon get worse when he runs into the real hitman, Lyle.

Miller's Crossing poster
Miller's Crossing
1990 · dir. Joel Coen
🍅 93%7.7drama · thriller · crime

Both lean on tension more than on drama

Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.

The Yellow Sea poster
The Yellow Sea
2010 · dir. Na Hong-jin
🍅 88%7.3drama · thriller · crime

Contemplative crime in both cases

A Korean man in China takes an assassination job in South Korea to make money and find his missing wife. But when the job is botched, he is forced to go on the run from the police and the gangsters who paid him.

We Own the Night poster
We Own the Night
2007 · dir. James Gray
🍅 57%6.8drama · crime · thriller

Gritty thriller, and it commits to that

A New York nightclub manager tries to save his brother and father from Russian mafia hitmen.

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The best-reviewed films that share Traffic’s defining feeling.