Best movies like Pigalle

In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin.

Two corrupt cops have a successful, seemingly perfect money making scheme- they sell drugs that they seize from dealers, kill the dealers, and blame the crimes on street gangs. Their scheme is going along smoothly until they kill an undercover DEA agent posing as a dealer, and then try to cover-up their crime.

Follows a young cyclo (bicycle cab) driver on his poverty-driven descent into criminality in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City. The boy's struggles to scratch out a living for his two sisters and grandfather in the mean streets of the city lead to petty crime on behalf of a mysterious Madame from whom he rents his cyclo.

"Boyz N the Hood" meets "Blood In, Blood Out" in this gritty tale of life on the streets of East L.A. Danny (Jacob Vargas), Alfonso (Greg Serano) and Raymo (Clifton Collins Jr.) are lifelong friends who have spent their days hanging out and playing basketball. But everything is about to change...when one of them gets involved with a dangerous drug dealer, all their lives are at risk and they must make some life and death decisions.

A former narcotics smuggler, now living peaceably in the Calabrian hills, is drawn back into his family’s drug-trade dynasty by his impetuous teenage son.

A gallery of characters in Brooklyn in the 1950s are crushed by their surroundings and selves: a union strike leader discovers he is gay; a prostitute falls in love with one of her clients; a family cannot cope with the fact that their daughter is illegitimately pregnant.

A story inspired by the life of one of the most remarkable figures in Brazilian popular culture, João Francisco dos Santos (1900-1976). In turn, bandit, transvestite, street fighter, brothel cook, convict and father to seven adopted children, dos Santos – better known as Madame Satã – was also a notorious gay performer who pushed social boundaries in a volatile time.

A story with a bit of despair: six or seven families who live in the same blocks that surround a parking lot. And they are all involved in each other’s lives.

A German student, Stefan, now finished with his studies, hitchhikes to Paris. There he meets a free-spirited American girl, Estelle, who he follows to Ibiza. The two begin a sad and dark path into heroin addiction. Barbet Schroeder's first film, also notable for its soundtrack which was composed by Pink Floyd.

"Piñero" tells the story of the explosive life of a Latino icon, the gay poet-playwright-actor Miguel Piñero, whose urban poetry is recognized as a pre-cursor to rap and hip-hop. After doing time in hard-core Sing-Sing for petty thefts and drug dealing, Piñero's prison experiences developed into the 1974 Tony-nominated play Short Eyes. The resulting notoriety and fame was too much for the Latino bad-boy genius who retreated to the darker corners of New York City.

Mangin, a police inspector in Paris, leans hard on informants to get evidence on three Tunisian brothers who traffic in drugs. He arrests one, Simon, and his girl-friend Noria. Simon's brothers go to their lawyer. He springs Noria, who promptly steals 2 million francs that belong to the Tunisians. They suspect her of the theft; her life as well as the lawyer's is in danger. Meanwhile, Noria is playing with both the lawyer and Mangin's affections. Mangin is mercurial anyway: intimidating and bloodying suspects, falling for a police commission trainee before flipping for Noria, wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Can he save the lawyer and Noria, and can he convince her to love?

Zachary, 17 years old, gets out of jail. Rejected by his mother, he hangs out in the mean streets of Marseille. He falls in love with Shéhérazade, a young prostitute of whom he becomes the pimp without realizing it...

A group of ghetto kids try to find out who killed a popular police officer.

Various stories of how crack cocaine has infiltrated the inner-city streets. Based on Buddy Giovinazzo's novel "Life is Hot in Cracktown".

A tough, Jewish ex-con just released from prison crosses a powerful drug dealer and former prison rival in his return to a life of crime.

A raw urban drama about two friends raised on the dangerous streets of Kingston, Jamaica. Biggs and Wayne take on the "Shotta" way of life to survive. As young boys, they begin a life of crime, eventually moving to the US where they begin a ruthless climb from the bottom. They remain bound to each other by their shottas loyalty as they aggressively take control of the Jamaican underworld.

Over the course of three days Ross, a college dropout addicted to crystal-meth, encounters a variety of oddball folks - including a stripper named Nikki and her boyfriend, the local meth producer, The Cook - but all he really wants to do is hook up with his old girlfriend, Amy.

It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.

The story of two youths – one Algerian, one French – who become juvenile delinquents in a Paris suburb.

In a gritty retelling of the Dickens's classic, Twist takes Oliver and the Artful Dodger out of the poorhouse and onto the streets, where junk is the currency and hustling is the game.

Bo is a transexual prostitute in Brussels who left home after being abused by her father. She's infuatuated with a neighbor and suspected by the police in a series of transexual murders. In order to clear herself she must turn detective.

Bruno is released from prison. He looks for a job and tries to start a new life. His first stop is at his father's apartment.

May, 1946, in Paris young poet Jacques Prevel meets Antonin Artaud, the actor, artist, and writer just released from a mental asylum. Over ten months, we follow the mad Artaud from his cruel coaching of an actress in his "theatre of cruelty" to his semi-friendship with Prevel who buys him drugs and hangs on his every word. Meanwhile, Prevel divides his time between Jany, his blond, young, drug-hazed mistress, and Rolande, his dark-haired, long-suffering wife, who has a child during this time. Cruelty, neglect, poverty, egoism, madness, and the pursuit of art mix on the Left Bank.

A street prostitute takes in an abused young woman on the run from her misogynist boyfriend, leading to both facing off against the prostitute's dreaded pimp and a relentless police detective out to arrest all of them.

A 14-year-old boy, struggling with gender identity and religion, begins to use fantasy to escape his life in the inner city and find his passion in the process.

Paris, 1982. Franck and Serge are police investigators in charge of making a good catch in the Parisian porn industry. In order to infiltrate the mafia, they take over a peep show in Pigalle riddled with debts. In attempt to jump start the business, they begin to produce short porn films.

The film follows a simple structure, and shows the drug-related degradation of five youths (Jake, Tracey, Jessica, Alice, Oreo) during the course of three years. The film depicts drug-related crimes and diseases: prostitution, male prostitution, AIDS, and lethal overdoses.

A couple of musicians are on their way to a show at a country bar. Along the way, they pick up a couple of sexy hitchhiking ladies and decide to pull over for a pitstop. Eventually, they make it to the bar and uncover that the deep voiced country singer that also plays there is also a pimp who uses the "waitresses" to make him some extra cash. It is up to our musician heroes to put an end to the singer and his operation.

Colloquially-told story of a few days in the life of Marieta, who's saving money for the last operation in her change from man to woman. She works as a prostitute in Madrid and longs for a legitimate job. Whenever she builds up her savings, her housemate and best friend Tomás finds ways to spend, lose, or cost her those funds. She meets Raúl, whom she likes and who likes her; the trouble is he also likes that part of her she wants removed. If that's not enough, she also has narcolepsy, and when she conks out, she dreams of musical-theater numbers in which she's the singing and dancing star. Are these dreams always going to be 20 centimeters out of reach?

A transgender woman attempts to rehabilitate her younger, drug-addicted boyfriend while also dealing with her ne’er-do-well son, a solider who’s gone AWOL.

Chouf: It means “look” in Arabic, but it is also the name of the watchmen in the drug cartels of Marseille. Sofiane is 20. A brilliant student, he comes back to spend his holiday in the Marseille ghetto where he was born. His brother, a dealer, gets shot before his eyes. Sofiane gives up on his studies and gets involved in the drug network, ready to avenge him. He quickly rises to the top and becomes the boss’s right hand. Trapped by the system, Sofiane is dragged into a spiral of violence…

A black soldier comes home to Harlem after a tour in Vietnam and discovers that his wife had become a heroin addict and died of an overdose. Infuriated, he gathers three of his ex-GI buddies and they lay out plans to fight the drug dealers.

On the eve of his wedding, a Manhattanite takes a whimsical look back at his formative years and sexuality.

In 1960, Marc and Philippe are counselors at a summer camp in the French countryside. One night, Marc finds Philippe dressed and made up as a woman, and from now on, he will keep on humiliating Philippe.

The reality of addiction in a tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.