Movies Like Kid with the Golden Arm
If you loved Kid with the Golden Arm's Action and Drama storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks

Eye for an Eye
A highly trained and exceptionally deadly swordsman looks for revenge after being caught in the middle of a power struggle that results in the assassination of an innocent woman's family.

Crippled Avengers
A group of martial artists seek revenge after being crippled by Tu Tin-To, a martial arts master, and his son.

Ip Man: Kung Fu Master
Ip Man’s promising career as a Policeman is ruined after he is framed for murder and targeted by a mob boss’s daughter.

Dragon Fist
After the death of his master, martial arts student Tong Huo-wan travels with his adoptive family to seek redress from the man responsible but finds himself torn between righteousness and filial piety after becoming entangled in a feud between a local clan and gangsters.

Clan of the White Lotus
The Qing emperor releases all detained Shaolin disciples, but the vindictive White Lotus clan decides to exterminate all the disciples. One martial artist survives the onslaught, and constantly trains while in hiding for revenge.

Eye for an Eye 2
The blind swordsman, skilled in martial arts, named Cheng Xiazi (Xie Miao), accidentally saves Zhang Xiaoyu (Yang Enyou), who has suffered from the destruction of his family. Under the persuasion of the orphan Xiaoyu, Cheng reluctantly keeps him by his side and teaches him skills. Xiaoyu also waits for the opportunity to seek revenge.

New Fist of Fury
A brother and sister escape from Japanese-occupied Shanghai to Japanese-occupied Taiwan, to stay with their grandfather who runs a Kung-Fu school there. However, the master of a Japanese Kung- Fu school in Taiwan has plans to bringing all other schools on the island under his domination, and part of his plan involves the murder of the grandfather.
More Movies Like Kid with the Golden Arm

Invincible Shaolin
Three North Shaolin teachers are called on by the Manchus to teach their soldiers and are urged to challenge the current South Shaolin teachers. They defeat the South Shaolin teachers and, that night, the head general kills the South Shaolin teachers and blames their death on the North Shaolin teachers. The South Shaolin master sends more of his pupils, who are killed accidentally by the North Shaolin teachers. He finally sends two more of his students to train with old masters and trains one student himself with the goal of finally defeating the North Shaolin experts.

Hand of Death
A young monk must face the Extended Iron Claw technique of a powerful warlord seeking to destroy Shaolin.

Fist of Legend
Chen returns to his school when he finds out that his martial arts teacher has died. When he learns that his school students are harassed by some hooligans, he gears himself up to save them.

Birth of the Dragon
Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s Chinatown, this cross-cultural biopic chronicles Bruce Lee’s emergence as a martial-arts superstar after his legendary secret showdown with fellow martial artist Wong Jack Man.

Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back
Tang Monk brings three disciples on a journey to the West. On the outside, everything seems harmonious. However, tension is present beneath the surface, and their hearts and minds are not in agreement. After a series of demon-capturing events, the monk and his disciples gain mutual understanding of each others' hardships and unease. Finally, they resolve their inner conflict and work together to become an all-conquering, demon-exorcising team.

Jawbone
A former youth boxing champion, Jimmy McCabe is a man in search of hope but looking in all the wrong places. When he hits rock bottom he turns to his childhood boxing club and the only family he has left: gym owner Bill corner man Eddie and promoter Joe. Back in training, years after anyone thought he was a contender, he risks his life, as he tries to stand tall and regain his place in the world.

In Full Bloom
Set shortly after the end of World War II, a philosophical boxing drama of two fighters from opposite worlds (USA and Japan) who are pulled together for a questionable fight arranged by their unscrupulous managers and the Yakuza.

Human Lanterns
A psychotic craftsman pits two rival Kung-Fu masters against each other while designing special lanterns from a disturbing source.

Return of the One-Armed Swordsman
Eight demon swordsmen and their gang have spread menace across many sword teaching schools. The students seek the help of Fang who alone can combat them. Will Fang take up the challenge.

Master of the Flying Guillotine
A one-armed martial arts master is being stalked by an Imperial assassin, the master of two fighters killed in the previous film. When the One-Armed Boxer is invited to attend a martial arts tournament, his efforts to lay low are unsuccessful, and the assassin soon tracks him down with the help of his three subordinates: a Thai boxer, a yoga master, and a kobojutsu user.

Run
When a law student accidentally kills the son of a mob boss in a fight, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by the mob and the police.

Five Fingers of Death
A young boxer joins a martial arts school to increase his skill so he can enter a martial arts competition. He leaves the school when he hears that a local gangster is terrorizing the town. He comes to the aid of a young singer and brings on the wrath of the local gang. He eventually enters the martial arts competition after learning iron palm technique and takes out all competition.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Kid with the Golden Arm (1979): Action and Drama themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of Kid with the Golden Arm.
See full details for Kid with the Golden Arm (1979)
