Best movies like After the Light

Willie Dynamite is a pimp who operates in New York City. Willie was a big success as a pimp, but now, just as fast as he rose to the top, he has hit bottom. A former prostitute who has become a social worker tries to get Willie to clean up his life while it is still possible.

When a marriage of convenience becomes the real thing, Joe moves his pregnant French wife to a tenement building on New York's Lower East Side. The street is like a war zone with none of the nostalgic appeal that Joe remembers from tales of his immigrant grandparents arriving in the same neighborhood with a new life. This is the urban frontier filled with comic mixture of gentrifies, homeboys, dealers and local residents simply bent on staying a float

To stay out of the slammer, down-on-his-luck bounty hunter Vince Holloway reluctantly agrees to do the bidding of two crooked IRS agents. Tasked with recouping $20 million of laundered drug money, Holloway heads south of the border to the Blue Iguana, a bar crawling with thugs, killers, smugglers, evil women, and crazy action.

Two musicians and a roadie take money that is owed to them from a job. One flees to Mexico, and everyone has questions.

After the Portuguese government demolishes his slum and relocates him to a housing project on the outskirts of Lisbon, 75-year-old Cape Verde immigrant Ventura wanders between his new and old homes, reconnecting with people from his past.

After destroying his older brother's motorbike in retaliation for his constant bullying, 11-year-old Krishna is sent to a traveling circus to earn money to pay for the bike's repairs, but soon winds up in the streets of Bombay's poorest slums. There, he befriends the drug dealer Chillum and young prostitute Sola Saal, while trying to make enough money at a neighborhood tea stall to repay his debt to his family.

A drug dealer with upscale clientele is having moral problems going about his daily deliveries. A reformed addict, he has never gotten over the wife that left him, and the couple that use him for deliveries worry about his mental well-being and his effectiveness at his job. Meanwhile someone is killing women in apparently drug-related incidents.

A non-glamorous portrayal of the lives of people who make their living at a strip club.

A tale of an inner city drug dealer who turns away from crime to pursue his passion, rap music.

Looking for a brighter future in metropolitan Manila, Oscar Ramirez and his family leave their miserable life in the rice terraces of Banaue, in the northern Philippines. In the sweltering capital, where all kind of perils lurk in every corner, Oscar catches a lucky break when he is offered a steady work for an armored truck company and the senior officer Ong takes him under his wing.

Three converging story lines involving bootleggers, a serial killer and drug dealers are followed. A former drug dealer tries to go straight, but comes across a stash of stolen drugs. Meanwhile, a middle-aged suburban housewife hides a sadistic and vicious streak.

An unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but taking as main focus the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte.

Inspired by the true story of Greg Yance. In the film, Yance (Epps) is a hood who goes to jail for possession of drugs. He is given a choice: 5 years in jail or a couple of months in boot camp. He chooses boot camp and finds out it is tougher than he thought it would be. He braves it through and comes home a better man. He then has to deal with the real world, and never gives up no matter what the odds.

In the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, the Mafia steps in when a drug dealer quits his partner brother to lead a straight life with his girlfriend.

Brian Hooks plays a character who is just released from jail. And the state adopts a "3 strikes" rule for felons that involves serious penalties. Hooks has 2 strikes, and wants to change his life for the better. When a friend picks him up, they are pulled over, and his friend shoots at police officers, and Hooks escapes. Now Hooks, a wanted man, must clear his name of having nothing to do with the shooting.

Rick and Melissa are a pair of young lovers hoping to get out of the slums for good and escape the poverty and crime their families and friends have gotten involved in. All this comes to an end when Rick feels he must rejoin his old gang to avenge the killing of his brother by a rival gang. In the course of getting even, Rick is arrested, leaving Melissa without anyone to protect her. She falls in with a crack dealer and quickly becomes addicted to the drug. When she gets sold to a drug kingpin by a minor dealer to pay off a debt, only Rick can save her.

Shifty, a young crack cocaine dealer in London, sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend returns home. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer, intent on setting him up for a big fall.

A New York drug dealer is kidnapped, and his wife must try to come up with the money and drugs to free him from his abductors before Christmas.

Charismatic thief Bobby Comfort escapes from prison, clears himself of all charges, and returns to a home life he finds unsatisfying. Though he is devoted to his wife and daughter, his old life comes calling, both figuratively and literally, in the form of idea man Sammy Nalo. With the help of Comfort's old partner, they begin robbing posh New York City hotels, while second cousin and bumbling cop Phil Parris thinks he can turn Comfort to the straight and narrow.

FIX takes you from Beverly Hills to Watts, and places in between, in one day, as documentary filmmakers Bella and Milo race to get Milo's brother Leo from jail to rehab before 8pm, or Leo goes to prison for three years.

Los Angeles heroin addict Jesse endangers the lives of his childhood friends after he discovers a briefcase full of money from a drug deal gone bad, and returns home with it to Texas. Hoping to turn his life around with his newfound wealth, Jessie endures detox with the support of his friends. However, the gang leader behind the drug deal, along with his cronies, trace Jesse's footsteps to Texas to exact revenge and take back their money.

A cop begins to turn to booze and cocaine during a tough undercover assignment. When a big drug-buy goes sour and the cop ends up with a million in cash, he decides to take off with the money. The drug dealer catches up with him, but he dies before revealing where he stashed the cash. Months later, the drug dealer finds the cop's wife and seduces her, in an effort to find his missing million. In the process, he falls in love with her and alienates his former partners in crime.

Ex Con Armstrong Cane (Ving Rhames) returns to home a changed man looking to take over his father's old church and congregation. The neighborhood though is full of drugs and gangs. Those who are able are leaving for more prosperous areas and falling in with a slick preacher (Ricardo Chivara). Even with a dangerous gang leader (Dean McDermott) threatening his flock, Armstrong won't give up.

Miles Montego has it all - cars, boats, good looks, mansion, money, women, but more importantly, he has a past.

The deal is simple. Buy the stolen drugs for almost nothing, sell them and make a bundle. For Ray and the others, it's the deal of their lives. For Heather, the rich girl, it's a ride on the wild side. Deep in the dark, abandoned warehouse, Speed, the dealer, counts the money. Outside, a black Mercedes pulls up...five killers step out. They want their drugs back and they don't want witnesses. Trapped in the warehouse, the horror begins.

The true-life story of a Harlem's notorious Nicky Barnes, a junkie turned multimillionaire drug-lord. Follow his life story from his rough childhood to the last days of his life.

Gilly comes out of prison after serving a six year stretch and decides that he will now turn his life around and go straight. But when he returns to his South London home and visits his old colleague J, in hope of obtaining his share of the proceeds from the job that landed him inside, J soon talks him into getting involved in one last scam.

Spira comes home from a juvenile detention center and reconnects with his loved ones in Reboleira (Lisbon), a slum on the verge of being destroyed. Kikas makes it clear that he’s not welcome.

A "straight" couple dabbles in drugs and become heroin addicts.

A high-school track star (Nick Stahl) watches without judgment as his two best friends (Summer Phoenix, Aaron Paul) abuse heroin.

Remy is a medical student who has a flair for making his patients comfortable. His genuine concern for the patients in his charge marks him as a hot prospect in his internship program. Pamela works at a children's book publishing company. The two meet via Pamela's brother, who is also Remy's good friend. They fall in love and get an apartment in the East Village of New York. Soon after, the couple begins to indulge in speed and barbiturates. They become heavily addicted. Remy is thrown out of medical school and Pamela quits her job. Remy soon finds himself in debt with the local dealer, Stutter, who introduces his customer to heroin as a revenge for his late bill. Pamela faces the prospect of getting sober at her brother's clinic, but must leave behind a destitute Remy in order to do it.

Rusty (Shawn Hatosy) has been bailed out of bad situations more than once by his understanding but distraught mother, Mary (Kelly Lynch). When Mary starts dating a psychologist, Bob (Jeff Goldblum), Rusty connects with the man and begins talking to him about his problems. As Rusty benefits from the therapy sessions, his best friend, Dallas (Scott Caan), still very involved in illegal and dangerous activities, takes issue with Rusty going straight and cleaning up his life.

Bobby G. lives life on the edge in this real, raw New York street drama. Bobby is a small-time coke dealer, always on the hustle but rarely successful. He lives in Hell's Kitchen with his Puerto Rican girlfriend Lucy, who makes ends meet as a prostitute. A typical day finds Bobby selling $20 bags to neighborhood locals and passing cars. A yuppie kid looking to score a kilo of coke approaches him to broker a deal and Bobby sees the opportunity of a lifetime to make some real money. His rough days may just be over. With the tidy profit he could even leave the business. Playing out of his league, Bobby arranges to get the kilo from Astro, a fearsome, high-level drug dealer. Though Lucy announces that she's decided to go back to Puerto Rico and pleads with him to make a fresh start too, Bobby is sticking to his deal and isn't going anywhere now, convinced he'll be 'livin' large in a matter a' days...

O'Day, the terror of Red Gulch, wins the entire stake of a gambler named Granger in a poker game but gives it all to Denver Nell, a dancehall girl, when she tells him her sad story. O'Day later discovers that she has returned the money to Granger, and he decides to reform. He goes to another town, where (now known as Good Deed O'Day) he meets an old friend, a wealthy rancher with whose sister, Mary, he is in love. Snowden takes a trip to Denver and returns with Nell, whom he has married.

Chicago cabbie Mitch Lawrence is a man whose dreams are starting to fade. His only shining light is his loving and pregnant wife. When one of his clients, author Lou Webber offers him money to eliminate a drug dealer who is stalking him, Mitch refuses. Days later, Mitch is diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer. He reconsiders Lou's offer, and for the sake of his wife and baby, eliminates the threat. But after that night, everything changes, Mitch's stomach pains disappear. The Drug dealer suddenly resurfaces in a crowd. Then events conspire to drag Mitch deeper into a game that proves that at the right price any man is for hire.