American BuffaloMovies like American Buffalo
- Key Features:
- Heist gone wrong, Small-time criminals, Inner city, Betrayal, Greed, Power dynamics, Moral decay, Masculinity, Friendship
- Tone:
- gritty, serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Crime drama enthusiasts, Character-driven stories, Cynical viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Anticipation → Frustration']
American Buffalo

Three inner-city losers plan a robbery of a valuable coin in a seedy second-hand junk shop.
American Buffalo
While investigating police corruption in his department, undercover cop Buster McHenry is forced to participate in a heist, leading to innocent casualties and the theft of an ancient Lakota tribal spear. After McHenry ends up severely wounded, he is taken in by Native American Hank Storm, who is out to recover the spear and avenge the death of a loved one in the heist.

The story throws Elvis impersonators, Indians, modern cowboys, a 6-foot-tall blond assassin, a frat boy, a corrupt sheriff and a prostitute into a chase for a priceless American Indian artifact stolen during a poker game at an Indian casino

Set in the underworld of debt-collecting, homegrown hustler Peg Dahl will do anything to escape Buffalo, NY.

A dramatic comedy about a self-induced attention-deficit disordered, learning disabled, Tourette's syndrome suffering, balance impaired, ex-alcoholic young man from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the gold-digging girl who inspires him to try to get it together.

Three men case a small town very carefully, with plans to rob the bank on the upcoming Saturday, which turns violent and deadly.

Two brothers, both with troubled paths, find themselves in the middle of one last bank job.

A loser of a crook and his wife strike it rich when a botched bank job's cover business becomes a spectacular success.

Expert thief Parker gets a shot at a major heist, but to pull it off he and his team must outsmart a South American dictator, the New York mob, and the world's richest man.

In a town in the Northwest of the province of Buenos Aires, a group of neighbors is organized to recover the economy of the area, but when the corralito is implemented in the country and they suffer a fraud, their hopes disappear. Now, they will unite to recover the lost money and give the blow of their lives to their greatest enemy.

After a bank job goes badly wrong, three desperate criminals take a young woman and a father and child hostage - it's the beginning of a frantic and violent road trip that not all of them will survive.

Lexington, Kentucky, 2004. Four young men attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in the history of the United States.

A father is without the means to pay for his daughter's medical treatment. As a last resort, he partners with a greedy co-worker to rob a casino. When things go awry they're forced to hijack a city bus.

When a Midwest town learns that a corrupt railroad baron has captured the deeds to their homesteads without their knowledge, a group of young ranchers join forces to take back what is rightfully theirs. They will become the object of the biggest manhunt in the history of the Old West and, as their fame grows, so will the legend of their leader, a young outlaw by the name of Jesse James.

A gang of criminals and corrupt cops plan the murder of a police officer in order to pull off their biggest heist yet across town.

As a rowdy team of detectives clashes with their disciplined new boss, they must catch a vicious band of robbers who are wreaking havoc on their city.

When a rare Lakota Ghost Shirt falls into the black market in a small town in South Dakota, the lives of local outsiders and outcasts violently intertwine.

Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.

An aging gambler on a losing streak attempts to rob a casino in Monte Carlo. But someone's already tipped off the cops before he even makes a move.

A seasoned team of bank robbers, including Gordon Jennings, John Rahway, A.J., and brothers Jake and Jesse Attica successfully complete their latest heist and lead a life of luxury while planning their next job. When Ghost, a former member of their team, is released from prison he convinces the group to strike an armored car carrying $20 million. As the "Takers" carefully plot out their strategy and draw nearer to exacting the grand heist, a reckless police officer inches closer to apprehending the criminals.

A bank security expert plots with a call girl to rob the safety deposit boxes of three very different criminals from a high-tech bank in Hamburg.

A criminal subculture operates among U.S. soldiers stationed in West Germany just before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Three converging story lines involving bootleggers, a serial killer and drug dealers are followed. A former drug dealer tries to go straight, but comes across a stash of stolen drugs. Meanwhile, a middle-aged suburban housewife hides a sadistic and vicious streak.

When a crisis threatens to destroy their high school, four teens hatch a daring plan to raise $10 million. Step one? Breaking into the U.S. Mint.

Gambling fever -- along with a brutal bookie -- leads three crooked cops into a double-dealing scheme that lands them in hot water way over their heads.

Charley Varrick robs a bank in a small town with his friends, but instead of obtaining a small amount of money, they discover they stole a very large amount of money belonging to the mob. Charley must now come up with a plan to not only evade the police but the mob as well.

A neo-noir set in the New York City's corrupt contemporary art world where the art dealer John Kaplan and the ruthless head of New York's mafia, Michael Rubino, fight for money, art, power and love.

Recently fired and facing eviction, a new dad has his life turned upside down when he meets a wealthy couple who offer a path to financial security... but at a price.

Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.

The boys get arrested for robbing an ATM machine and spend 18 months in jail, upon release they decide to pull off "The Big Dirty", a plan to steal a large amount of coins because they are untraceable and quit their life of crime forever.

A stroke of good luck turns lethal for Sam Phelan and his wife Leslie when they are faced with a life-changing decision that brings strange and sinister Pyke Kubic to their doorstep. As Pyke leads Sam and Leslie on a tumultuous adventure through the streets of Chicago, each are pulled deeper and deeper into a desperate spiral of deception and violence – all in the name of money.

Buffalo Bill plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President and General Custer.

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.

In the 1870s, a young Harvard dropout seeks his destiny out West by tying his fate to a team of buffalo hunters led by a man named Miller. Together, they embark on a harrowing journey risking life and sanity.

Expert conman Joe Thanks teams up with half-breed Bill and naive Lucy to steal $300,000 from the Indian-hating Major Cabot. Their elaborate plan is full of disguises, double-crosses, and chases, but Joe always seems to know what he's doing.

Doug MacRay is a longtime thief, who, smarter than the rest of his crew, is looking for his chance to exit the game. When a bank job leads to the group kidnapping an attractive branch manager, he takes on the role of monitoring her – but their burgeoning relationship threatens to unveil the identities of Doug and his crew to the FBI Agent who is on their case.

Jerry, a small-town Minnesota car salesman is bursting at the seams with debt... but he's got a plan. He's going to hire two thugs to kidnap his wife in a scheme to collect a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. It's going to be a snap and nobody's going to get hurt... until people start dying. Enter Police Chief Marge, a coffee-drinking, parka-wearing - and extremely pregnant - investigator who'll stop at nothing to get her man. And if you think her small-time investigative skills will give the crooks a run for their ransom... you betcha!

While executing an armored car heist in Los Angeles, icy crook Dave Purvis shoots policeman Lt. Phillips before he and his cronies make off with the loot. Thinking he got away scot-free, Purvis collects his money-crazy mistress, Yvonne, then disposes of his partners and heads out of town. What Purvis doesn't know is that Phillips' partner, tough-as-nails Lt. Cordell, is wise to the criminal's plans and is closing in on his prey.

Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.

A man meets up with two "good guys" to recover what is unlawfully his, taking them on his whirlwind ride, doing things they never would have imagined, just to survive.

Charles, fresh out of jail, rejects his wife's plan for a quiet life of bourgeois respectability. He enlists a former cell mate, Francis, to assist him in pulling off one final score, a carefully planned assault on the vault of a Cannes casino.

With the aid of his girlfriend, Phyllis Potter, and best friend, Loomis, Grimm enters a Manhattan bank dressed as a clown, creates a hostage situation and executes a flawless robbery. The only thing left for the trio to do is make their getaway out of the city and to the airport. It sounds simple enough, but it seems that fate deserts them immediately after the bank heist. One mishap after another conspires to keep these robbers from reaching freedom.

When three young criminals lose a stash of drugs, they end up owing money to a ruthless drug lord. With time running out, they plan a daring robbery to raise the cash to settle the debt.

A gritty crime saga which follows the lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff's Dept. and the state's most successful bank robbery crew as the outlaws plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank.

A snobbish investor and a wily street con-artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

A thief with a unique code of professional ethics is double-crossed by his crew and left for dead. Assuming a new disguise and forming an unlikely alliance with a woman on the inside, he looks to hijack the score of the crew's latest heist.

A recovering gambling addict attempts to reconcile with his family and friends but finds trouble and temptation when caught between feelings for his ex-wife and her dangerous hoodlum boyfriend.

John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Indians, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.

Three teenage friends get in way over their head when they cross a down-home crime syndicate. They hope to make a break for it and escape their dead-end existence in a cotton-mill town but get sucked into the seedy underbelly of organized crime when one of them steals from the wrong man.

An aging thief hopes to retire and live off his ill-gotten wealth when a young kid convinces him into doing one last heist.

On a mission deep in the Bolivian jungle, a team of elite commandos finds itself on the receiving end of a lethal betrayal. Now presumed dead, the men join forces with a mysterious operative named Aisha to hunt down their enemy and even the score.

For Goran and his team of amateur shooters, the plan was almost perfect: to enter a hypermarket at night to rob a jeweler. But these "broken arms" had not anticipated the arrival of a vigil like no other: Walter, a former African warlord who will send them to hell .

Five hapless inner-city low-lifes attempt to burgle a pawnbroker's safe, but end up being plagued by bad luck.

After a failed bank robbery, an ex-con, an ex-waitress and a few of their friends train a pack of doberman dogs to rob a bank for them.

To avenge his father's death, a circus entertainer trained in magic and acrobatics robs banks to take down a corrupt bank owner. Two cops from Mumbai are assigned to the case.

What Jake Vig doesn't know just might get him killed. A sharp and polished grifter, Jake has just swindled thousands of dollars from the unsuspecting Lionel Dolby with the help of his crew. It becomes clear that Lionel wasn't just any mark, he was an accountant for eccentric crime boss Winston King. Jake and his crew will have to stay one step ahead of both the criminals and the cops to finally settle their debt.

A shy and insecure delivery driver arrives on the scene of a robbery-gone-wrong and picks up two bags of cash and hides them in his truck. He is interrogated by two tough police detectives and manages to evade suspicion but he is warned that whoever owns the money will be looking for it. Only the help of a prostitute and a former biker recently released from jail might get him out of trouble.

Arthur and Anatole are two little robbers. They want to rob money, money that will travel in a special train from Paris to Bruxelles. They don't know that other people have planned to do the same thing.

Unemployed and recently dumped, Mitch and his buddy Sam start a revenge-for-hire business to raise the $50,000 that Sam's father needs to get a heart transplant.

In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.

A police shootout leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses' criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, they join forces to pull off a heist.

An aging, booze-addled father takes a trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim what he believes to be a million-dollar sweepstakes prize.

A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.

Joe Moore has a job he loves. He's a thief. His job goes sour when he gets caught on security camera tape. His fence, Bergman, reneges on the money he's owed, and his wife may be betraying him with the fence's young lieutenant. Moore and his partner, Bobby Blane, and their utility man, Pinky Pincus, find themselves broke, betrayed, and blackmailed. Moore is forced to commit his crew to do one last big job.

Cowboy and Indian's only wish was to come up with a brilliant idea for Mr Horse's birthday, but when their plan ends up in utter disaster, they'll need to travel the world and back to make things right again.

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

An out-of-town heist becomes a nightmare for a crew of French burglars when they mistakenly rob the head of the Chicago mafia. Unaccustomed to the ways of the American underworld, it is not long before they have the mafia, the FBI and a couple of street gangs on their backs as they attempt to make their way back to Paris.

From the sight of a police officer this movie depicts the life in New York's infamous South Bronx. In the center is "Fort Apache", as the officers call their police station, which really seems like an outpost in enemy's country. The story follows officer Murphy, who seems to be a tuff cynic, but in truth he's a moralist with a sense for justice.

On the streets they call cash dead presidents. And that's just what a Vietnam veteran is after when he returns home from the war only to find himself drawn into a life of crime. With the aid of his fellow vets he plans the ultimate heist -- a daring robbery of an armored car filled with unmarked U.S. currency!

A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.

Following a bungled robbery, three violent criminals take a young woman, a middle-aged man, and a child hostage and force them to drive them outside Rome to help them make a clean getaway.

A small time crook and a newly-orphaned teenage boy team up to perform a string of robberies.

The stories of a missing wife, a couple of meth heads and an Elvis impersonator are connected by the items found in a small town's pawn shop.

Seemingly mild-mannered businessman Edmond Burke visits a fortuneteller and hears a remark that spurs him to leave his wife abruptly and seek what is missing from his life. Encounters with strangers and unsavory people weaken the barriers encompassing his long-suppressed rage, until Edmond explodes in violence.

Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookies, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewellers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.

Three desperados try to kidnap a wealthy child in hope of turning their lives around.

A crew of officers at an armored transport security firm risk their lives when they embark on the ultimate heist against their own company. Armed with a seemingly fool-proof plan, the men plan on making off with a fortune with harm to none. But when an unexpected witness interferes, the plan quickly unravels and all bets are off.

Shifting from one pocket to another, from one man's drama to another, a lowly dollar bill, 'one buck' takes us on an odyssey through the heart of a forgotten town in Louisiana.

After getting screwed over by life (again), two losers decide that enough is enough. Using stolen ski masks and stolen toy guns, they take hostages in their local bank, holding them for ransom. Things go well until the hostages learn what's going on, and demand a piece of the action for themselves.

Michael Mann's gutsy telefilm tells the tale of two skilled professionals--one a cop, the other a criminal--who aren't as different as they think. Vincent Hanna is an intense cop on the trail of ruthless armed robber Patrick McLaren. After a botched heist, the two men confront each via a full scale battle on the seedy streets of Los Angeles.

Desperate for income, Emily takes a shady gig buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a charismatic middleman named Youcef. Seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills, they hatch a plan to take their business to the next level.

Paris, 1884. The lives of three orphaned children wandering the streets dominated by ruthless criminals change tragically when they carry out a daring robbery.

Needing a new partner capable of intricate cons, Richard Gaddis, recruits Rodrigo, a crook with a perfect poker face. The two plan a big-time scam: selling a fake Silver Certificate to currency collector William Hannigan. Rodrigo distrusts his new associate, but needs money to help out his ill father. The situation becomes more complicated when Rodrigo falls for Gaddis' sister, Valerie, drawing another player into the game.

The plan was easy; the job was not. On a snowy night a tight crew of four criminals plan to pull off a routine heist. When things go horribly wrong, friendship, loyalty and trust are pushed to the limit.

A group of friends plan out a detailed heist that turns deadly when one betrays the other by taking off with the goods. Taking matters into his own hands, Sonny seeks out his revenge teaming up with the most dangerous mob boss in town to get back what is rightfully his. When he finally comes face to face with his longtime friend he will be forced to make a life changing choice.

Two wealthy businessmen are about to get away with $5 million in ill-gotten money until their plans are revealed by an uninvited house guest.

Four young men make a risky investment together that gets them into trouble with the mob.

An avid detective is assigned to investigate the heist of a batch of precious coins that end up in the hands of a suicidal barber.

Jessie is an aging career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else. His son Vito, while currently on the straight and narrow, has had a fairly shady past and is indeed no stranger to illegal activity. They both have great hope for Adam, Vito's son and Jessie's grandson, who is bright, good-looking, and without a criminal past.

After narrowly surviving a massive heart attack, Randal enlists his old friend Dante to help him make a movie immortalizing their youthful days at the little convenience store that started it all.

When their money scam runs aground, a group of would-be thieves turn to kidnapping in an attempt to blackmail their target.

Desperate to pay the bills and come through for their loved ones, three lifelong pals risk it all by embarking on a daring bid to knock off the very bank that absconded with their money.

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

An ex-NYPD officer-turned-sheriff of a small rural Georgia town has to contend with a gang of thieves who have taken a wealthy doctor hostage.

In a broken city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart seeks redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure, the mayor. Billy's relentless pursuit of justice, matched only by his streetwise toughness, makes him an unstoppable force - and the mayor's worst nightmare.

A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

AJ Manglehorn is an aging, ordinary guy in a small town. He nurses his sick cat, squeezes out a conversation with the local bank teller every Friday, and eats at the same place every day. But there is more to Manglehorn than meets the eye: he’s an ex-con who, 40 years ago, gave up the woman of his dreams for a big ‘job’. After a dramatic effort to start over, Manglehorn faces a terrifying moment and is unmasked as a guy with a very, very dark past.

An eccentric, if not charming Southern professor and his crew pose as a band in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting landlord – a sharp old woman.

In this strange western version of Moby Dick, Wild Bill Hickok hunts a white buffalo he has seen in a dream. Hickok moves through a variety of uniquely authentic western locations - dim, filthy, makeshift taverns; freezing, slaughterhouse-like frontier towns and beautifully desolate high country - before improbably teaming up with a young Crazy Horse to pursue the creature.
