NoBadPicks

Movies Like The Wasted Times

If you loved The Wasted Times's Drama and Mystery 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

The Boxer from Shantung
6.8

The Boxer from Shantung

1972

Leaving the poverty of his life in Shantung to seek fortune in Shanghai, The Boxer is instead drawn into a world of corruption, gang warfare and evil... Where his only protection is his famed fighting technique.

Mr. Six
6.8

Mr. Six

2015

Many years ago Mr. Six was a notorious gangster. That was back when there was still such a thing as honour among thieves, when criminals earned respect and maintained principles. These days Mr. Six is all but forgotten, a living relic residing in a narrow alley. One day Six's son, Xiaobo, is abducted by some spoiled punks after he scratches their precious Ferrari. Mr. Six realizes that he must do whatever it takes to get his son back — even if that means returning to the life he thought he had left behind.

Shanghai
6.1

Shanghai

2010

An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.

Hidden Blade
6.3

Hidden Blade

2023

Follows the story of underground workers who risked their lives to send intelligence and defend the motherland, set after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor when the Wang Jingwei regime declared war on Britain and the U.S.

Hoodlum
6.4

Hoodlum

1997

In 1934, the second most lucrative business in New York City was running 'the numbers'. When Madam Queen—the powerful woman who runs the scam in Harlem—is arrested, Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson takes over the business and must resist an invasion from a merciless mobster.

Absolution
5.9

Absolution

2024

An aging ex-boxer gangster working as muscle for a Boston crime boss receives an upsetting diagnosis. Despite a faltering memory, he attempts to rectify the sins of his past and reconnect with his estranged children. He is determined to leave a positive legacy for his grandson, but the criminal underworld isn’t done with him and won’t loosen their grip willingly.

Shanghai Triad
6.8

Shanghai Triad

1995

Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.

Al Capone
6.6

Al Capone

1959

In this unusually accurate biography, small-time hood Al Capone comes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard of racketeer Johnny Torrio. Capone's rise in Chicago gangdom is followed through murder, extortion, and political fraud. He becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," but moves inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious end.

More Movies Like The Wasted Times

Lust, Caution
7.3

Lust, Caution

2007

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.

The Eight Hundred
7.0

The Eight Hundred

2020

In 1937, eight hundred Chinese soldiers fight under siege from a warehouse in the middle of the Shanghai battlefield, completely surrounded by the Japanese army.

Belly
6.0

Belly

1998

Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?

Overdrive
6.1

Overdrive

2017

Master car thieves square off against French gangsters in the South of France with money, women and lives all on the line.

Gangster Squad
6.4

Gangster Squad

2013

Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and — if he has his way — every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop… except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara and Jerry Wooters who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart.

Johnny Dangerously
6.3

Johnny Dangerously

1984

An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.

Sexy Beast
7.0

Sexy Beast

2001

Ex-safecracker Gal Dove has served his time behind bars and is blissfully retired to a Spanish villa paradise with a wife he adores. The idyll is shattered by the arrival of his nemesis Don Logan, intent on persuading Gal to return to London for one last big job.

Mahjong
7.4

Mahjong

1996

Amid a rapidly changing cityscape, the lives of a disparate group of swindlers, hustlers, gangsters, and expats collide, with a naive French teenager and a sensitive young local who tries to protect her caught dangerously in the middle.

The Secrets We Keep
6.0

The Secrets We Keep

2020

In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.

Animal World
7.0

Animal World

2018

Backed into a corner by mounting debts, a youth agrees to submit himself to a high stakes game of chance in international waters aboard a disused warship.

Code of Silence
5.8

Code of Silence

1985

A Chicago cop is caught in the middle of a gang war while his own comrades shun him because he wants to take an irresponsible cop down.

Police Story: Lockdown
6.2

Police Story: Lockdown

2013

A man looking for the release of a long-time prisoner takes a police officer, his daughter, and a group of strangers hostage.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with The Wasted Times (2016): Drama and Mystery 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 The Wasted Times.

See full details for The Wasted Times (2016)

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