Best movies like Mala Mala

Amaryllis Campos is a young, classically trained Puerto Rican ballerina, who dreams of leaving her impoverished home in Puerto Rico to pursue fame and fortune as a dancer. Amaryllis heads for New York City, where she is forced to work in a seedy strip club to make ends meet. Setting audiences afire with her erotic moves, Amaryllis quickly becomes the strip club's hottest attraction, but must finally decide between true love and realizing her dream of becoming a star.

This documentary takes the viewer on a deeply personal journey into the everyday lives of families struggling to fight Goliath. From a family business owner in the Midwest to a preacher in California, from workers in Florida to a poet in Mexico, dozens of film crews on three continents bring the intensely personal stories of an assault on families and American values.

A prudish woman working on tenure as a literacy professor at a large urban university finds herself attracted to a free-spirited, liberal woman who works at a local carnival.

Failed music hall performer Jack James inherits a brothel when his ancient Aunt dies. He takes over the running of the business and falls in love with its star attraction, beautiful prostitute Virginia.

25 years after Paris is Burning, we dive back into the fierce world of voguing battles in the Kiki scene of New York City, where competition between Houses demands leadership, painstaking practice, and performances on point. A film collaboration between Kiki gatekeeper, Twiggy Pucci Garçon, and Swedish filmmaker Sara Jordenö, we’re granted exclusive access into this high stakes world, where tough competitions act as a gateway into the daily lives of LGBTQ youth of color in NYC. The new generation of ballroom youth use the motto, “Not About us Without Us”. Twiggy and Sara’s insider-outsider approach to their stories breathes fresh life into the representation of a marginalized community who demand visibility and real political power.

Troubled divorcee Mary Kee is tormented by a series of sinister phone calls from a mysterious woman. When the stranger reveals she's calling from the past, Mary tries to break off contact. But the caller doesn't like being ignored, and looks for revenge in a unique and terrifying way...

Ivy Fisher is at the top of her game; A whip-smart, devastatingly attractive upstart business owner. She is your typical thirty something, with a stalled personal life and overactive career. But during a crucial investor meeting, Ivy's body begins to fail her. Plagued with an onset of dizziness and a crippling headache, Ivy crashes. Enter Dr. Mark Ryan - a corrupt doctor ready to feed his desire for power, and Ivy is his perfect subject. This rock-hard business woman is now about to confront her mortality. But much to Ivy's shock, she is about to find out that Dr. Ryan, a person she trusts, has the recipe to finally break her.

Either you've got it or you haven't - some like randy young Timothy Lea (Robin Askwith), manage to get it all the time! Signing up with a pop group, our boisterous hero progresses rapidly from local gigs to scoring a titillating hit with The Climax Sisters, with plenty of ribald adventures along the way!

Female prisoners in a Phillippine jail are being subjected to sadistic torture. Five of the women--along with the help of two men--plot an escape.

Four precocious preteens perfect their lip-synching and runway walks in anticipation of the biggest drag performance of their lives at Montreal Pride, in this fierce and joyous celebration of acceptance and self-discovery.

Prize winner, Venice Festival 1956. The DivEdCo’s most important attempt to depict women’s rights in the context of modernization processes in Puerto Rico. Modesta leads a group of women in Barrio Sonadora, Guaynabo, in a strike against their husbands to demand their rights in a domestic context.

A night in the life of a cab driver in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Lt. Wakes is a vengeful police detective determined to solve the murders of his partner and an informant, and joins forces with a witness injured during the shootings. After the killers pursue the witness across the abandoned floor of a hospital, she confirms Wakes's worst fears.

In the late 1970s, when a mentally handicapped teenager is abandoned, a gay couple takes him in and becomes the family he's never had. But once the unconventional living arrangement is discovered by authorities, the men must fight the legal system to adopt the child.

This 1959 film-noir take on "Othello," filmed in Puerto Rico, stars Mari Blanchard as flirtatious Jean, who marries an older man, plantation owner Don Luis, for financial security and finds herself falling for his virile foster son, Carlos. Fearing that Jean will inherit Luis's money, his greedy cousin, Miguel, poisons the bridegroom against his new wife, informing him about her passion for another.

In this classic exploration of marriage in conflict, Billy and Antoinette Edwards—as well as their son Bogart and dog Merton—live out their daily lives. Hoping to discover the heart of the trouble in their marriage, Billy and Antoniette offer up their day to day lives to documentary filmmaker Allan King, as laughter, tears, wit, tenderness, anger, patience, pain, and sorrow ensue.

Public Sex, Private Lives is an intimate look at the professional and private lives of porn performers Lorelei Lee, Princess Donna, and Isis Love. Capturing moments of joy and struggle, this film follows the characters as they navigate their lives as artists, daughters, mothers, writers, and women who have made careers in the adult industry. Asked to defend their choices to their families, communities, and even the United States Government, these women share their unique motivations and shifting visions for the future.

Two clans of deranged males make the mistake of stalking four young women they assume to be easy prey, only to find out that at the stroke of midnight the tables will be turned and all hell will break loose.

When an atomic war on Mars destroys the planet's women, it's up to Martian Princess Marcuzan and her right-hand man Dr. Nadir to travel to earth and kidnap women for new breeding stock. Landing in Puerto Rico, they shoot down a NASA space capsule manned by an android. With his electronic brain damaged, the android terrorizes the island while the Martians raid beaches and pool parties

Capitalising on his remarkable success in On the Buses, Reg Varney took on the contrasting role of a third-rate holiday camp entertainer dreaming of stardom in this mid-seventies comedy feature. Also starring fellow sitcom favourite Diana Coupland and Lee Montague, The Best Pair of Legs in the Business was adapted from an individual ITV Playhouse drama and scripted by Emmerdale Farm creator Kevin Laffan. 'Sherry' Sheridan, a middle-aged compère and drag artiste currently stationed at a caravan site, is low on talent but high on ambition. Convinced he just needs one decent break to launch himself into the big time, he's relentlessly optimistic - but sadly unaware that his family life is crumbling around him. Can Sherry manage to secure both his job, and his marriage?

Love comes in many forms, and in Melody Gilbert’s Silicone Soul, the need for companionship and understanding is shown in the bond between humans and their synthetic companions. Tenderly captured by Gilbert, the bonds shown in the film are diverse and layered: from romantic relationships, to friendships, to a recreation of the love between mother and child. Silicone Soul does not allow for its subjects to be easily labeled or judged. Instead, the film is a collection of resoundingly human stories that reflect universal themes—the desire for love, compassion and communication.

An ex-marine is hired by a defense contractor to travel to Panama to complete an arms deal. In the process he becomes involved with the U.S. invasion of Panama, and learns an important lesson about the true nature of political power.

Joseph Lando, the Hercolobus man himself, fights all sorts of mystical mayhem in this over-the-top yet delightful Puerto Rican classic.

Sara, a young archaeology student, organizes an expedition to La Mora Cave. Guided by Yabey, Sara and her four friends, discover a hidden Taíno tribe, believed to be extinguished 500 years ago.

A previously unreleased collection of video segments edited into one feature film known as 'zen film making'; an underground guerrilla film making technique.

In a neighborhood where Dominicans and Puerto Ricans live in community, they must learn to put their differences aside and work together to prevent the demolition of their basketball court.

A hybrid doc/narrative following Tony winning performer and comedian Sarah Jones. As a mixed-race Black woman in America, Sarah, alongside the multicultural characters she's known for, explores her own personal relationship to one of the most relevant issues in our current cultural climate: the sex industry, and the surprisingly diverse range of people whose lives it touches. Through interviews and monologues, this film poses the question: how can we as a society have a healthy relationship to sex, power, race and our economy, without exploitation or stigma? The goal is not to prescribe solutions, but to highlight the human faces and voices at the center of this subject.

Genaro, Chelo and Carlitos finally reach their goal of leaving the Dominican Republic in search of a visa, but in Puerto Rico they still can't stop getting in trouble.

This is the story of two male prostitutes who want to become professional actors and how they struggle to get into show business.

When their housemother places them on probation, these sorority girls dress their boyfriends in drag and throw an “all-girls” pajama party!

A Puerto Rican salon employee is forced to confront her own erotic desires when she becomes obsessed with the violent sexual tendencies of her new neighbors.

Documentarian Roger Horrocks travels to Costa Rica to investigate the story of a man who shares a unique bond with a crocodile.

As her cancer spreads, Noelia's ultimate decision is to return to her native Vieques, Puerto Rico, and claim her freedom to decide her own fate. She reunites with her friends and family, who are still dealing with the contamination of the U.S. Navy after 60 years of military practices.

An intimate examination of a contemporary artist couple, whose living and working patterns are threatened by the imminent sale of their home.

Rodrigo, a piano-tuner and former composer fallen on hard times, begins a love affair with the soon-to-be-married Susana. When a bomb in the city of Medellín nearly kills them, Rodrigo and Susana surrender to their attraction and fall into each other’s arms. Cocooned in her apartment above the vibrant city, Susana opens up to him every night and tells him a story of each of the different men from her past. Her stories inspire him to compose again, but his obsession makes him jealous and paranoid. When Susana finally leaves her fiancée to be with Rodrigo, he becomes obsessed with her fidelity.

Dylan Burke attempts to move on from his former life as a criminal with his true love Maria. He soon realizes that his past will continue to haunt him, when he learns the new local prison warden, Daniel Calvin, has not forgiven him for an old crime.

A promising young boxer, a barren midwife, and a fat kid with a bike: three intersecting stories about the pursuit of happiness and it's unanticipated consequences during the economic collapse of the island of Puerto Rico.

A young couple going through a matrimonial crisis decides to open their relationship to new sexual experiences and adopt the swinger lifestyle, discovering not only a world without sexual limits, but also challenging the frontiers of their confidence.

Ivan, Julia and Kike were born and grew up in Culebra where they shared a close friendship. Ivan ventures in a small boat and stumbles on Cayo, a small island close by. Here he finds peace of mind, and the island has a healing effect on him. When federal authorities try to keep Ivan away from Cayo, they find themselves face to face with a community that will defend Ivan's need to visit the island. Based on a true story of love and friendship that will touch your heart, this wrenching drama was filmed in the beautiful natural scenery of Culebra, Puerto Rico.

A writer visits an aircraft carrier during the Korean war to learn more about it and the way it's run. He also gets to find out more about the Navy and Marine aviators themselves, their internal and external conflicts and dangers of their job.

Community Action Center is a 69-minute sociosexual video by A.K. Burns and A.L. Steiner which incorporates the erotics of a community where the personal is not only political, but sexual. This project was heavily inspired by porn-romance-liberation films, such as works by Fred Halsted, Jack Smith, James Bidgood, Joe Gage and Wakefield Poole, which served as distinct portraits of the urban inhabitants, landscapes and the body politic of a particular time and place. Community Action Center is a unique contemporary womyn-centric composition that serves as both an ode and a hole-filler.

Towards the end of the 90's two singers, a dancer, and a novel music producer find themselves in a hard personal and professional battle where the main thing is to be the best at trying to fulfill their dreams. Although its internal conflicts will take them to the depths of the urban world of music and dance today called reggaeton, they will unite their talents to achieve their goals. Inspired by the history of a genre full of conflicts.

This docu-drama deals with the lives of two soldiers from Puerto Rico enlisted to fight during the Vietnam conflict. Based on a real-life incident, the movie relates the young soldiers' ambiguity about the war and the tragic consequences their plight holds for them, as well as their families.

A mysterious, erotic and haunting love story between a writer/professor at Puerto Rico's leading University and an aspiring artist from the immigrant Chinese community.

An American family celebrates their 28-year-old daughter's pregnancy. The celebration is interrupted when a Satanic cult leader, Henrik Brandr, unexpectedly visits their ranch. Henrik offers to pay the family a large sum for ownership of their land. Jacob Richardson, the father, rejects the offer due to the priceless sentimental value of the ranch. Henrik, displeased, begins to put devastating curses on the Richardsons, trying to force them off their land - even if it means murdering them. After suffering unexplainable tragedies, the Richardsons seek help from Marybeth, a white witch high priestess. They soon discover a terrible secret about their house, revealing why their land is so valuable to the cult. They realize they must protect their house from the cult at all costs, and a violent battle between good and evil ensues.

Coming off of a devastating broken engagement, Daniel Mays looks to start a new life in a new upstate home. No sooner does he move into his "dream house," than strange occurrences begin happening - not the least of which is the unexpected appearance of his ex-fiancé. As Daniel continues to try and build a new life and a new love, the events in the house push him closer and closer to a horrific realization that will change his life forever.

Juan is subjected to shock treatment in the hands of Dr. David, and apparently is able to resume a "normal" life. He and his wife María make dolls in a workshop attached to their apartment in New York. However, John does not heal and he starts looking for the nurses to murder them.

Quinn shows up at an apartment building in Paradise, a small backwoods community in Puerto Rico, purporting to be the new caretaker the owner has been expecting. He gets right to work, making a good impression on everybody, except Gus, the reclusive teenage gas station attendant. Soon, sinister things come to pass

Jay Hernandez (Friday Night Lights), Mario Van Peebles (Ali), Luis Guzmán (Carlito's Way) and Sean Combs (Monster's Ball) star in the gripping tale of the early years of gangster legend Carlito Brigante. Seduced by the power of the brutal New York underworld, he enters a deadly circle of greed and retribution. Assisted by his two brothers-in-crime, Carlito is on the fast track to becoming Spanish Harlem's ultimate kingpin. He quickly learns, however, that the only way to survive at the top is through loyalty to his friends and respect for the rules of the street. (FILMAFFINITY)