Best movies like Nothing for Mahala

A strange and tragic tale of a young boy who is able to predict race winners at the horse track by riding his own rocking horse to aid his parents out of their endless round of debts.

A young reformed gambler must return to playing big stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks.

The tale of two brothers with serious financial woes. When a third party proposes they turn to crime, things go bad and the two become enemies.

Kate's life is turned upside down when her younger sister, Melissa, disappears. When Kate investigates, she discovers that a large amount of drug money vanished with her sister.

An intimate look at the epochal financial crisis of 2008 and the powerful men and women who decided the fate of the world's economy in a matter of a few weeks.

Shuji is an uncompromising young filmmaker at odds with Japanese society. One day he learns that his loan shark brother, who had helped to finance his films, has been executed by his own yakuza gang for failing to repay his debts.

A wanna-be concert pianist spends his days making a living by collecting debts for his Mafioso father, a lifestyle that could eventually ruin his dreams of a musical career.

The bar in an old Pennsylvania steel town, housed with many of life's losers and disillusioned men, is the main setting for this slice-of-life film. Michael Madsen is the bar owner, who is deep in debt to the town's book-maker and loan shark Burt Young. Chris Penn is one of the bar's main inhabitants as he hides from his failing marriage to Mary Stuart Masterson. The bartender's sister (Virginia Madsen) is about to be married, and her former fiancé (Tom Sizemore) shows up in town, after leaving her at the altar years before. Con man James Belushi runs a con on Perry to steal the money for the wedding caterer. As every plot in this multi layered story seems to be at it's worst, things look up because of an unlikely hero.

Literature professor Jim Bennett leads a secret life as a high-stakes gambler. Always a risk-taker, Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster and offers his own life as collateral. Staying one step ahead, he pits his creditor against the operator of an illicit gambling ring while garnering the attention of Frank, a paternalistic loan shark. As his relationship with a student deepens, Bennett must risk everything for a second chance.

A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

The film follows Grace, a young woman whose irresponsible mother blows her college fund on her younger sister's beauty pageant campaign.

An Arab oil organization devises a plan to wreck the world economy in order to cause anarchy and chaos.

Ray 'Harley' Davidson is a hustler. With flash clothes and a fast mouth, Harley lives life in the fast lane. With his passion for all things gambling, money runs like water through Harley's hands and as quickly as he makes a killing he takes a beating, normally at the poker table. Nominally an illegal prize-fight manager, Harley hasn't produced a live one in months, until Charles Buchinsky literally wanders into his life. Charles Buchinsky, street fighter extraordinaire. He's from out of town looking for a fight and the chance to tie up a few loose ends. Keeps himself to himself, lets his fists do the talking and his word is his bond. Victor Maitland, top illegal fight promoter and porn baron. Hates losing and loves the prestige of managing the best hitter in town. Harley dreams of bringing Maitland down and after seeing Buchinsky at work, engineers a fragile partnership. The duo soon becomes a hot ticket...

Ex-con turned "scrapper" Jake leads a quiet life caring for his family until he is pursued by violent Punjabi and Mexican criminals following a botched robbery.

A group of unemployed theater actors survive by working as illegal money collectors. The loan shark they are working for owns an Off-Broadway theater. As he decided to play "American Buffalo" there, a bloody battle for the favorite roles begin.

Kaitlyn is a high school student whose obsession with gambling leads to her accumulating a mountain of debt. Her habit also causes a high degree of family tension.

Angeliena’s story is about SELF LOVE... and making money, terminal illness, divorce, nature, friendships, hardships, poverty, travel, hot doctors, plants, dreams, assholes, Ubuntu and... being GOOD ENOUGH.

Sophomore year has been a nightmare for Jessica Burns. Relentlessly harassed by her former friend Avery Keller, Jessica doesn't know what she did to deserve the abuse from one of South Brookdale High's most popular and beautiful students. But when a shocking event changes both of their lives, a documentary film crew, a hidden digital camera, and the attention of a reeling community begin to reveal the powerful truth about A Girl Like Her.

A hotshot teenage car racer persuades the class president of a small Minnesota high school to gamble on illegal car races to raise money for their school which is facing closure.

Upstart payment firm Wirecard wowed the financial industry with its runaway success — until a tenacious team of journalists exposed massive fraud.

Frustrated with all the minor irritants of the rat-race Richard Jackson decides to buy a goat, disconnect the electricity and become self-sufficient. But will this life be any less annoying?

The curse of Count Dracula lives on in shark-infested waters, claiming the lives of a tourist community. A sea hunt for the new species results in monsters, madness and bloodshed. This great white is putting the bite back into terror, and it has help with the aid of new vampires intent on seeing it survive.

A repossession agent falls in love with a woman whose father is high on his list of priority accounts.

An alcoholic longshoreman, deep in debt to the mob, is forced into an increasingly debauched nightmare as he tries to avoid the thugs out to get him. Along the way, he meets local oddballs, violent criminals, and lusty women. With a mysterious computer controlling everyone’s actions this grimy artistic film with almost science fiction-esque fear of future mind control was made well before it’s time.

A man goes to a loan shark to finance his family's vacation.

Joe Joe has just opened up his very own rim shop and things are going well until an evil loan shark comes to collect an old debt. With no money in the bank Joe Joe has 24 hours to come up with the cash or he loses everything.

This is the story of Nat Banks, an 8th generation Virginian gentleman farmer living in the past, who loses his family farm, Greenwood, to a pair of land speculators from Washington, D.C. When the predatory couple manipulates a "legal" real estate transaction that turns into a hostile possession of the manor house, he temporarily loses his mind, leaving his family but not the farm. Instead he hides out in a cave on Goose Creek, waging guerilla warfare against expansionism and the destruction of historic property with the help of his family, friends, and neighbors...

"Between Friends" is a stylish, funny ensemble piece set in an upmarket game lodge in South Africa. A group of college friends reunite after 7 years, keen to catch up and rekindle their friendships. But that was then, and this is now. Things get intense after old secrets are revealed and past issues threaten to disrupt present relationships.

Amir is an illegal Pakistani immigrant smuggled into England in the 1960's to work, to send money to his family and perhaps even bring them over with him. A skilled laborer, he is forced to do unskilled work like shoveling sheep dung and processing wool. He lives in a boarding house with nearly a dozen other men, under the supervision of Hussein Shah. He befriends a young student, Sakib, who dreams of being a writer. Their existence is punctuated by secret movies, a visiting prostitute, fear of detection and deportation, and the gangster-like smuggler who comes by for his take every week. The household is shaken up by the arrival of a white girl, Shah's girlfriend, and the sense of femininity and family she brings.

Portia, a wealthy heiress of Belmont, is forced to set her suitors a challenge. The winner will win her hand in marriage; the losers will lose her hand and much more. In Venice, the epicentre of consumption, speculation and debt, Bassanio borrows money from his friend Antonio to finance his attempt. Antonio, in turn, takes out a loan from the moneylender Shylock. The loan will be repaid when Antonio’s ships return to the city. But if the ships fail to return, and the money cannot be repaid, Antonio will give to Shylock a pound of his own flesh. And they do fail. And Shylock will have his ‘bond’.

After sixteen years as the reverend of the mother church, Tienie Benade is confronted with a steep decline in the number of churchgoers and a modern society that is rapidly changing. Do clergymen, or even the church, still have a role to play in this world? He is trying his best to adapt and make sense of the changes, but, in the process, he is alienating his wife and children. After an incident with a dying vagrant, Tienie finds himself at a crossroads. Will he be able to regain his self-confidence and win back the love of his family and will he be brave enough to provide guidance to his congregation in this new era? Based on the play by Dana Snyman.

Mark Winton is a wanderer who takes up the cause of a band of ragamuffin's bullied by nasty loan shark Bert Ridley. In between buying the youngsters Boy Scout uniforms, the irrepressible Winton comes to the aid of lovely rancher June Savary , whose father is in financial trouble because of Ridley.

Brian Owens was once a prominent professor of quantum mechanics until an accident stripped him of his credentials; he now teaches at a community college. In order to reclaim his stature, he is trying to build the world's first teleportation machine in his garage at night. All of this while being romantically pursued by one of the art professors at the college, avoiding the crazy old lady next door, and being harassed by the loan sharks he borrowed money from to build his machine. But his biggest problem is he can't get his machine to work.​

Entrapped in his apartment, Randal, a recent paraplegic, is given a gift of binoculars by his devoted girlfriend, Pam. But Randal is in financial debt to a sadistic loan shark, and when he witnesses a powerful criminal commit a murder while observing his neighbours through binoculars, he initiates a treacherous blackmail scheme.

When an ex-dancer marries a man for his money she is suprised find he is a real skinflint. She owes a lot of money to a loan-shark who is after her. However, her husband does carry a lot of insurance