Movies Like Contraband
If you loved Contraband's Crime and Action 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 Ruthless
Milan, Italy, 1967. Santo Russo, a boy of Calabrian origin, arrives north with his parents and younger brother to find better living conditions. Due to an absurd misunderstanding and his father's contempt, Santo ends up in prison, where he gets a “true education.” In 1978, he and his friends Slim and Mario embark on a 15-year criminal career, a successful and ruthless spiral of robberies, kidnappings, murders and heroin smuggling.
The Italian Connection
When a shipment of heroin disappears between Italy and New York, a small-time pimp in Milan is framed for the theft. Two professional hitmen are dispatched from New York to find him, but the real thieves want to get rid of him before the New York killers get to him to eliminate any chance of them finding out he's the wrong man.
The Equalizer 3
Robert McCall finds himself at home in Southern Italy but he discovers his friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends' protector by taking on the mafia.
The Godfather
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
The Professor
An imprisoned murderer carries out a violent bid for control of Naples' underworld crime syndicate.
Mafia Mamma
A suburban American woman inherits her grandfather’s Mafia empire and, guided by the Firm’s trusted consigliere, defies everyone’s expectations, including her own, as the new head of the family business.
Free Hand for a Tough Cop
A cop recruits a criminal and his cohorts to help track down a violent crime lord who has kidnapped the ill daughter of a rich family.
More Movies Like Contraband
The Big Racket
Nico Palmieri is a police inspector who battles a criminal gang terrorizing a sleepy Italian town, extorting cash from the local merchants. With the threat of violence, no one dares to act, except for a restaurant owner who is forced by Palmieri to tell the truth.
The Asphalt Jungle
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.
Hunting Grounds
Desperate to find refuge for her children, Chloe Marvino runs away from her Mafia tied husband, and finds shelter in a cabin with a recluse drifter named Jake. But as her husband's henchmen draw closer to her, it turns out that Jake is the biggest enemy of them all.
John Wick
Ex-hitman John Wick comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.
Gomorrah
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.
Code of Silence
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.
Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano is one of the bosses of the Mafia. He orders the slaughter of 40 other responsibles, therefore becoming the only boss. But a few years later he is put into jail. In 1946, he got a pardon and is sent back to Sicilia. There, he begins becoming one of the chief of the Mafia. The US Army seems to refrain from interfering.
The Substitute
When an inner-city Miami schoolteacher gets her knee broken after standing up to the school's gang leader, her mercenary combat specialist boyfriend goes undercover as a substitute teacher to take down the punk. Soon he discovers a conspiracy of criminals at work, and must reassemble his team from his last jungle raid to stop them.
Tony Arzenta
A mob hitman wants to retire, but his bosses don't think that's a good idea. Complications - and many bloody shootouts - ensue.
Don't Be Bad
A story set in the 90s and in the outskirts of Rome to Ostia. A world where money, luxury cars, night clubs, cocaine and synthetic drugs are easy to run. A world in which Vittorio and Cesare, in their early twenties, act in search of their success.
The Valachi Papers
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to break the sacred code of silence.
High Crime
An Italian police inspector matches wits with a powerful European drug ring. As he comes closer to the top of the underworld organization, his odds of survival decrease.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Contraband (1980): Crime and Action 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 Contraband.
See full details for Contraband (1980)