Best movies like Sonny
His life was the morning after, until he decided to change the night before.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Sonny Starring James Franco, Brenda Blethyn, Harry Dean Stanton, Mena Suvari, and more. If you liked Sonny then you may also like: Vice, Welcome to the Rileys, Wild Side, Willie Dynamite, American Gigolo and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
New Orleans, 1981. Sonny Phillips, just discharged from the Army, returns home. The only life he's known is as a gigolo, working for his mother, but he wants to leave that behind. However, the job his Army buddy promised doesn't materialize, and he can't escape his past.
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Welcome to the Rileys
Years after their teenage daughter’s death, Lois and Doug Riley, an upstanding Indiana couple, are frozen by estranging grief. Doug escapes to New Orleans on a business trip. Compelled by urgencies he doesn’t understand, he insinuates himself into the life of an underage hooker, becoming her platonic guardian.
Willie Dynamite
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.
American Gigolo
Julian makes a lucrative living as an escort to older women in the Los Angeles area. He begins a relationship with Michelle, a local politician's wife, without expecting any pay. One of his clients is murdered and Detective Sunday begins pumping him for details on his different clients, something he is reluctant to do considering the nature of his work. Julian begins to suspect he's being framed. Meanwhile Michelle begins to fall in love with him.
Bloody Mama
Sexually abused as a young girl, Kate "Ma" Barker grows into a violent and powerful woman by the 1930s. She lovingly dominates her grown sons and grooms them into a pack of tough crooks. The boys include the cruel Herman, who still shares a bed with Ma; Fred, an ex-con who fell in love with a fellow prisoner; and Lloyd, who gets high on whatever's handy. Together they form a deadly, bizarre family of Depression-era bandits.
Gardens of the Night
After being abducted as children, and suffering years of abuse, a teenage boy and girl find themselves living on the street.
My Own Private Idaho
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
Midnight Cowboy
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.
Less Than Zero
A college freshman returns to Los Angeles for Christmas at his ex-girlfriend's request, but discovers that his former best friend has an out-of-control drug habit.
Fading Gigolo
Fioravante decides to become a professional Don Juan as a way of making money to help his cash-strapped friend, Murray. With Murray acting as his "manager", the duo quickly finds themselves caught up in the crosscurrents of love and money.
Cougars, Inc.
When Sam learns his mother cannot afford to send him to another school after he is kicked out, he and his friends start their own escort service for mature women to pay for his tuition.
Sugar
Cliff receives an unusual 18th birthday gift from his younger sister — marijuana, alcohol, a subway token and the mission to lose his virginity. This results in Cliff meeting a young street hustler named Butch. At first, as Butch introduces Cliff to gay street life in Toronto, Cliff is excited by his new relationship. But as the two grow closer, he finds that Butch has problems, including drug addiction, that are cause for serious concern.
My Brother the Devil
Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.
Highway
Jack is caught with the wife of his employer, a Vegas thug. The thug sends goons after Jack, who convinces his best friend, Pilot, to flee with him. Pilot insists that they head for Seattle, but doesn't tell Jack why. The goons learn from Pilot's drug source where the youths are headed, and they follow, hell bent on breaking Jack's feet. On the road, Jack and Pilot give a ride to Cassie, a distressed young woman. She and Jack hit it off. They pick up an aging stoner headed to Seattle for Kurt Cobain's memorial, and they help a circus sideshow family. Why is Pilot so set on Seattle, will the goons catch Jack, and is there any way the friends' competing needs can be resolved?
Life Is Hot in Cracktown
Various stories of how crack cocaine has infiltrated the inner-city streets. Based on Buddy Giovinazzo's novel "Life is Hot in Cracktown".
Sleeping Beauty
A haunting erotic fairytale about Lucy, a young University student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of beauty and desire.
Strays
Rick is frustrated by the repetitious grind of one-night stands and aimless hustling. Whilst looking for more to his life he meets Heather, a neighbour. Rick takes the opportunity to escape his boring life style with her, but soon finds that his volatile behaviour threatens to finish their relationship before it even really begins.
Claire Dolan
A high-priced call girl, shocked by her mother's death, decides to get out of the business and have a baby.
Aleksandr's Price
The life of an illegal Russian boy who, after losing his family, is pushed into becoming an escort - ultimately trying to come to terms with who he thinks he is.
Speed of Life
Drew (Scott Caan) must care for his father, a former professor who can now barely communicate due to Alzheimer. Depressed and struggling to make ends meet, an old buddy tries to get him to become a pusher. He gets further drawn in by a new and exciting girlfriend, Sarah (Mia Kirshner), who uses drugs.
Bizarre
Maurice, a reticent young homeless man, somehow manages to get by in Brooklyn; he spends his nights in parked cars until he finds himself at Bizarre, an underground club renowned for its burlesque shows. Maurice is fascinated by the club’s playful revues celebrating self-determined sexuality and creative otherness, and the two female club owners both adore him. He soon becomes a part of their self-selected family, and begins to bond with introverted Luka. But Maurice turns his back on Luka’s growing affection. Running away from his true emotions he drifts aimlessly through the city. He tries to find his feet at a boxing club, where he meets Charlie. Unable to withstand the pressure of his repressed feelings, Maurice unleashes a mounting foment of emotions, pervaded by tenderness and menace.
Death in Love
Death in Love is a psychosexual-thriller about a love affair between a Jewish woman and a doctor overseeing human experimentation at a Nazi German concentration camp, and the impact this has on her sons' lives in the 1990s.
Animal Attraction: Carnal Desires
A massage parlor gets way more business than it can handle when Mick, an excellent and handsome masseur, begins working there. He quickly gets a reputation for being one of the best in the business and suddenly finds himself unable to satisfy his customers' growing demands. He also wants to open his own business. But he is forced to choose between his loyalties and his desires.
The Dry Land
A U.S. soldier returning home from war struggles to reconcile his experiences abroad with the life and family he left in Texas.
Going All the Way
Korean War--era veterans and ex-classmates "Gunner" Casselman and "Sonny" Burns reunite upon their return home. Gunner, who spent the war years abroad, is trying to convince his mother that his gal Marty is good enough for him, while Sonny, who was stationed stateside, is torn between loyal Buddy and tempting Gale Ann. As they commiserate, the men realize that they're outgrowing the lives they lived before the war.
The Affair
A young woman named Jennifer is propositioned by an older woman to have sex with her husband for money. Jennifer has trouble with this decision as it is morally wrong to her but she really needs the money to help her fiancee out of debt so they can get married. There may be more to the situation than meets the eye.
Confessions of a Lap Dancer
An erotic melodrama about the public and private lives of sex workers. Erica is a single mother who works a stripper, and sometimes as a prostitute to support her daughter. But when the threat of losing parental rights to her child looms, Erica tries to escape from the dark world of the sex industry, but it turns out to be not so easy to do.
Tropical Snow
New York is the dream city of Tavo and Marina, where the lovers hope to start a better life; at home in Bogota they have to work as pocket pickers at the airport to support their families. Dealer Oskar can persuade them to smuggle drugs in their stomachs on plane to New York - although both know of the risks, since Marina's sister died on a similar journey. However on arrival at the airport in New York they show nerves and all their dreams start to shatter.
Hustler White
A writer, researching a book on male prostitutes, finds a young man to serve as a guide on the streets of Los Angeles.
East End Hustle
Group of prostitutes who rely on each other to revolt against their sinister pimps. Their bid for freedom turns much more dangerous than they ever imagined.
Postcards from London
Jim is a young man from Essex who moves to Soho with dreams of fame and fortune. When he joins a group of luxury male escorts, he finds himself embarking on a psychedelic journey of decadence.
Bullet Boy
Ricky is just out of a young offenders institute, heading home to Hackney and determined to go straight. Instead, he heads straight for trouble when he becomes involved in a street confrontation, siding with his best friend Wisdom against a local rude boy. The trouble escalates into a series of tit-for-tat incidents that threaten to spiral out of control. Ricky's 12-year-old brother Curtis, hero-worships Ricky, though he appears smart enough to know he doesn't want to follow his example. Yet, despite the stern warnings from his mother and support from her friends in the community, might Ricky's bad boy allure be too attractive for Curtis to resist?
Strapped
A routine trick propels a tall, dark, cynical hustler into a series of life-changing encounters in this drama. But this amicable and sexually efficient rent boy begins to look at himself differently when he finds himself lost in a maze-like apartment building. As he wanders through the building, he tricks with a variety of johns; sex is the commonality, but out of that commodity comes raw, unguarded emotions for all.
Sunlight Jr.
Quickie-mart employee Melissa and paraplegic Richie are very much in love. Supported only by Melissa’s small hourly wage, they are nevertheless thrilled to learn that Melissa is pregnant. Then their situation deteriorates, and their tenuous financial situation threatens to bring their happy life crashing down.
Love in the Time of Civil War
The reality of addiction in a tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.
Forty Deuce
A young hustler tries to get drug money by selling a boy to a middle-aged man; his plans are disrupted when the kid dies.
Behind Me
The twenty-something Betty comes to a remote small town and strikes a friendship with the fourteen-year old local girl Lea, who is fascinated by her new friend's tales of partying and living in the fast lane in the big city. Betty has ulterior motives for befriending the young girl, however.
Vice
Max Walker, a down-and-out cop, becomes the target of a bloodthirsty drug cartel after he leads a narcotics bust to intercept a large shipment of heroin. When someone starts picking off his team members - and the drugs seized in the raid suddenly disappear - Walker pairs up with one of his detectives to uncover a conspiracy that may go straight up the chain of command.