Miss BalaMovies like Miss Bala
- Key Features:
- Crime thriller, Drug cartel, Survival, International crime, Innocent bystander, Forced participation, Personal transformation, Violence-high, Female protagonist
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Action thriller fans, Crime drama enthusiasts, Female-driven narratives, Suspense aficionados
- Emotional Arc:
- Fear → Resilience → Empowerment
Miss Bala

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

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.

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.

When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York.

Gloria encounters Francisco, a man whose social veneer betrays a truer self burrowed underneath.

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.

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.

Two men commit a robbery. One is caught but the other escapes. He ends his escape on a lonely and deserted beach where he meets a beautiful woman named Erótica. They start a passionate love affair that is interrupted when the other con man escapes from prison and joins them. A sexual/sentimental love triangle begins leading to a violent confrontation between the two men.

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.

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.

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

Maria Laura "Mala" is an actress with little luck, but she is successful working for other women, seducing their boyfriends to know if they are faithful or not. But everything changes when her dream to perform in her acting career depends on a job to be performed with Santiago who breaks the pattern and shakes her professional convictions.

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.

Emanuelle is framed by a corrupt D.A. while investigating a drug smuggling operation and has to tough it out under lock and key, dealing with a strict warden and abusive guards.

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.

Three thugs kidnap Emma, the daughter of a drug kingpin, and have no idea that murderous blood that runs through her veins. As time passes, the unlucky threesome finds themselves in danger from the police, gangsters and their captive.

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.

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 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.

A deadly female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men.

Catalina is a young, beautiful girl living in extreme poverty with her brother Bayron and her mother Hilda. She becomes obsessed with getting breast implants to get social status and money. She leaves her boyfriend Albeira and becomes a prostitute for drug dealers. In this way she will enjoy all the luxuries that she lacks. Meanwhile, her ex-boyfriend Albeira and her mother Hilda begin a relationship behind her back.

Two drug dealers on the lam seek refuge inside their mentally unstable friend’s mansion. But in order to stay, they have to participate in her elaborate, and increasingly dangerous, game of permanent make-believe.

Dominique, a well-trained assassin, flees from her troubled past in an attempt to begin a new life in South America. However, she soon finds herself in a town plagued with violence and corruption. Facing brutal attacks from the police and mafia, Dominique must decide whether to protect herself or an innocent family that has taken her in.

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

After taking control of the capital, Nanny's gang prepares for the biggest smuggling action in the history of Poland.

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.

A young drug dealer falls in love while facing disruption among the men in his gang, and being offered a career as a Reggaetón singer.

At the age of 17, Griselda Blanco, made her way to the U.S. with a fake passport with her first husband Carlos. Living in Queens with her three sons, Griselda became enticed by the money the drug world offered, and quickly became embroiled with local drug runners. Griselda masterminded the use of beautiful women, the elderly and children as the mules and created false-bottom suitcases to smuggle cocaine from Colombia.

A drug cartel boss is arrested in a raid and coerced into betraying his former accomplices as part of an undercover operation.

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

A woman's past as a convict follows her everywhere and because of this she doesn't open up to others. But then she strikes up a friendship with a broken child who has suffered from domestic violence and decides to save the girl from the cruel world. A man who holds feelings for the woman, tries to protect her in his own way.

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.

Fatherless barrio Puerto Rican Rico is a menial car mechanic by day, but lives for the nights, when he dances and dates hot dancing girls, cockily convinced the title of Salsa king in fancy nightclub La Luna's upcoming contest is to be his. He encourages his best friend, courteous gentleman Ken, to date his sister Margarita so he gets a free hand with her flirtatious classmate Lola. The reigning salsa queen Luna's interest in Rico as dance-partner threatens his on-off relationship with Vicki. More jealous trouble follows when Ken and Margarita fall in true love.

Maria, an unfortunate young woman, kills her rapist father in self-defense, and is later tried, sentenced, and shipped off to a woman's penitentiary where she and her fellow inmates are subjected to psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of a psychotic lesbian warden.

A young drug addict who has lost touch with her rich family hits rock bottom when she sells her new-born baby to child traffickers. She soon regrets her decision and finds the courage and strength to get him back. To do so, she must follow a trail into the woods and find an eerie house where the old lady she met, her albino servant and a girl with a strange gait, all live together. Nothing could have prepared her for the horror she is about to discover.

An unfortunate and naive girl is set up by her boyfriend and convicted of drug smuggling. She is sent to a women's correctional facility where she must constantly struggle to survive.

Duped and sold to a brothel, a young woman fearlessly reclaims her power, using underworld connections to preside over the world she was once a pawn in.

When a hostage rescue mission creates a new enemy, Capt. Guerrero and his elite soldiers must face an ambush by a criminal group.

An Australian lone wolf's quiet existence is shattered when he learns that the woman he once loved and thought was dead is alive and held captive by ruthless gangsters. Now, to take on this dangerous criminal organization, he must seek out allies and storm into a world of violence to rescue the love of his life in this gritty, modern day violent fairytale.

Patricia is a woman who was handed over as payment for her father's debt to the mafia. Her life takes a turn every moment, positioning her each time in a better rank within the mafia.

Sixteen-year-old Sara's father is a wealthy gangster and has a lot of enemies. Her father makes clear that whoever touches Sara will die and he looks for the right bodyguard to protect her.

When a little girl is kidnapped by a trafficking ring, they soon find they messed with the wrong child. Her mother, a notorious former gang leader, is close on their trail and will go to any lengths to bring her child home.

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 single mother is an expert in black magic, but has never used it to do evil, until a prostitution network kidnaps her daughter.

Carol Jeffries is a naive American woman staying in the Philippines. She is given ten years in prison after being set up by her drug-dealer boyfriend, Rudy. She endures the harsh conditions, sadistic head matron and attempts on her life, then convinces her cell-mates to try to escape with her through the jungle, in spite of the knowledge that ruthless trackers will be sent out after them.

During a mysterious thunderstorm, Vera, a young mother, manages to save a life in danger, but her good deed causes a disturbing chain of unexpected consequences.

Two crooks looking out for a drug lord's love interest scramble to find a look-alike after she dies unexpectedly.

A veteran call girl and a runaway prostitute witness a murder which sends them on an out-of-control roller coaster ride through the twilight zone of sex-for-sale.

Melissa is an experienced, exemplary prison guard. But a dangerous spiral is set into motion when she transfers to a Corsican jail, where she accepts help and protection from inmate Saveriu to get her bearings. Upon his release, he contacts Melissa expecting to collect.

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.

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

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.

Two new female police officers struggle to survive a force filled with corrupt superiors and the brutal world of the criminal mafia.

To support her family, Maria works as a trafficker of surrogate mothers, transporting them from place to place along a river — but when one disappears, Maria is left with the task of finding her and must enter deeper into a world she wishes to escape.

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.

A female Psychologist who has stopped practicing medicine, decides to take the case of Veronica de la Serna, a young woman whose previous therapist has mysteriously disappeared.

Laura is a successful plastic surgeon who feels her life is somewhat empty. She meets a young nurse and falls in love and experiences sexuality to a extent not known to her. However, this spiral of desire and seduction is a dangerous game where no one is who they appear to be.

10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.

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.

Chronicling one harrowing day in the life of Luciana, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana’s day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome, unforeseeable extremes.

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.

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.

A case involving drug lords and murder in South Florida takes a personal turn for undercover detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. Unorthodox Crockett gets involved romantically with the Chinese-Cuban wife of a trafficker of arms and drugs, while Tubbs deals with an assault on those he loves.

When her mother suddenly disappears with no one to care for her, young Estrella ends up on the street and joins a gang of children, triggering a dangerous and tragic chain of events.

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.

Ex-con Kris Chaney seizes the daughter of a Colombian gangster to fulfill a noble promise to the young girl's mother. When her father enlists both the criminal underworld and a psychotic killer to exact his revenge, Kris relies on everything he's ever learned to stay alive and keep his word.

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.

Female prisoners endure the horrors of drug abuse, prostitution and rampant sadism at an island prison. When an escape attempt goes awry, the fugitives discover that escaping can be as dangerous as remaining in the prison.

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.

Bi, a Vietnamese country girl, survives a brutal childhood and escapes to Saigon. There, she is recruited by the mysterious Mrs. Lin, who trains Bi and her new friends Thanh and Hong in killing and sensuality to take down Hai, a Saigon crime lord.

Gloria never imagined that an audition for the music producer Sergio Andrade was going to change her life so drastically. King Midas not only brought her to stardom, but also to a dramatic story of love, heartbreak and betrayal. Based on the life story of pop/rock singer Gloria Trevi.

A young agent leaves everything behind to pose as a member of ETA, risking her life to uncover the terrorists' hideouts in the south of France.

Promiscuous teenager Chiara gets herself and her equally debauched peers embroiled in a drug ring run by a dirty cop.

Toro (Spanish for "Bull") is a young con man and the right hand of Romano, a powerful mob boss in Torremolinos, Málaga (Andalusia, south to Spain). After Toro decides to leave Romano to get a life free of crime, his last sting fails, resulting one of his brothers dead and he sent to jail. Five years later, Romano realizes that López, Toro's older brother, is robbing him money from his tourism business and he orders to kidnap Diana, López's little daughter, until this one get back the money. Without options, López visits Toro, now a touristic driver with the third grade prison close to get the parole, who only wants to be free to marry his girlfriend Estrella. When Toro accepts to help López and both meet Romano looking for a solution, Toro ends attacking Romano's men and fleeing with Diana, trying to escape from Romano's revenge. But Romano starts a ruthless searching for they three, meanwhile Toro counts the hours to back the prison according to the third grade...

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.

In an attempt to help his friend Marcos with his impotence, Jaime sets up him up with another friend Josita. But the sex date fails, and so he comes in to help. What first appears to be just another sexual experience for all three evolves to a full romantic relationship.

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

When Cindy decides that she doesn't want to marry her boyfriend, she runs to Mexico City, where new friendships and unexpected paths teach her that there are so much more possibilities on her life and her talent than she imagines.

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

A tough, working-class petty criminal is drawn into the treacherous world of diamond smuggling and morphs into an anti-heroine to be reckoned with in the murky underworld.

While Carlos, a banking executive, takes his two kids to school in his car, he gets a phone call telling him that there is a bomb under the seats and he must to gather a large amount of money; otherwise, his car will blow up.

Lucía, a club dancer on the run, takes refuge in a sinister building on the outskirts of Madrid where her sister Rocío lives with her daughter Alba.

Ana and her two best friends, Maria and Paula, navigate life in their oppressive countryside village. Whilst their families struggle in the poppy fields harvesting opium, the girls try to grow alongside the creeping terror of their cartel oppressors.

A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.

An experienced commercial pilot is forced to collaborate with his country's intelligence services to avoid being punished for a serious fault he committed on the job. He is quickly plunged into an underworld of intrigue and extortion that will put his life at risk and he will pay a very high price to escape from it.

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.

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.

Working-class waitress Slim thought she was entering a life of domestic bliss when she married Mitch, the man of her dreams. After the arrival of their first child, her picture perfect life is shattered when she discovers Mitch's hidden possessive dark side, a controlling and abusive alter ego that can turn trust, love and tranquility into terror. Terrified for her child's safety, Slim flees with her daughter. Relentless in his pursuit and enlisting the aid of lethal henchmen, Mitch continually stalks the prey that was once his family.

A dangerous CIA renegade resurfaces after a decade on the run. When the safe house he's remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead.

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 New York drug dealer is kidnapped, and his wife must try to come up with the money and drugs to free him from his abductors before Christmas.

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

A high school coach, whose teenage daughter was murdered, takes matters into his own hands by going after the men who kidnap his students for their sex trafficking operation.

Four ambitious and beautiful young women. From four very different corners of Mexico. Just like hundreds of others, they are caught up in the frenzy that sweeps the nation when Alejandro Mateos, one of the country's most powerful producers, dreams up a nationwide talent search to cast the lead in his next big movie. But all this is news to Alejandro's on-again, off-again lover, Eva Gallardo, a diva of epic proportions, who expected to get the part. While Eva schemes to nail down the role, our four leads begin their own journey on the road to fame.

A U.S. Army Captain uses her years of tactical training to save humanity from sixteen nuclear missiles launched at the U.S. as a violent attack threatens her remote missile interceptor station.

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...

After the G20 Summit is overtaken by terrorists, President Danielle Sutton must bring all her statecraft and military experience to defend her family and her fellow leaders.

During his 18 years in Folsom Prison, street-gang leader Santana rules over all the drug-and-murder activities behind bars. Upon his release, Santana goes back to his old neighborhood, intending to lead a peaceful, crime-free life. But his old gang buddies force him back into his old habits.
