Best movies like The River Rat

This short Depression-era documentary describes the importance of the Mississippi River to the United States and laments the environmental destruction committed in the name of progress, particularly farming and timber practices and their impact on impoverished farmers.

Mississippi, 1830's. Tom Rumsford comes back to Magnolia Landing, his parents'estate. Having been brought up in the North by Quaker relatives, he just hates violence and accordingly refuses a duel. As this is the only way in the South to settle a dispute between gentlemen, Tom's father is so infuriated by his behavior that Tom has no other choice but leave. Away from Magnolia Landing, Tom learns bravery and returns seven years later as "the notorious Colonel Blake", the terror of the Lower Mississippi.

A dying mother left his child with an old man, but the village people want to take the child away from him because he is too old.

A drifter becomes both a bank robber and a hero in this crime thriller. Andrew McCarthy stars as Wade Corey, who hitches a ride on a freight train already occupied by Doyle Kennedy (Matt Dillon), a charming ex-con who convinces Wade to accompany him to his hometown. Once there, Wade realizes too late that Doyle is intent on robbing the local bank. After they are separated following the crime, Wade hides the money. Happening upon a drowning in progress, he saves a young girl who just happens to be the daughter of the state governor, and he becomes an unlikely hero. Finding work at a nearby farm, the meandering Wade becomes a hired hand, falls for the beautiful daughter (Leslie Hope) of his boss, and dreads the return of Doyle, who is sure to come looking for his money.

The most important family in Hickoryville is (not surprisingly) the Hickorys, with sheriff Jim and his tough manly sons Leo and Olin. The timid youngest son, Harold, doesn't have the muscles to match up to them, so he has to use his wits to win the respect of his strong father and also the love of beautiful Mary.

Mischievous Huck Finn is unnerved when his father, reemerging after years away, kidnaps him in an attempt to take away a $600 inheritance from his late mother. Fearing for his life, Huck fakes his own death and escapes. He soon runs into his friend, Jim, a slave fleeing his master. Together, the pair embarks on a raft journey down the Mississippi River, staying ahead of pursuers who blame the slave for Huck's alleged murder.

A girl from the wrong side of the tracks is torn between true love and a life of sin.

Vicious gangster Vincent Canelli pulls off a daring prison escape just moments before going to the electric chair, taking with him Peter Manning – a bank robber and cop killer who was to die right after him. Taking several hostages along, they try to get their hands on the loot from Manning’s robbery to finance their escape from the country.

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Master thief Will Montgomery is just released from the State penitentiary after serving a 10 year sentence, is contacted by Vincent, his ex comrade in crime, who is holding Will’s teenage daughter ransom in a hijacked taxi cab. Vincent will only surrender her when Will reveals the whereabouts of the 20 million dollars he contrived to conceal from their last robbery.

Johnny Rutledge is a drifter who comes to and discovers a cabin in the forest where five kids: January, February, March, April, and May are living without parents. Their parents died a while ago, and they want to keep that secret from the townspeople, especially the young school teacher, Prudence Millett, to avoid being sent to a children's home and eventual separation. Johnny moves in with the kids and poses as their uncle to take care of them while romancing Prudence. But in order to keep the children, he has to get married.

A private detective, who has been shot, stumbles into the office of Michael Shayne (Hugh Beaumont), and dies before Shayne can question him. Shayne finds a baggage ticket in his hand. He claims it and finds the checked-bag contains the loot from a robbery. Now, he has about fifty minutes left of the running time to find the crooks, bring them to justice and return the money to the rightful owners. And needs all of it.

Cleo Moore stars as Mary Adams, whose first step on the road to ruin is a $25,000 robbery. Mary hides the money, then confesses to the crime, secure in the belief that she can dig up the loot upon her release from prison.

A girl from Yazoo City, Mississippi pins all her hopes on winning the local beauty pageant.

A new bride gets caught between her decadent husband and his black half-brother.

Two boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and form a pact to help him reunite with his lover and escape.

Mark Fallon, with partner Kansas John Polly, tries to introduce honest gambling on the riverboats. His first success makes enemies of the crooked gamblers and of fair Angelique Dureau, whose necklace he won. Later in New Orleans, Mark befriends Angelique's father, but she still affects to despise him as his gambling career brings him wealth. Duelling, tragedy, and romantic complications follow.

This film sticks very closely to the Edna Ferber novel, rather than the musical based on the novel. There are only two major changes from Ferber's book : *Julie in this version is a white woman, not a racially mixed one; therefore she and her husband are not unlawfully married. * Ravenal returns at the end, instead of dying as in the novel

A train operator's obsession with being on time leads to tragedy for his family.

A lonely farmer takes in a pregnant woman and looks after her. After she gives birth, tragedy strikes.

A post-apocalyptic thriller about a heartbroken man and his new friends who must together battle marauders in order to survive in a new lawless world.

A Louisiana con man enters his steamboat into a winner-take-all race with a rival while trying to find a witness to free his nephew, about to be hanged for murder.

After the death of a gangster, those familiar with his million dollar stash start mysteriously dying. Police detectives with the help of a clairvoyant try to determine who, living or dead, is responsible.

A medicine man on the last show boat on the Mississippi is mistaken by two gangsters as a bootleger, and has to envade them.

The lone surviving thief of a violent armored car robbery is sprung from a high security facility and administered an experimental drug.

Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller battle it out in Cajun country! Johnny, a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, is seduced away from his fiance (Carol Thurston) by a rich outsider (Virginia Grey) who's nursed him back to health after a serious accident. She owns a large piece of the swamp and has outlawed hunting on her property. His rival Mike (Crabbe) is a trapper who harbors deep resentment for Johnny and his new wealthy friends. When he feels Johnny is responsible for the hunting ban, he resorts to destructive acts of vengeance.

A gang of thieves plan a daring bank robbery, making their escape across the rooftops of Los Angeles. The police are quickly called in, however, and only one of the robbers, Murdock, makes a clean getaway. Unfortunately, in order to do so, he is forced to dump the stolen cash into a mailbox, which he then finds is locked until midnight, forcing him to wait until the mailman makes his late night pickup. As he waits, he discovers that his hiding place has been observed by several other people, all of whom want a share of the loot.

A gang of hapless crooks, led by Sidney James, successfully perpetrate a robbery only to be caught after the fact. Fifteen years later they emerge from prison intent on retrieving their stolen loot - and discover a police station has been built over its hiding place.

A condemned criminal's acquaintances gather at a remote lodge on the eve of his execution to search for hidden money.

Michael, a Vietnam vet with two kids, pulls off a bank heist with his gang, which includes the bank's manager. To ensure the loyalty of everyone involved, Mike makes a special set of keys, so that the hiding place for the loot can only be opened if all the members are present. The bank manager, however, gets cold feet and tries to back out, so Mike and his buddies kill him and his wife. His daughter, however, gets hold of the key and runs for help to David, one of her father's old friends who also happens to be a Vietnam vet and a former comrade of Michael's. Will David be able to protect his friend's daughter?

A single mom and her boyfriend, along with her young son and teenage daughter, go whitewater rafting where they find themselves menaced by a pair of escaped convicts searching for stolen money.

While crossing on the train ferry to New Orleans, roving reporter Addison Francis Murphy borrows money from singing hillbilly "Carolina," then loses it all in a crap game. Outside on deck, Murphy sees two men shaking hands, and after he looks away, hears a splash of water and discovers both men have disappeared...

Jake Wade breaks Clint Hollister out of jail to pay off an old debt, though it's clear there is some pretty deep hostility between them. They part, and Jake returns to his small-town marshal's job and his fiancée only to find he has been tracked there by Hollister. It seems they were once in a gang together and Jake knows where the proceeds of a bank hold-up are hidden. Hollister and his sidekicks make off into the hills, taking along the trussed-up marshal and his kidnapped bride-to-be to force the lawman to show them where the loot is.

A single mother and her embattled son struggle to subsist in a small Mississippi Delta township. An act of violence thrusts them into the world of an emotionally devastated highway store owner, awakening the fury of a bitter and longstanding conflict.

An ex-narc finds a journal written in code, leading to the whereabouts of a stash of stolen drugs.

A young pacifist after refusing on principle to defend her sweetheart's honor and being banished in disgrace, joins a riverboat troupe as a singer, acquires a reputation as a crackshot after a saloon brawl in which the villain of the piece accidentally kills himself with his own gun, falls in love with his former fianceé's sister and finally bullies an apprehensive family into accepting him.

Sharks attack a fish rodeo on the Mississippi River, and it is up to a group of locals to stop them.

On board a riverboat bound for Creek City, singer Jimmie Davis, who is going to become half-owner of a land development company willed to him by his uncle, shares a cabin with traveling salesman Dixie Dalrymple. After Dixie invites Jimmie to perform in a concert he is putting on for the other passengers, Jimmie is persuaded to participate in a crooked card game run by Judge Homer Kenworthy and his associates. However, with Dixie's intervention, Jimmie wins handsomely, then accuses the gamblers of trying to cheat him.

Will Taylor has nightmares. He dreams of watching his father and aunt being murdered when he was only four years old. Will lives with his troubled uncle Joe Mitchell because his mother remains catatonic from the attack. Joe, who has his own problems with his girlfriend Sarah, has raised Will since the bank robbery that killed his wife and brother-in-law. Back in 1990 the whole town of Canyon Hills had to be moved because a new dam was built to prevent chronic flooding. The original town is now at the bottom of the lake. Will finds out that the stolen bank money was never found and begins diving to recover it and his past. Enter Carl Bennett, the bank robber turned murderer. Just released from prison, he is heading for Canyon Hills to recover the money he left behind. Who will get to it first?

Directed by Jean Yarbrough Ex-con Joseph Braden (Ron Hagerthy) has his car temporarily stolen by a pair of bank robbers who hide their loot in the vehicle's spare tire. After the car is repossessed, it's sold to the kindly Rev. Daniel Sheridan (Don Beddoe), who immediately sets out on a fishing trip. Not knowing that his new automobile was recently used in a heist, Father Dan gets the surprise of his life when he's suddenly stopped by a police officer.

Steamboatin' stories from those who lived them, river history, authentic footage and stills, along with music and narration by John Hartford.

In the 1850s, in a logging town on the Mississippi River, a conflict between the people of a mill town and the lumberjacks who work downriver. Romance and deceit are catalyzed by the arrival of the gambling river boat, River Lady, owned by the beautiful Sequin. Bauvais, a representative of the local lumber syndicate and Sequin's business partner, is trying to convince H.L. Morrison, the mill owner, to sell his business.

A young boy finds out that the man he thought was his father actually killed his real father, then adopted him.

A posse's pursuit of bank robbers ends with loot missing and a sheriff (Broderick Crawford) wounded.

A discharged army Captain returns home to New Orleans to take revenge on the men who murdered his father.

Upon her release from prison for a murder she didn't commit, a woman finds that her younger sister has been placed in an orphanage. Determined to do whatever it takes to get her out, she eventually becomes the proprietor of a notorious gambling establishment.

A true story of murder, injustice and disorder in Mississippi following the Civil War, based on the short story "The Outlaw, the Sheriff, and the Governor" by Robert E. Jones.

Johnny and Alibi try to straighten out a hostile young boy whose older brother was a notorious stagecoach bandit. When a gang of thieves try to strong-arm the kid into revealing the whereabouts of the stolen loot, Johnny and Alibi come to the rescue. There's a cursory romantic subplot involving heroine Mary and Barstow.

A lawman stages a prison break so a gang of imprisoned robbers will lead him to their hidden loot.

In 1961 Mississippi was a virtual South African enclave within the United States. Everything is segregated. There are virtually no black voters. Bob Moses, enters the state and the Voter Registration Project begins. The first black farmer who attempts to register is fatally shot by a Mississippi State Representative. But four years later, the registration is open. By 1990, Mississippi has more elected black officials than any other state in the union.