BordertownMovies like Bordertown
- Key Features:
- Murder investigation, Journalism, Social commentary, Exploitation, Political corruption, Crime, Thriller, Female protagonist
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Socially conscious viewers, Thriller fans, Political drama enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Inquiry → Outrage
Bordertown

American corporations are using the North American Free Trade Agreement by opening large maquiladoras right across the United States–Mexico border. The maquiladoras hire mostly Mexican women to work long hours for little money in order to produce mass quantity products. Lauren Adrian, an impassioned American news reporter for the Chicago Sentinel wants to be assigned to the Iraq front-lines to cover the war. Instead, her editor George Morgan assigns her to investigate a series of slayings involving young maquiladora factory women in a Mexican bordertown.
Bordertown
A Texas cop, whose own daughter might have been forced into sexual slavery, joins forces with a Mexican youth to find the boy's sister, who was abducted and forced into prostitution. Meanwhile, a Polish woman who was promised a better life in America also becomes a victim.

An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.

After crossing the border illegally for work, Miguel, a hard-working father and devoted husband, finds himself wrongfully accused of murdering a former sheriff’s wife. After learning of his imprisonment, Miguel’s pregnant wife tries to come to his aid and lands in the hands of corrupt coyotes who hold her for ransom. Dissatisfied with the police department’s investigation, the former sheriff tries to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and discovers disturbing evidence that will destroy one family’s future, or tear another’s apart.

A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.

A young Mexican woman crosses the border in search of the American dream, only to instead find her worst nightmare lying within.

A troubled man runs away to Mexico and is recruited to join a paramilitary group of teens fighting the drug cartels. He proves himself to the group, but questions their motive.

A mural painted with blood is found on the wall of Pasila train station, which depicts Finland's best-known serial killer Lasse Maasalo. The text in the mural, “Making the world a better place”, is linked to a voting circulating in social media, where people can vote for persons that world would be a better place without. Soon the first body is found and Sorjonen must find the person who has named himself as The Judge.

A female American reporter searches for her missing brother against the backdrop of violence and human smuggling across the US/Mexican border.

Rosario Tijeras has been abused by men all her life, initially by her stepfather. Years later, she works as a paid assassin, seducing men and killing them when they least expect it. She meets Emilio, a wealthy womanizer, and his best friend, Antonio, at a nightclub, and starts an affair with Emilio despite Antonio's growing feelings for her. But circumstances bring her closer to Antonio, until her past catches up with her in a devastating way.

Rita, an underrated lawyer working for a large law firm more interested in getting criminals out of jail than bringing them to justice, is hired by the leader of a criminal organization.

In the near future, a popular uprising in Mexico City interrupts a wedding held at the home of a wealthy family. After the riots have been quashed, they discover the bride has gone missing and plea with the military to help locate her.

During a murder investigation, the police uncover a human trafficking network that involves a politician the media is protecting.

When the skeleton of his murdered predecessor is found, Sheriff Sam Deeds unearths many other long-buried secrets in his Texas border town.

In the Mexican-Guatemalan border, young teenage lovers, Sabina and Jovany, both Hondurans, accidentally meet again after some years without seeing each other. She plans to get to the United States and dreams about being a great singer; he commits all the required atrocities to be accepted by the gang: la Mara Salvatrucha. Sabina and Jovany crashed with the most adverse conditions at the border like white slavery, the Mexican and American migratory agents Burrona and Patrick, the brothel matron Doña Lita, Don Nico the Mexican Consul in Tecún Umán, the drug trafficking networks, the army and la Mara Salvatrucha.

Antwerp, Belgium. The lives of four small-time drug dealers spin out of control when they steal a shipment of cocaine, triggering a full out war between an Amsterdam drug lord and a ruthless Colombian cartel.

During the filming of a movie, actress Sandra Navarro denounces actor Daniel Zavala for sexual abuse on the set during the recording of a scene for the movie. Daniel pleads his innocence and the production tries to prevent the situation from leaking off the set and causing a scandal.

After witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, Cataleya Restrepo grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target: the mobster responsible for her parents' death.

She's sexy, shameless and loves taking people to their limit. She's a dangerous young woman who dreams about a jaguar that licks her naked body and sleeps by her side. Her past is bathed in blood and weird passions. Now she's met the man of her wildest dreams. He's dark, tough and mysterious. He likes robbing banks, trafficking in corpses and spicing it all with voodoo rituals. Together, the duo sets off toward Mexico destined to become the most feared outlaws in the continent.

Agent Matt Graver teams up with operative Alejandro Gillick to prevent Mexican drug cartels from smuggling terrorists across the United States border.

Cagalera and Moloteco are two teenagers from San Gregorio Atlapulco who are desperate to get out and move up and away from oppressive circumstances. When they hear of an opportunity to buy a spot in the electrician’s union, which could transform their lives, they quickly devolve into the criminal, adult underworld of Mexico City in a bid to buy their freedom.

For three US Border Patrol agents, the contents of one car reveal an insidious plot within their own ranks. The next 24 hours may cost them their lives.

Magdalena makes a journey to find her son, who has disappeared on his way to the Mexican border with the United States. Her odyssey takes her to meet Miguel, a man recently deported from the US. They start to travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and Miguel hoping to see his mother again.

When a former BlackRose cartel assassin deliberately betrays them by refusing to complete her mission, the cartel orders her execution. Unbeknownst to them, she fakes her own death and is able to create a new life of her own. When the cartel discovers she is alive, the hunter becomes the hunted as she fights to get revenge on those who took her new life away from her.

Two Texas border guards find a jeep buried in the desert, with a skeleton, a scoped rifle, and a box with $800,000 in cash. Before they decide whether to keep the money or report it, they privately investigate the clues and unravel a decades old mystery.

Four stories... one city. A dark comedy about crime in the big city: EL TORZON - two friends are smoking grass in their car, when they're caught by a corrupt Judicial Police Officer; VIDA EXPRESS - a wealthy businesswoman is kidnapped and her deadbeat husband has to come up with the money; BARBACOA DE CHIVO - an angry mob mistakes a college professor with a burglar and decide to lynch him in front of the church; COMIDA PARA PERROS - a bumbling thief tries to rob a restaurant

A journalist duo go on a tour of serial killer murder sites with two companions, unaware that one of them is a serial killer himself.

Ex-Federale agent Machete is recruited by the President of the United States for a mission which would be impossible for any mortal man – he must take down a madman revolutionary and an eccentric billionaire arms dealer who has hatched a plan to spread war and anarchy across the planet.

Follows a police officer who must retrieve an eyewitness and escort her after a cartel shooting leaves several DEA agents dead, but then he must decide who to trust when they discover that the attack was executed by American forces.

A fatalistic car crash in Mexico city sets off a chain of events in the lives of three people: a supermodel, a young man wanting to run off with his sister-in-law, and a homeless man. Their lives are catapulted into unforeseen situations instigated by the seemingly inconsequential destiny of a dog.

Leyre lives a quiet and comfortable life which ends abruptly when an act of rage of her teenage son leads her to protect him by any means necessary.

When brash Texas border officer Mike Norton wrongfully kills and buries the friend and ranch hand of Pete Perkins, the latter is reminded of a promise he made to bury his friend, Melquiades Estrada, in his Mexican home town. He kidnaps Norton and exhumes Estrada's corpse, and the odd caravan sets out on horseback for Mexico.

The story of a young woman clinging on to her dream to become a beauty contest queen in a Mexico dominated by organized crime.

Sosa is a lawyer who haunts hospital waiting rooms hoping to represent the victims of traffic accidents in insurance claims. When he falls in love with ambulance medic Luján, he tries to leave this dark business but the shady law firm that he works for won’t let him off that easily.

Sayra, a Honduran teen, hungers for a better life. Her chance for one comes when she is reunited with her long-estranged father, who intends to emigrate to Mexico and then enter the United States. Sayra's life collides with a pair of Mexican gangmembers who have boarded the same American-bound train.

The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.

The discovery of a corpse and the ensuing probe by an idealistic journalist threatens to unravel a bumbling local politician's campaign for governor of Colorado.

Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.

Residents of an enclosed neighborhood in the middle of Mexico DF are shocked by a violent crime, and for one resident in particular, young Alejandro, the drama is ratcheted up when he encounters the lone kid who escaped the event and is hiding out within the neighborhood's borders.

Los Reyes County, Arizona. Leland, a retired lawman, works with Wallace, the new sheriff who replaces him, when a vicious hit man, sent by a Mexican drug cartel, threatens their border small town.

Michael ‘Jay’ Cochran has just left the Navy after 12 years and he's not quite sure what he's going to do, except that he knows he wants a holiday. He decides to visit Tiburon Mendez, a powerful but shady Mexican businessman who he once flew to Alaska for a hunting trip. Arriving at the Mendez mansion in Mexico, he is immediately surprised by the beauty and youth of Mendez’s wife, Miryea.

Nick is excited to discover he's won a dinner date with his favorite actress, Jill Goddard. But when Jill refuses to honor the contest, he receives an offer he can't refuse: the ability to view Jill secretly via computer. Nick begins watching the unknowing star on her webcam, not realizing that this decision will put himself and Jill at risk as they enter a terrifying world of cat-and-mouse.

A group of hard up bounty hunters must survive the night in a desert motel against a horde of savage cartel killers. They soon realize that their fugitive, a mysterious Chinese woman, is much more than she lets on.

An exploration of the United States of America's war on drugs from multiple perspectives. For the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the war becomes personal when he discovers his well-educated daughter is abusing cocaine within their comfortable suburban home. In Mexico, a flawed, but noble policeman agrees to testify against a powerful general in league with a cartel, and in San Diego, a drug kingpin's sheltered trophy wife must learn her husband's ruthless business after he is arrested, endangering her luxurious lifestyle.

In a town of low-income and fractured families, a group of teens are lured into working for a dangerous drug dealer. A new girl arrives who hides a dangerous secret that will impact everybody and change their lives forever.

Three college students, Phil, Ed, and Henry take a road trip into Mexico for a week of drinking and carefree fun only to have Phil find himself a captive of a group of satanic Mexican drug smugglers who kill tourists and whom are looking for a group of new ones to prepare for a sacrifice.

This documentary walks the line between fact and fiction, delving into corruption in the Mexican police through the experiences of two officers.

A corrupt CIA agent Sands hires hitman El Mariachi to assassinate a Mexican general hired by a drug kingpin attempting a coup d'état of the President of Mexico.

Based on the international hit song, Pedro Navaja (Peter the Knife) is the story of the coolest, street smart hustler ever to walk the streets of Mexico City. The police are after him, his rivals are after him, and all the while the most beautiful women of Mexico are in the cup of his hand. - Written by Echo Bridge Home Entertainment

John 'Breacher' Wharton leads an elite DEA task force that takes on the world's deadliest drug cartels. When the team successfully executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they think their work is done – until, one-by-one, the team members mysteriously start to be eliminated. As the body count rises, everyone is a suspect.

The life of Danny Wright, a salesman forever on the road, veers into dangerous and surreal territory when he wanders into a Mexican bar and meets a mysterious stranger, Julian, who's very likely a hit man. Their meeting sets off a chain of events that will change their lives forever, as Wright is suddenly thrust into a far-from-mundane existence that he takes to surprisingly well … once he gets acclimated to it.

When straight arrow FBI agent Roy Clayton heads up the investigation into a dangerous international conspiracy, all clues seem to lead back to former U.S. Special Operations officer Samir Horn.

Benjamin and Dom have been best friends since they were kids. On their last night together, Dom plans to send Benjamin off with a pocketful of cash. All he has to do is deliver a package over the border for a friend...

Jim Hanson’s quiet life is suddenly disturbed by two people crossing the US/Mexico border – a woman and her young son – desperate to flee a Mexican cartel. After a shootout leaves the mother dead, Jim becomes the boy’s reluctant defender. He embraces his role as Miguel’s protector and will stop at nothing to get him to safety, as they go on the run from the relentless assassins.

Taylor is forced to hide the young daughter of a Colombian woman in witness protection who will be testifying against a powerful drug cartel in Federal Court, as ruthless sicarios aim to hunt them down.

A young and fiercely independent woman, Carmen, is forced to flee her home in the Mexican desert following the brutal murder of her mother. She survives an illegal border crossing into the US, only to be confronted by a lawless volunteer border guard. When the border guard and his patrol partner Aidan become embroiled in a deadly standoff, the pair is forced to escape together.

Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.

The real life story of Andres Lopez Lopez aka "Frecita" during his years involved with the Colombian Cartel aka "Cartel Norte del Valle"

Arnulfo Rubio smuggles weapons from Arizona to Mexico for a drug cartel, but he is being investigated by agent Harris. When agent Harris blows his covers, he and Arnulfo end up in a journey where he will be the hostage of this young criminal.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

A group of Mexican emigrants attempts to cross the Mexican-US border. What begins as a hopeful journey becomes a harrowing, bloody and primal fight for survival when a deranged, rifle-toting vigilante and his loyal Belgian Malinois dog chase the group of unarmed men and women through the treacherous borderland. In the harsh, unforgiving desert terrain, the odds are stacked firmly against them as they discover there’s nowhere to hide from the unrelenting, merciless killer.

Two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea, prompting an investigation by a neutral body. The sergeant is the shooter, but the lead investigator, a Swiss-Korean woman, receives differing accounts from the two sides.

A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.

Set in 2013 Monterrey, Poncho is a student at a prestigious college, he goes to get weed with his friend El Greñas, they go to La Bomba to get some. Although when La Bomba runs out of weed, they decide to take him on a quest to get more weed from El Perro. When Poncho needs to go back home, La Bomba kidnaps both Poncho and Greñas and taking Poncho's phone and car. La Bomba contacts Poncho's father to get him one million dollars to free his son, though Bomba didn't know the deadly consequences.

A journalist and podcaster from New York City travels to West Texas in order to report on the death of a girl he was hooking up with.

El Mariachi just wants to play his guitar and carry on the family tradition. Unfortunately, the town he tries to find work in has another visitor, a killer who carries his guns in a guitar case. The drug lord and his henchmen mistake el Mariachi for the killer, Azul, and chase him around town trying to kill him and get his guitar case.

A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.

The story of the rise and fall of the first American-born drug lord in Mexico, this tale of power, money, greed and betrayal amongst rival members of the drug cartels finds American gangster Erik Vasquez scheming to become the top dog in the Mexican underworld, only to find himself making enemies out of both the powerful cartels and his own allies.

A psychotic executive triggers a journalist's dark side, and they begin to form a strange bond through the internet.

In the Texas bayous, a local homicide detective teams up with a cop from New York City to investigate a series of unsolved murders.

In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

When the trail goes cold on a murder investigation of a policeman, an undercover narcotics officer is lured back to the force to help solve the case.

Something terrible is happening in class 3A at Calmecatl Junior High. No one can leave the classroom until the guilty party is found. This is the device that gives us a glimpse of the ethics, games, esthetics and eroticism of these girl-women. It is not easy to say what the subject is, there are so many: the discovery of sexuality, discrimination, chance, drugs, maternity, traditions, betrayals, power, love. A mural of a complex reality from the point of view of twenty-something women in the skin of 14 to 15 year old girls.

A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.

Cielo is a mother whose teenage daughter is kidnapped in Northern Mexico. When the authorities offer no support in the search, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and transforms from housewife into a vengeful militant.

Beatriz, an immigrant from a poor town in Mexico, has drawn on her innate kindness to build a career as a health practitioner. Doug Strutt is a cutthroat, self-satisfied billionaire. When these two opposites meet at a dinner party, their worlds collide, and neither will ever be the same.

Heli must try and protect his young family when his 12-year-old sister inadvertently involves them in the brutal drug world. He must battle against the drug cartel that have been angered as well as the corrupt police force.

When João goes to Brazil in search of a better life, he meets punk music enthusiast Maria and falls in love with her. But his involvement in the local drug trade makes him the target of a vicious drug lord.

Gloria finds a power she never knew she had when she is drawn into a dangerous world of cross-border crime. Surviving will require all of her cunning, inventiveness, and strength.

When a mysterious fog surrounds the boundaries of California, there is a communication breakdown and all the Mexicans disappear, affecting the economy and the state stops working missing the Mexican workers and dwellers.

After witnessing a miracle, a young Latina woman experiences strange things as a police detective searches for the truth behind his partner's death.

A young man, Marco, working as a butcher, accidentally kills a taxi driver. His girlfriend Paula wants to go to the police so he has to kill her too. He then has to kill his brother, his brother’s fiancée and his father, who have become suspicious. He gets rid of the bodies by taking them to a slaughter house.

After the gangsters who killed his father come to settle a score, a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on the killers - one Latino family's quest for honor and revenge as the hunted become the hunters.

Hondo Harrelson recruits Jim Street to join an elite unit of the Los Angeles Police Department. Together they seek out more members, including tough Deke Kay and single mom Chris Sanchez. The team's first big assignment is to escort crime boss Alex Montel to prison. It seems routine, but when Montel offers a huge reward to anyone who can break him free, criminals of various stripes step up for the prize.

Based on a true story. In the 70s, during the last stages of Franco's dictatorship, Txema, a basque construction worker, is arrested because of his connection to some terrorists who have just committed a murder. The secret service see in him an ideal candidate to infiltrate the terrorist band ETA and become a mole, so they try to offer him a deal if he will do so.

A convict is released from prison in a small town in New Mexico. 18 years ago he killed a deputy. The then-and-now sheriff seeks revenge.

Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.

A Texas cop battles ex-navy seals who are trying to traffic drugs from Mexico into the USA.

The story follows veteran police officer Dave Brown, the last of the renegade cops, as he struggles to take care of his family, and fights for his own survival.

While doing a thesis about violence, Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl is tortured to death. Soon she discovers that the girl was a former student at her college...

A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.

Hoping to earn his mother's respect, a young hustler-turned-businessman tries to open a brothel with his two useless buddies.

El Mariachi plunges headfirst into the dark border underworld when he follows a trail of blood to the last of the infamous Mexican drug lords, Bucho, for an action-packed, bullet-riddled showdown. With the help of his friend and a beautiful bookstore owner, El Mariachi tracks Bucho, takes on his army of desperados, and leaves his own trail of blood.

When Lou Bloom, desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.

After being deported back to Mexico, a man has no choice but to join the vicious drug cartel that has corrupted his hometown in order to survive.

Madrid, summer 2011. Economic crisis. 15-M movement and 1.5 million pilgrims waiting for the Pope’s arrival live side by side in a Madrid that’s hotter and more chaotic than ever. In this context, detectives Velarde and Alfaro must find what seems to be a serial killer. Their against-the-clock hunt will make them realise something they’d never imagined: neither of them are so very different from the killer.

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

A recently cheated on married woman falls for a younger man who has moved in next door, but their torrid affair soon takes a dangerous turn.

In a small New Mexico town, teenager Hilary gets into a fender bender and innocently exchanges her personal information with the other driver, a terrifying and bizarre serial killer who stalks the country’s endless miles of roads and streets with his old rusty car, hungrily searching for his next unsuspecting victim.

