Top 250 Movies Like Drinks, Crime And Prohibition

Young Treasury Agent Eliot Ness arrives in Chicago and is determined to take down Al Capone, but it's not going to be easy because Capone has the police in his pocket. Ness meets Jim Malone, a veteran patrolman and probably the most honorable one on the force. He asks Malone to help him get Capone, but Malone warns him that if he goes after Capone, he is going to war.

A gentle botany student has to toughen up to replace his father as chief of police.

Wild girls at a college pay more attention to parties than their classes. But when one party girl, Stella Ames, goes too far at a local bar and gets in trouble, her professor has to rescue her. Gossip linking the two escalates until Stella proves she is decent by shielding an innocent girl and winning the professor's respect.

John Warriner, facing financial ruin, accepts the proposal of a bootlegger, Benedict, to underwrite the business of illegal wine-selling. His daughter, Angela, takes up with the jazz set and is caught in a raid, at a cafe owned by Benedict. Her former sweetheart, Carl Graham, comes to the rescue and saves her from notoriety, while the family struggles back to its former respectability following Warriner's prison term.

Dick Bannister is the new field boss of the Ford Logging Company, a Canadian logging-crew during a time when conflicts with the powerful Consolidated Lumber Company, a bitter rival company, have turned bloody, like a private war. His boss, Miss Edith Ford, comes to inspect the lumberjack camp, bringing her doctor fiancé with her. Dick is attacked by his rivals and left for dead. His loss of blood is so great that he needs a transfusion, but no human will volunteer, so the surgeon uses a wolf as a source of the blood. Afterwards, Dick begins having dreams where he runs with a pack of phantom wolves, and the rival loggers get killed by wolves. Soon, these facts have spread through the camp. (via YouTube)

During a raid, a cop lets a pretty speakeasy employee escape and later begins dating her. Although she loves him, his salary and dull life leave her wanting.

A cloak room girl (Alice White) falls for a rich boy who may not actually be rich.

Just after newsman Rooker and Ruth Kearns are married he covers a double murder during a bank robbery. Cigarettes at the scene implicate gangster Tony Garotta. Garotta kidnaps Rooker and another reporter, intending to kill them.

"Happy" MacDonald and his unfaithful wife own a Prohibition era night club. On this eventful night, he is threatened by bootleggers, and the club's star dancer falls in love with a young socialite who drinks to forget a personal tragedy, among other incidents.

A young man bets $10,000 that for 24 hour he can tell nothing but the truth.

To the distress of his family, Clem Hawley, retired from his garage business, spends his time and money in the company of Al, the local bootlegger.

With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show Phantom Sweetheart seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box office takings have been robbed and the leading lady refuses to appear. Can the show be saved?

Set in New York City, flapper Pink Watson works a telephone operator at a cement factory who dreams of marrying rich. Her constant daydreaming of wealth annoys her fellow workers, and ruins the heart of one of her worshiping colleagues.

Jack Diamond and his sickly brother arrive in prohibition New York as jewelry thieves. After a spell in jail, the coldly ambitious Diamond hits on the idea of stealing from thieves himself and sets about getting close to gangster boss Arnold Rothstein to move in on his booze, girls, gambling, and drugs operations.

Based on the Hammett novel, this ultra-rare film—is nominally taken from the author's classic gang-war novel Red Harvest, which proved too brutal and cynical even for pre-Code Hollywood.

A young songwriter struggles to make good in New York.

A pair of kidnappings expose the complex power dynamics within the corrupt and unpredictable workings of 1930s Kansas City.

Chick Williams, a prohibition gangster, rejoins his mob soon after being released from prison. When a policeman is murdered during a robbery, he falls under suspicion. The gangster took Joan, a policeman's daughter, to the theater, sneaked out during the intermission to commit the crime, then used her to support his alibi. The detective squad employs its most sophisticated and barbaric techniques, including planting an undercover agent in the gang, to bring him to justice.

Mama and daughters get forced by circumstances into bootlegging and bank robbing, and travel across the country trailed by the law.

Professor Griggs, teaching at the college, doesn't get paid a living wage; his next door neighbor, successful shoemaker Olsen, has money and plentiful food, while the Griggses have hardly any. When the professor's rich student Phil West falls for beautiful Griggs daughter Amelia and also befriends the poor Reverend Gates (a young man who is also in love with Amelia), he observes the difference in his life and theirs and tries to help make a difference.

Young Al Capone catches the eye of Johnny Torrio, a criminal visiting New York from Chicago. Torrio invites Capone to move to Illinois to help run his Prohibition-era alcohol sales operation. Capone rises through the ranks of Torrio's gang and eventually takes over. On top, he works to consolidate his power by eliminating his enemies, fixing elections to his advantage and getting rich. In his spare time, Capone courts the principled Iris Crawford.

Charley is a workaholic family man that finds out from an angel that his "number's up" and he will be dying soon so he tries to change his ways and be a better husband and father with the time he has left.

Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

A group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the competition and the Ku Klux Klan.

Jack's father lowers the boom when his irresponsible rich-kid ends up in jail after a night of debauchery. The father appoints Ossie, Jack's cousin, as guardian, not realizing that Ossie is just as bad. They set off on a transcontinental trip with mischief on their minds.

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

When an American booze smuggler gets murdered in Prohibition-era Mexico, his widow, a nightclub singer, joins forces with her lover and a desperate loner to become rum-runners to the U.S.

In order to get back some very important papers from her father's business rival, a young woman pretends to be the rival's new secretary. Complications ensue.

Dorothy Parker remembers the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table, a circle of friends whose barbed wit, like hers, was fueled by alcohol and flirted with despair.

A crooked jockey tries to reform.

A pair of elderly Civil War veterans, Judge Holt and his friend Joel Ketchum, spent most of their time reminiscing about their wartime experiences. In the meantime, Holt's granddaughter falls in love with a devil-may-care aviator. The only problem is that Holt hates aviators and will do whatever he can to break up the romance.

A gang of crooks led by Holden steals a government code, and Cyril Gordon, a Secret Service agent who bears a strong resemblance to the gang leader, is assigned to recover the stolen documents.

A young couple marries in secret. Judy's afraid her parents won't approve of Dick and she'll lose her generous allowance. Her parents bring her home from the city where she's been studying art and encourage the attentions of Tom, a persistent suitor. Judy and her jealous husband have an argument that leads her back to the city, a drunken, amorous Tom and a tragedy.

A sailor finds himself the object of a cafe owner's affections.

It is the story of Ted Lewis, popular band leader and clarinettist. The music for the film was written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke, except for "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy and "Tiger Rag". The film's title comes from Lewis's catchphrase "Is everybody happy?" The film's soundtrack exists on Vitaphone discs preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, but the film itself is considered a lost film, according to the Vitaphone Project website. A five minute clip from the film can be found on YouTube.

Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.

New York girl has a dull boyfriend and seems destined for a dull marriage when she meets a rich playboy who has money to burn and places to go.

A romantic comedy, focusing on the love triangle between Bob Jones, Alysia Potter and Polly Meachum. Originally engaged, Bob and Alysia elope to Bowling Green, Connecticut, where they meet Silas Meachum, a campaigner against motion pictures, and his daughter, Polly. The eloping couple’s family arrive, chasing them, and persuade them to wait to get married. Polly goes to New York to join the Ziegfeld Follies, but is ultimately replaced by Alysia. As Bob consoles Polly, Alysia breaks off the engagement, and Bob and Polly may now marry.

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

A night club singer falls for a gangster.

Former bootlegger Remy Marco has a slight problem with forclosing bankers, a prospective son-in-law, and four hard-to-explain corpses.

Newspaper staffer Alice Woods persuades the editor to allow her to chase a story, that of prizefight contender Martin, who is about to fight for the championship. However, he does not know that his manager is preparing to double-cross him.

A mechanic works for his sweetheart's father, who builds racing boats. He begs for and gets the chance to race a new-design boat, but his rival gets him intoxicated before the race and he wrecks the boat. Now he has to make good and show he has the right stuff.

A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.

An Air Force washout and his buddy room with a pretty young lady. Desperate for jobs during the Depression, they finally land employment with the mob.

Gambler Arnold Rothstein marries an actress, avenges his buddy and meets an underworld fate.

In order to use the publicity to get re-elected, a judge sentences a notorious gangster to fight in the war.

The children of feuding gangsters fall in love and fight to escape their parents' notoriety.

In this comedy, a pair of ex-Marines team up and get involved in a nightclub. Trouble ensues when they both fall in love with a feisty woman and begin fighting over her.

A hospital surgeon (James Dunn) protects a mystery woman (Gloria Stuart) who knows too much about a card-game murder.

Saxophone player Clyde meets a woman named Flowers, and teaches her to dance. He later discovers that gangster boss "Blackjack" is also in love with her. "Blackjack" is also battling gang boss Mike Luego in a violent turf war.

Talkie about a maid who is accused of killing the lady of the house

Told in the form of a diary, the story details the rise and fall of gangster boss Jimmy Williams.

Antonio Guerra is an unemployed Spanish immigrant in the USA. His brother and mother in Spain haven't heard about him for many years or even receive a letter. But one day, his brother receives a letter from him, telling that things are going well. But the reality is other. Antonio is passing a hard time in New Yor City, suffering the Years of Depression as many out of workers. One day, Antonio meets a nice Cuban seller, who invites him to eat at his poor house. The seller advices Antonio to visit a man, who has contacts and could help him to find a job. Nevertheless, Antonio is send with the leader of a group of gangsters, dedicated to the illegal traffic of alcohol. Antonio is offered a work of dealer, but he won't do anything out of the law.

A cruel sea captain (Charles Middleton) oversees a rough crew.

Norma Martin is an American movie star in France trying to avoid the attention of men. Going to visit a friend in Southern France, she finds herself "married" to a playboy song writer Ralph Forbes she hadn't yet met. Some of his lady friends then show up. Some very good sequences, but also some flat spots. Her "husband's" house is very Hollywood deco and some of the costumes are very good.

On the night before his wedding, a young man plays poker with friends. When the game is raided by the police, he escapes into a Turkish bath on ladies night, ending up disguised in drag and with difficult explanations to make.

A musical comedy that follows the progress of a college All America football player whose swollen head is deflated when, after graduating , he takes a job as a Wall Street stock salesman. While poor at selling, he knows how to charm women and his boss has him concentrate his efforts on disposing of bad stock to gullible females, one of whom turns out to be the wife of his boss. The film is considered lost, with only its soundtrack remaining.

Billy, a diminutive manager of prizefighters, is priming Jim Stone for the heavyweight championship when Charley Burns (Arthur Graham?) discloses that for the past 8 years he has invented a mythical wife and daughter for the benefit of his Aunt Phoebe, who now requests a visit from them. He finally persuades Billy to pose as his daughter, Evangeline, while Miss Brennan, a magazine writer, consents to take the role of his wife.

Joseph Greer is a wealthy businessman in New York City with all the trappings including a prim-and-proper secretary, Jenny McFarlan, who takes dictation during working hours and, at night, minus her eyeglasses, serves as his nightclub companion and mistress. Then his daughter,Beatrice, whom he has never seen, shows up and moves in with him. Beatrice is a grown-up flapper who loves jazz, pool parties, flaunting prohibition and carrying-on in general. Most of her carrying-on is with the family chauffeur and her father does not approve, says so, and fires the chauffeur. His parental-guidance technique backfires as Beatrice ups and elopes with the chauffeur. Later, the father has some problems with his business associates and loses his business and most of his fixtures and disappears. But Beatrice locates him and there is a happy reunion between father and daughter, especially since daughter has brought along Jenny to cheer him up.

A wealthy man relates how gambling had tragic consequences for his family.

A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.

In Woman Trap, Hal Skelly is hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resolve in the least. The barely relevant title is a reference to "heroine" Kitty Evans, the wife of a minor gang functionary. Screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, presumably on a dare, makes a brief appearance as a crime reporter.

A man gets in trouble with his girlfriend when a beautiful movie star and her fiance come to his small town.

The Bachelor Girl

A high living society playboy marries a nightclub singer, and she soon realizes that, though they're genuinely in love, the husband's endless partying completely dominates and is destroying their marriage.

After being fired from his job on the Evening Star newspaper, cub reporter Jack Darwin (William Fairbanks) , with the help of an undercover police woman, Ethel Bennett (Eva Novak), prevents the theft of the valuable Riko jewels. Jack gets his job back...and marries Ethel.

A rookie cop falls for a "taxi dancer" in a dance hall, but his father has strong objections to the relationship.

Based on the David Belasco stage production of the Max Marcin play in which heavyweight-champion Jack Dempsey played the role of the fighter, Tiger: This "behind-the-scenes look of a heavyweight-championship fight" looks much like all of the other boxing films in which the Champ gets involved in a frame-up and is asked to take a dive.

A crusading politician falls prey to the temptations of power.

Jim Owens (Robert Frazer), a reformed thief and successful inventor, meets quiet, meek and refined Mary Adams (Elaine Hammerstein) at a jazz party. They fall in love and all goes well until she finds out about his sordid past. It's Only after he rescues her from a blazing forest fire that she forgives him and confirms her love.

A crusader tries to keep a dope dealer from corrupting children.

More mile-a-minute action with the stunt ace Richard Talmadge playing the loafer son of a shipbuilder facing financial ruin. Bob Stuart takes charge of the company's development of a new speedboat - unaware that gangsters and saboteurs want to thwart them and won't stop at murder. Filled with gymnastic action-packed fights, Speed Madness is "a knockout for fans who cheer the hero and hiss the villain.

Joan Fry, a society woman, falls in love with Chuck Riley, the white-leader of a powerful gang in Chinatown, and he quickly drags her down into the depths with him. But seeing her so much in love with him causes him to realize he isl in love with her, and he determines to lift her up again. "Boston" Charley, the rival gang-leader, has other plans.

Richard Dix, a displayer in a department store, enters a raffle and wins the so-called 'hoodoo' bad-luck automobile formerly owned by the store owner's son, a soul seemingly always in trouble with cops and women. Well, suddenly Dix begins to have the same problem, only he also gets mixed up in the life of Esther Ralston and her Aunt Edna May Oliver. Hilarious misunderstandings and undertakings become the fodder for the day!

Elinor "Swifty" Forbes and her younger sister Marjory are the carefree daughters of wealthy J. D. Forbes. Their mother shows no restraint over her daughters, so they live among the flapper set. Lester Hodges, a songwriter, is enamored of Marjory, while Garside, who runs a card room, is interested in Swifty. While gambling at Garside's place, Swifty meets Roger Corbin, who works as an engineer at her father's business. Corbin falls in love with Swifty. When Mr. Forbes protests against both his daughters' behavior, they move out. Marjory marries Hodges, but eventually leaves him and returns to her parents. Swifty, who has gambled herself into debt, agrees to marry Garside. But when the couple are together in a café, prohibition agents raid the place.

When love came the way of this gentleman crook he turned to the right---only to be caught in the swirling eddy of his criminal past! (original ad)

Prohibition is ending so bootlegger Bugs Ahearn decides to crack California society. He leases a house from down-on-her-luck Ruth and hires her as social secretary. He rescues Polly Cass from a horsefall and goes home to meet her dad who sells him some phony stock certificates. When he learns about this he sends to Chicago for mob help.

A lost film - Mary Gray, whose father manufactures cold cream, is engaged to sappy Horace Niles, the son of Hugo Niles, the elder Gray's most competitive rival in the cosmetics business. Chip Armstrong, a hot-shot public relations man, quits the employ of Hugo Niles and goes to work for Gray, persuading Mary to enter the Miss America contest at Atlantic City, with the intention of using her to endorse her father's cold cream should she win. Mary breaks her engagement with Horace. When it appears that she will win the contest, Hugo lures her home on the pretext that her father is ill, and she misses the contest. Chip and Mary return to Atlantic City, discovering that the new Miss America has told the world that she owes all her success to Gray's cold cream. On this note, Chip and Mary decide to get married.

Lila Beaumont is an understudy in a Broadway musical. Her boyfriend, George Shelby, arrives in New York hoping to take Lila back home with him to marry.

Benny and Flo are a husband and wife dance team, Sloane and Darrel, traveling around the country as part of a revue. The revue gets picked up and taken to New York City, to be on Broadway. However, it quickly folds, and the two are forced to look for other employment. They eventually find work in a nightclub, becoming famous.But while performing at the nightclub, Flo becomes entranced by a young, sophisticated millionaire playboy, Winston.

To impress the girl he loves, a naive country boy tries to capture a group of local bootleggers.

Story of a football hero whose temper and drinking threaten his spot on the team, and his romantic life. His naive comical roommate remains his steadfast supporter.

In 1927, a Kansas City, Missouri cornet player and his band perform nightly at a seedy speakeasy until a racketeer tries to extort them in exchange for protection.

Show girl Jill Deverne is married to song writer Fred Deverne, and everyone is involved in the Broadway night life and endless parties. Jill is being pursued by a gangster, and she leaves her husband after he spends the night with a floozie. Jill ends up as the gangster's moll, but she soon gets tired of the lifestyle.

Kay Arnold is a gold digger who wanders from party to party with the intention of catching a rich suitor. Jerry Strong is a young man from a wealthy family who strives to succeed as an artist. What begins as a relationship of mutual convenience soon turns into something else.

A sultry nightclub singer, a small-town girl in the big city, sets out to avenge her boyfriend's murder after he is killed while running illegal booze for the mob.

Jerry always wins in his rivalry with Red over women, gunrunning, and diamond smuggling. While running booze into the U.S. during Prohibition, Jerry seizes Jane's seaside home. When she tries to turn him in, he kidnaps her and her fiance John. Jane, now in love with Jerry, must watch as Jerry and Red shoot it out on board Jerry's boat.

Finding herself in dire circumstances, the widowed Sylvia Darling determines that her son, Stephen, will complete his college education and develop his supposed literary talents; thus, she accepts a contract as singer in a Broadway nightclub, billed as "Dearie," and becomes an immediate sensation.

This drama centers on the fight for certain post-Prohibitionist groups to gain total control over the liquor industry. Much of the tale is focused upon a family endeavoring to keep their little brewery.

In this twist-filled erotic thriller, a college student in search of a professor's missing niece becomes entangled with the small town's criminal underbelly including sexy prostitutes, vile gangsters and thuggish hit men. Hot women appear at every turn, just not the one he's looking for. Even with the help of a sexy hooker, will he live long enough to find out what really going on?

In a small rural town hit hard by the Depression, Katie Connors resides in a middle-class home with her bootlegging husband Melvin. When the opportunity arises to bump him off without getting her hands dirty, she takes a chance she may never get again. After his murder at the hands of criminal Richard Hayden, she begins to receive inopportune visits by Melvin's old business partners about a large shipment of moonshine in her possession. Contacting the FBI for help, agent Ron Sheridan is assigned to her case and develops an unrequited love for Katie. But when a full-scale war develops, she learns the FBI may not be much help to her as she thought, and Katie must take matters into her own hands to pay off her husband's debts for good.

Tommy Mills and Marie Thurber, sweethearts, plan to marry when Tommy sells some land he has inherited. Marie's parents favor the match, as they prefer Tommy over Bernard Norton, another suitor. Her father, Warren Thurber, however, is in financial straits and plans to sell land to a civic improvement association headed by David Tuttle. When he discovers that Tommy has agreed to sell his land to Mrs. Oberlander, he berates him; but Tommy agrees to boost the price so that Thurber will win out. Tuttle, who favors Bernard as Marie's husband, persuades Tommy that he must endure the displeasure of the Thurbers, and as a result a misunderstanding arises over the sale of the land. But Tuttle's scheme backfires, and Tommy wins the girl after all.

Nancy Woods, secretary to a divorce lawyer, is tantalized by the idea of collecting alimony payments, she marries Stockney Webb with the intention of fleecing him after the honeymoon. Realizing that he has been fooled, Webb determines to teach Nancy, whom he truly loves, a lesson in humility and wifely behavior by taking her to his cabin in the wilderness.

Dann Mulvey (William Scott), just released from prison, is falsely accused of murder. The real culprit is the least-suspected person, who makes a deathbed confession.

May s married to Roger, an alcoholic hell-raiser. During one of their riotous parties, she tests his fidelity by impersonating a notorious masked dancer and trying to seduce him.

Bill Bronson is a likable young bank clerk, whose congenital thirst for liquor is kept under control until he joins his wife Mary at getting blotto at a company party. From there it is a downward spiral.

A young newspaper reporter is assigned to investigate mysterious goings-on in a coastal resort town. He discovers the existence of a gang of vicious liquor hijackers. He sets out to expose the ring and help federal agents break it up.