Best movies like Street of Shame

At the Doll House, a 1930s New Orleans bordello, Hallie is the main attraction both for clients and for Jo, the madame. Her comfortable if tedious life is disrupted by the arrival in town of Dove Linkhorn, her true love of three years before who is now searching for her. When Linkhorn learns the truth of her profession he triggers a chain of events involving a number of people, including the young Kitty with whom he travelled from Texas and who is now the Doll House newest recruit.

This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.

A lesbian college graduate, trying to bankroll her own photography business, works as a high-priced New York City escort.

When a young European woman assumes a false identity in 1920s Argentina, she gets more than she bargained for.

Yuzo and his fiancée Masako spend their Sunday afternoon together, trying to have a good time on just thirty-five yen. They manage to have many small adventures, especially because Masako's optimism and belief in dreams is able to lift Yuzo from his realistic despair.

Toshirō Mifune plays a young idealistic doctor who works at his father's (Takashi Shimura) clinic in a small and seedy district. During the war, he contracts syphilis from the blood of a patient when he cuts himself during an operation. Treating himself in secret and tormented by his conscience, he rejects his heartbroken fiancée without explanation.

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

Michiyo lives in the small place Osaka and is not happy with her marriage, all she does is cook and clean for her husband.

At the close of the war in Japan, a widowed mother makes every possible sacrifice to bring up her ungrateful son and daughter who are unimpressed with their poor standard of living at home. They gradually reject her in search of the material comforts that working as a maid cannot provide. The mother's despair becomes interminable.

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

A stark portrayal of life among a group of heroin addicts who hang out in Needle Park in New York City. Played against this setting is a low-key love story between Bobby, a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen, a homeless girl who finds in her relationship with Bobby the stability she craves.

Drug dealer on the run from the law meets an innocent young girl and her brother, and turns them into “cocaine fiends”.

Tsuchiya Anna blasts back in time playing an oiran, a top-notched geisha of the Edo period’s Yoshiwara District, navigating brothel politics while trying to cling to the man she loves.

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.

Longinotto's documentary is about Brenda Myers-Powell, who fights against sexual exploitation and supports prostitutes in Chicago. Brenda knows what she is talking about: her own story, involving teenage prostitution and a life of violence and abuse, is in stark contrast to her dauntless energy and optimism.

A man who escorts wealthy widows in New York's Upper East Side takes a young aspiring playwright under his wing.

Girl Lost tackles the issue of underage prostitution as told through the eyes of a wayward teen. Groomed by her own mother to work in the underbelly of Los Angeles, the young girl struggles to survive in this dark world.

A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.

Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.

Tokiko is a mother patiently waiting for her husband's return from the war when her 4-year old son becomes ill. She takes him to the doctor for treatment but has no way of paying. She resorts to prostitution. One month later her husband returns from WWII to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together they must deal with the consequences.

Maggie, a quiet retiring grandmother, finds herself helpless as her grandson’s health deteriorates. When one last chance appears, but money is desperately short, Maggie acts to raise the cash in a fashion that surprises everyone but her...

A young couple struggling against poverty must keep their marriage a secret in order for the husband to keep his job, as his boss doesn't like to hire married men.

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

An educated, upscale young black musician marries a woman from a lower socioeconomic class to get her out of the clutches of her stepfather.

Sicko is a Michael Moore documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

An old trucker steals his truck for one last cross-country run, with a madam and her crew on board.

British melodrama about a cabbie befriending a girl caught up in the white slave trade.

ToY is a drama about two lost souls from disparate backgrounds who find each other amid the desperation and glamour of Los Angeles, forging an unlikely relationship that spirals into tragic chaos.

Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair.

Kairo Aoi, a young teacher with striking good looks, has just learned that his new student, Sora Amakami, is the alluring teen prostitute he once hired. Here the nightmare begins. As the walls of the prestigious academy become a percolating hotbed of sexual intrigue, prostitution and blackmail, other students, including Sora's nerdy roommate and the sinister campus bully, are pulled down the same torrid path of unquenchable desire toward the inevitable moment when obsession turns deadly.

A New York journalist lies when his fake story about a pimp describes a real pimp up for murder.

A young woman lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age she marries and has a child--with an abusive thief who quickly ends up in prison. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure--if that.

Documentary look at the 1996-97 effort of the dancers and support staff at a San Francisco peep show, The Lusty Lady, to unionize. Angered by arbitrary and race-based wage policies, customers' surreptitious video cameras, and no paid sick days or holidays, the dancers get help from the Service Employees International local and enter protracted bargaining with the union-busting law firm that management hires. We see the women work, sort out their demands, and go through the difficulties of bargaining. The narrator is Julia Query, a dancer and stand-up comedian who is reluctant to tell her mother, a physician who works with prostitutes, that she strips.

The tale of two women: Sandra, an ambitious but naive Birmingham working girl who moves to London with the hope of securing wealthier patrons, and Louise, her social worker friend, who is fighting to change the antiquated and hypocritical prostitution laws. As both strive to achieve their goals, a cold dose of reality dashes their hopes, and the built-in biases against women in society are unmasked.

With the instant reach of social media and explosion in cyber porn, a child sex slave can be purchased online and delivered to a customer more quickly than a pizza. Stopping Traffic: The Movement to End Sex Trafficking starts the conversation on a taboo topic – with raw images of life on the streets, heart-pounding rescues and gut-wrenching, personal stories – ultimately offering a story of hope and empowerment, with the goal of engaging others in launching a movement to end modern-day slavery. With 27 million victims, human trafficking is the 2nd largest criminal enterprise in the world. Not just a back-alley enterprise in underdeveloped regions, it’s also prevalent in the U.S. and industrial nations. Stopping Traffic takes an unflinching, first-hand look at this shadowy underworld, telling the shocking story through the eyes of survivors, veteran activists, front-line rescue organizations and celebrities who support the cause, including Dolph Lundgren and Jeannie Mai.

Yukiko's fiance learns her mother runs a geisha house and ends their engagement. She despises what her mother does until one of her clients shows interest and starts to woo her.

A jockey tries to overcome the reputation of his father, who once threw a race.

In 1947, in Kobe, Japan, a local street gang fights for their survival when its turf is overrun by United States occupation forces and international gangs.

A woman is abandoned by her lover and prostitution is the only way she has to survive.

In Osaka's slum, youths without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the buying and selling of identity cards and of blood. Alliances constantly shift. Tatsu and Takeshi, friends since boyhood, reluctantly join Shin's gang. Shin's an upstart and moves his gang often to avoid the local kingpin. Hanoko is a young woman with ambitions: first she's in the blood business with her father, then she joins forces with Shin. She soon breaks off that partnership, even though she's taken the sensitive Takeshi under her wing. Double crosses multiply. Those with the closest bonds become each others' murderers.

America Undercover goes to the Madison Hotel in the skid-row section of downtown Los Angeles and talks to some of the desperate people living there. It talks to a prostitute and heroin addict named Becky, a drug dealer and traveler names John, and an heavy drinking alcoholic named Jack Woodrow Wilson.

Interweaving stories of four different women involved in the sex industry offers a glimpse into the dark underbelly of Los Angeles and the taboo lifestyle of a sex worker. A teen runaway, single mother and two career escorts interconnect through their own personal journeys filled with loss, betrayal and the struggle to survive. Written by anonymous

Sex is currency. It commands power and can instill fear. Tom, a young man with a troubled past finds himself sucked into a seedy underworld by George Norris, a now super villain with a sadistic streak. A helpless pawn in one of Norris's narcotic scams with a bent cop, Dunston, Tom is dragged deeper into a vicious circle of blood money, vice and ruthless violence from which their seems no way out. Until fate gives Tom a glimmer of hope. When Norris is killed in his apartment, Tom seizes his chance to escape. Terrified and covered in Norris's blood, Tom heads downstairs to his neighbors, Max and Nikki his new friends in the city. With going to the police out of the question, Max and Nikki speed Tom to their desolate cottage deep in the Welsh countryside. With the luxury of space, Tom begins to realize a long-forgotten dream; a return to happier times before his innocence was shattered. Suppressed emotion flood back provoked by Tom's attraction to Nikki...

74-year-old Yamazaki, having been handsome as a young gay man, grows narcissistic of his beauty and is unable to bear his own aging. One night, Yamazaki meets a young and beautiful man named Leo. Having loved only himself during his long tumultuous life, Yamazaki falls in love with another person. Through this love, he finally begins to forge the relationships he failed to carve during his youth with his friends and family.

Umekichi, a geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, feels obliged to help her lover Furusawa when he asks to stay with her after becoming bankrupt and leaving his wife. However her younger sister Omocha tells her she is wasting her time and money on a loser. She thinks that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them. Omocha therefore tries various schemes to get rid of Furusawa, and set themselves up with better patrons.

Fusako, a drug dealer's young mistress in postwar Japan, loses her tenuous grasp on life upon learning about her lover's affair.

In the late 1950's prostitution was banned in Japan and if a woman was found exercising this profession they were sent to a reformatory. This is a story of one of these brave women Kuniko who is released from the reformatory and tries to build a new life.

Dale Jordan is first accepted by the aristocratic first-cabin passengers on a south-bound Panama-Pacific liner until they discover she is a member of a troupe of cabaret girls led by Trixie Snell en route for the Bull Ring Cabaret in Panama City.

A prostitute is thrown out of her house by her alcoholic father, and her scheming brother-in-law tries to devise a plan to marry her off and make some money in the process.