Drug WarMovies like Drug War
- Key Features:
- Drug cartel, Undercover operation, Betrayal, Moral ambiguity, Police procedural, Crime, Action, High stakes, Informant, Corruption, Violence-high, Cat and mouse
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Fans of crime thrillers, Viewers interested in police procedurals, Those who enjoy action-packed movies, People who appreciate morally complex stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Suspicion → Tension → Confrontation
Drug War

A drug cartel boss is arrested in a raid and coerced into betraying his former accomplices as part of an undercover operation.
Drug War
An undercover cop has his loyalties tested when the boss of the corporate gang he's spent years infiltrating dies.

After a disastrous failure to stop a robber gang, the police attempt to redeem themselves through a series of publicity stunts and shootouts.

After a traumatic event, a drug trafficker turns sides and conspires with a dangerously ambitious undercover police officer to bring down the mysterious kingpin of a major drug cartel.

The Chinese government launches a daring operation to arrest a violent drug cartel following the discovery of thirteen Chinese crew members' bodies on two ships sailing through the Mekong River.

An undercover cop who invade a drug cartel led by a notorious Thai drug lord. In classic heroic bloodshed fashion, the two develop a bond of brotherhood.

A seemingly unremarkable man called “Mouse” is caught by the police. In exchange for his freedom, he goes undercover, infiltrates a drug ring, and arranges a fake deal, but an unexpected turn of events occurs.

A suspected criminal mastermind escapes from police custody, throwing the city into turmoil. With the police department now divided, rival police chiefs are forced to take their fight to the streets of Hong Kong with deadly consequences.

An operation in Thailand against a notorious drug lord changes the destiny of a Hong Kong Police Department narcotic team. Five years later, a drug dealing brings them together again.

A financial tycoon, once a triad member, tries to eradicate the drug market while an old accomplice aims to be Hong Kong's first drug lord.

An undercover cop struggling to provide for his son and ailing wife, must infiltrate a ruthless gang. But things turn sour when another cop blows his cover and he quickly finds himself battling for his life and the lives of his family.

A leader of a drug cartel sends his two toughest henchmen to investigate why a shipment was botched.

The story revolves around three members of a police surveillance squad conducting an investigation into a financial investment group involved in criminal fraud. The focus of the plot, however, is actually on the three officers themselves who stumble upon an opportunity to capitalize on information they gathered during their surveillance.

Five police officers in Hong Kong are kidnapped. The police commissioner is on a business trip overseas. Two vice commissioners, Sean Rau and M.B. Lee, then take over the case. The two vice commissioners are rivals who both vie for the police commissioner seat. At first, M.B. Lee takes the lead in the case, but comes to a dead end. Sean Lau then takes the lead, but he falls into a trap. Both men are then investigated by the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption).

A special agent has for 8 years been deep undercover in Asia's lucrative organized crime trade as he plays protégé to one of the key players, Banker. Now, Nick has but he has started to feel loyalty to his new environment and to the money.

A tough undercover cop inadvertently gets involved in a dangerous heroin ring when a young defector of the drug trade leaves his five year-old sister in his care.

Four young officers of the Hong Kong Police are joined together to fight against organised crime using all possible means, even if this would lead them to break the law… Their first assignment is to eliminate a gang of criminals who have stolen a shipload of explosives.

The details of undercover police officers are deleted from a police database and a senior officer is left struggling to know who are the undercover officers and who are the criminals.

After murdering an undercover DEA agent, two corrupt cops scramble to cover up what they've done.

A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and Yakuza activities.

A notorious dirty cop makes an honest attempt to catch a serial killer who even murdered his own parents.

After losing an election to become chairman of the Wo Lin Shing triad, a gang leader lashes out and tries to seize the dragon-head baton, the official symbol of a chairman's authority.

In the midst of a violent gang war, a series of misfortunes threaten the fate of a gang boss and his mob.

Chan Wing Yan, a young police officer, has been sent undercover as a mole in the local mafia. Lau Kin Ming, a young mafia member, infiltrates the police force. Years later, their older counterparts, Chen Wing Yan and Inspector Lau Kin Ming, respectively, race against time to expose the mole within their midst.

As election time nears, current Triad chairman Lok faces competition from his godsons. At the same time, Jimmy looks to increase his business relations with mainland China.

A special agent is assigned to protect a wealthy business magnate. However, when the businessman is kidnapped in a daring ambush, he teams up with a seasoned detective to crack the case. But soon he discovers the case isn't that simple.

A self-styled accident choreographer, the Brain is a professional hitman who kills his victims by trapping them in well crafted accidents that look like unfortunate mishaps. When the team's next assignment goes disastrously wrong, Brain begins to suspect that someone else has planned an ‘accident’ on them.

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.

An undercover cop teams up with a martial-arts expert to stop a gang of drug smugglers and car thieves.

A friendship is formed between an ex-gangster, and two groups of hitmen - those who want to protect him and those who were sent to kill him.

Realising that he will be defeated in no time during a police showdown, a thug shoots himself to force the cops to cease fire and take him to the hospital. In the hospital, he claims human rights to refuse immediate treatment in order to buy time for his underlings to rescue him. The detective in charge sees through his scheme but decides to play along so as to capture his whole gang once and for all.

A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In order to get closer to the leaders of the ring he joins forces with an undercover cop who's working as a gangster hitman. They use all means of excessive force to find them.

Liu Yue Ping reports to the ICAC about a rich 2G Cao Yuen Yuen who bribed officers of the Hong Kong Correctional Services (HKCS) from inside the prison. William Luk decides to infiltrate the prison as an inmate to conduct his investigation, while his partner Ching Tak Ming and Chief Inspector Lau Po-keung back him up from the outside.

Officer Chan Ka Kui manages to put a major Hong Kong drug dealer behind the bars practically alone, after a shooting and an impressive chase inside a slum. Now, he must protect the boss' secretary, Selina, who will testify against the gangster in court.

Big time drug dealer Victor Rosa is looking to get out of the game and sees his chance with a big deal with a new friend who happens to be a Wall St. stockbroker. Thinking this will be his chance to go out on top, Victor soon finds out that he's been double crossed and his last option is to get revenge.

Ha Yoon-ju becomes the newest member of a unit within the Korean Police Forces Special Crime Department that specializes in surveillance activities on high-profile criminals. She teams up with Hwang Sang-jun, the veteran leader of the unit, and tries to track down James who is the cold-hearted leader of an armed criminal organization.

Follows a police tactical unit during one dangerous night on the streets of Hong Kong as they try to recover a cop's stolen gun. Things turn deadly when they run into a web of gangland crimes.

When a drug heist swerves lethally out of control, a jaded cop fights his way through a corrupt city's criminal underworld to save a politician's son.

A career-long undercover Hong Kong cop is sent to Mainland China when his former protégé becomes the primary suspect in a murder.

After barely surviving a brutal attack by a sadistic serial killer, crime boss Jang Dong-su is left humiliated. Determined to catch the killer known as K, he forms an uneasy alliance with Jung Tae-seok, a relentless and incorruptible detective who often disrupts his illegal business. However, while Jang Dong-su wants K dead, Jung Tae-suk is determined to bring him to justice. With a deal in place—whoever finds K first will decide his fate—the hunt begins, blurring the lines between crime and law.

Jang Tae-Young is a popular trouble shooter in the criminal world. He is cold and ambitious. He dreams of building a casino hotel one day. A reporter then goes to Jang Tae-Young.

October 2015. French customs seize seven tonnes of cannabis in the heart of the capital. The same day, Hubert Antoine, a former mole with a shady past, contacts Stéphane Vilner, a journalist at Libération. He claims to be able to demonstrate the existence of State drug trafficking led by Jacques Billard, prominent media figure and high-ranking French police officer. Suspicious at first, the young journalist finally dives into an investigation that will lead him to the darkest corners of the Republic.

A steely special ops agent finds his morality put to the test when he infiltrates a crime syndicate and unexpectedly bonds with the boss' young son.

In a city of love and prosperity, a city of lost hope and premature death, veteran detective Hei feels it all: the hurt, the helplessness, the horror. When his father-in-law, the billionaire benefactor Kim, is gruesomely murdered in his palatial mansion, he enlists the assistance of his former partner turned private detective.

In an effort to get his buddy out of a gambling debt, Jeff agrees to join forces with Judge in a weapons heist. The job goes bad and Judge betrays Jeff. Jeff plots the ultimate revenge on Judge and his followers and it is a question of whether he can follow through with his plan.

A maligned police officer receives one last chance to save her career when she must break up a crime syndicate by masquerading as one of their own.

A poor young man is wrongly charged with drug trafficking after being deceived. An ex-prosecutor investigates the case, uncovers a corrupt lawyer team's scheme, and restores justice despite obstruction from evil forces.

A gangster's son is accidentally killed during a drunken dispute with a rival gang, and Officer Milo's task force is assigned to the case. He soon learns that a hitman has been hired to take out the rival gang leader. While Milo and his crew desperately try to find and stop the hired gun, fearing all-out war in the streets, Lai Fu, a smart but inexperienced killer from a small town in the mainland, arrives in Hong Kong to do his job.

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.

A cop goes up against his lifelong friend, who has become one of the city's biggest drug traffickers.

Two police pursuit drivers, a hothead rookie and his long-suffering, almost-retired mentor, face off against an escape car driver from the latter's past.

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.

Hong Kong. When Cao Nan and his group of thieves rob an armored car in broad daylight, they don't hesitate to murder innocent people on the run. Lui Ming Chit, a veteran police inspector, is forced to use sinister tactics to catch them.

Mangin, a police inspector in Paris, leans hard on informants to get evidence on three Tunisian brothers who traffic in drugs. He arrests one, Simon, and his girl-friend Noria. Simon's brothers go to their lawyer. He springs Noria, who promptly steals 2 million francs that belong to the Tunisians. They suspect her of the theft; her life as well as the lawyer's is in danger. Meanwhile, Noria is playing with both the lawyer and Mangin's affections. Mangin is mercurial anyway: intimidating and bloodying suspects, falling for a police commission trainee before flipping for Noria, wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Can he save the lawyer and Noria, and can he convince her to love?

FBI agent Jack Crawford is out for revenge when his partner is killed and all clues point to the mysterious assassin Rogue. But when Rogue turns up years later to take care of some unfinished business, he triggers a violent clash of rival gangs. Will the truth come out before it's too late? And when the dust settles, who will remain standing?

Good policing doesn't necessarily mean doing everything by the book. But as the business of crime in London turns to favour the Albanians and Turks, how does a "good" policeman survive?

A seasoned cop and his rookie partner try to solve the murder of a heroin trafficker.

A special forces team is sent to snuff out a drug den, but find themselves trapped inside it after being set-up and betrayed.

A Hong Kong detective teams up with his female Red Chinese counterpart to stop a Chinese drug czar.

Detective Sergeant Ma Jun, known for dispensing his own brand of justice during arrests, teams up with an undercover cop, Wilson, to try and bring down three merciless Vietnamese brothers running a smuggling ring in the months before mainland China's takeover of Hong Kong. Jun pursues the gang tirelessly, sometimes ignoring police protocols. A showdown is inevitable!

Danny is a young cop partnered with Nick, a seasoned but ethically tainted veteran. As the two try to stop a gang war in Chinatown, Danny relies on Nick but grows increasingly uncomfortable with the way Nick gets things done.

A cop named Cristi must go undercover to trail teen Victor who is suspected of selling pot in the north-eastern city of Vaslui.

Living in the guilt of sacrificing his informant in a previous operation, Criminal Intelligence Inspector Don Lee is wary when his superior orders him to send another informant to spy on the criminal operations of Barbarian, a vicious gangster plotting a jewelry heist. He seeks ex-convict Ghost, who agrees to work for Don despite vowing to go straight since he's desperately in need of money to repay a debt and save his sister. Ghost's driving skills help him infiltrate Barbarian's gang and earn his trust, but by feeding information to Don and hooking up with Barbarian's girlfriend Dee, Ghost is pushing himself into a tight and deadly corner...

In New York, racist Capt. Stanley White becomes obsessed with destroying a Chinese-American drug ring run by Joey Tai, an up-and-coming young gangster as ambitious as he is ruthless. While pursuing an unauthorized investigation, White grows increasingly willing to violate police protocol, resorting to progressively violent measures -- even as his concerned wife, Connie, and his superiors beg him to consider the consequences of his actions.

Financially troubled, a newbie hitman reluctantly takes the job of finding the plotted killer of a Japanese tycoon.

Fresh out of prison, a former debt collector working for a gangland boss is told he has a terminal brain tumour. In an attempt to atone for his past he rescues a young girl from trafficking, forcing him into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with his boss.

Captain Sara Bellaiche, from Toulouse Judiciary Police branch, is investigating a go-fast linked to the murder of two teenagers, an investigation led by Richard Cross, from the Paris Criminal Brigade. Forced to collaborate in order to find the murderer and stop the bloody go-fast, Sara and Richard are both thrown in a breathless race against the clock on the roads of Spain and France.

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.

A hitman finds himself embroiled in the middle of a Mafia war between the Sicilians and the Calabrians.

A French chef swears revenge after a violent attack on his daughter's family in Macau, during which her husband and her two children are murdered. To help him find the killers, he hires three local hit-men working for the mafia.

The head of an elite Hong Kong surveillance unit keeps one eye on his rookie apprentice and the other on a notorious criminal he suspects of masterminding a recent jewel heist in this tense thriller from filmmaking duo Johnnie To and Nai-Hoi Yau. Of course, the criminal knows all along he's being watched. But that doesn't stop him from trying to pull off the biggest score of his career.

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.

A story centered on a man who works as an informant for the French border patrol.

Former Colonel Fernandez is appointed Minister of the National Anti-Drug Agency (SENAD) and purges the special forces to fight the first of many battles against drug trafficking on the border of Paraguay and Argentina.

Agent Wen goes undercover to locate weapons for an arms dealer. He's attacked after finding them, so he teams up with his partner to recover the munitions and prevent disaster.

A policewoman makes her ex-boyfriend an offer he can't refuse: either he infiltrates and informs on a gang of hooligans, or his brother goes to jail.

Kyle and Swin live by the orders of an Arkansas-based drug kingpin named Frog, whom they've never met. But when a deal goes horribly wrong, the consequences are deadly.

Philippe Jordan is a policeman prone to advancing the cause of justice by any means necessary. On his agenda is a powerful drug cartel working out of Paris and Marseilles, with a drug lord who is essentially inaccessible -- but not immortal.

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.

A former U.S. Navy Seal is forced to become the international criminal he once fought against when a powerful and violent drug cartel kidnaps his wife and daughter.

A Parisian criminal gang fall apart after challenges to the gang's leader lessen his influence.

Drug lord Dwayne Gittens rules Cincinnati with an iron fist. No wonder he's known as "God" on the streets. Determined to break Gittens' stranglehold on the city is undercover cop Jeffrey Cole. But as Cole takes on an assumed identity to penetrate Gittens' criminal empire, he makes a disturbing discovery -- he kind of likes being a gangster.

Police inspector and excellent hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang finds himself in over his head when he is pulled into a 72 hour game by a cancer suffering criminal out for vengeance on Hong Kong's organized crime syndicates.

A gangster, Nino, is in the Cash Money Brothers, making a million dollars every week selling crack. A cop, Scotty, discovers that the only way to infiltrate the gang is to become a dealer himself.

One of the members of a gang of thieves commits a serious mistake that force them to work for a ruthless gang of drug dealers, endangering the future of the team, their lives and those of their families.

An imprisoned ex-police inspector discovers that the entire penitentiary is controlled by an inmate running a crime syndicate and becomes part of the crime empire.

As a crime wave sweeps through Hong Kong, the police call Jessica Yang, a rising star in the ranks, to help stop a notorious gang of thieves! What Jessica doesn't realize is that her boyfriend – recently discharged from the force – is the leader of this ruthless crime ring!

Inspector Rizzo is accused of drug trafficking. In order to clear his name he has to find out who is the person, from a Mafia ring, who has infiltrated his police department.

Caught in the crosshairs of police corruption and Marseille’s warring gangs, a loyal cop must protect his squad by taking matters into his own hands.

When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.

An unsuspecting university professor is an unwitting accomplice in a foiled Chinese cocaine deal. Wrongly imprisoned, he escapes to take his revenge and prove his innocence.

Police Lieutenant Lon McQ investigates the killing of his best friend and uncovers corrupt elements of the police department dealing in confiscated drugs.

Life has not been kind to drinking buddies Sam, Fai, and Mok as they struggle to make ends meet, until one stormy evening a mysterious old man appears before them in a bar with a 'get rich quick' scheme: an ancient treasure is buried under a high-security government building.

A police sniper teams up with a hot-headed rookie to take down his former friend and teammate, who is exacting revenge on the police force.

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.

Sean Kane is forced to resign from the San Francisco Police Department's Narcotics Division when he goes berserk after his partner is murdered. He decides to fight alone and follows a trail of drug traffickers into unexpected high places.

A drug squad attempts to take down a criminal organization and they must go undercover to do so, so they begin working at a chicken restaurant, that becomes famous for its delicious chicken. Due to the unexpected popularity, the detectives find themselves in a situation they never expected.

Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.

An elite team of DEA agents are assigned to protect a dangerous drug lord and take refuge in a luxury hotel while they await extraction. They soon find themselves at the center of an ambush as the drug lord's former associates launch an explosive assault on the hotel.

Construction company owner John Matthews learns that his estranged son, Jason, has been arrested for drug trafficking. Facing an unjust prison sentence for a first time offender courtesy of mandatory minimum sentence laws, Jason has nothing to offer for leniency in good conscience. Desperately, John convinces the DEA and the opportunistic DA Joanne Keeghan to let him go undercover to help make arrests big enough to free his son in return. With the unwitting help of an ex-con employee, John enters the narcotics underworld where every move could be his last in an operation that will demand all his resources, wits and courage to survive.
