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Elite Squad: The Enemy Within poster

Movies that feel likeElite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010)

After a bloody invasion of the BOPE in the High-Security Penitentiary Bangu 1 in Rio de Janeiro to control a rebellion of interns, the Lieutenant-Colonel Roberto Nascimento and the second in command Captain André Matias are accused by the Human Right Aids member Diogo Fraga of execution of prisoners. Matias is transferred to the corrupted Military Police and Nascimento is exonerated from the BOPE by the Governor.

If you loved Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, the closest films we have are The Shadow's Edge (2025), Boyhood (2014) and A Bronx Tale (1993). All three share Elite Squad: The Enemy Within's contemplative and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024).

🍅 91% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. José Padilhacontemplativekineticgrittywistful
10 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Hulu

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If Elite Squad: The Enemy Within hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: Elite Squad (2007)

The Shadow's Edge poster
The Shadow's Edge
2025 · dir. Larry Yang
🍅 82%★ 7action · crime · drama

Common ground: nostalgic

The difference: Leans further into thriller

Macau Police brings the tracking expert police officer out of retirement to help catch a dangerous group of professional thieves.

Boyhood poster
Boyhood
2014 · dir. Richard Linklater
🍅 97%★ 7.9dramaNetflix

One thread runs through both: nostalgic

The difference: Goes its own way on the momentum

The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.

A Bronx Tale poster
A Bronx Tale
1993 · dir. Robert De Niro
🍅 97%★ 7.8drama · crime

The same mix in both: stillness, then grit

Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.

Creed III poster
Creed III
2023 · dir. Michael B. Jordan
🍅 89%★ 6.7drama · actionPrime VideoHulu

Kinetic where it counts, wistful underneath

After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed has thrived in his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian Anderson, resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face-off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian — a fighter with nothing to lose.

The Straight Story poster
The Straight Story
1999 · dir. David Lynch
🍅 95%★ 8dramaDisney+

Both keep coming back to the same thing: melancholy

Retired farmer and widower Alvin Straight learns one day that his estranged brother Lyle has suffered a severe stroke. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. He then has the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

Biutiful poster
Biutiful
2010 · dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
🍅 66%★ 7.4dramaNetflix

Drama with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

This is a story of a man in free fall. On the road to redemption, darkness lights his way. Connected with the afterlife, Uxbal is a tragic hero and father of two who's sensing the danger of death. He struggles with a tainted reality and a fate that works against him in order to forgive, for love, and forever.

City of God poster
City of God
2002 · dir. Fernando Meirelles
🍅 91%★ 8.6drama · crime

Both lean on grit more than on crime

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

Chernobyl: Abyss poster
Chernobyl: Abyss
2021 · dir. Danila Kozlovsky
★ 5.2drama · history · actionPrime Video

Both are built on the same subject: affectation

The difference: Played as history first

The aftermath of a shocking explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station made hundreds of people sacrifice their lives to clean up the site of the catastrophe and to successfully prevent an even bigger disaster that could have turned a large part of the European continent into an uninhabitable exclusion zone. This is their story.

2 Fast 2 Furious poster
2 Fast 2 Furious
2003 · dir. John Singleton
🍅 37%★ 6action · crime · thrillerNetflix

Kinetic action in both cases

It's a major double-cross when former police officer Brian O'Conner teams up with his ex-con buddy Roman Pearce to transport a shipment of "dirty" money for shady Miami-based import-export dealer Carter Verone. But the guys are actually working with undercover agent Monica Fuentes to bring Verone down.

Leave No Trace poster
Leave No Trace
2018 · dir. Debra Granik
🍅 100%★ 7.1drama

Drama built on wistfulness, twice over

A father and daughter live a perfect but mysterious existence in Forest Park, a beautiful nature reserve near Portland, Oregon, rarely making contact with the world. But when a small mistake tips them off to authorities, they are sent on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies poster
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
2024 · dir. Pat Boonnitipat
🍅 98%★ 7.9dramaNetflix

Contemplative action, and it commits to that

M, a university dropout low on money and luck, volunteers to take care of his terminally ill grandmother, in the hope of pocketing an inheritance.

The Hand of God poster
The Hand of God
2021 · dir. Paolo Sorrentino
🍅 83%★ 7.3dramaNetflix

Wistful crime, and it commits to that

In 1980s Naples, an awkward teen struggling to find his place experiences heartbreak and liberation after he's inadvertently saved from a freak accident by football legend Diego Maradona.

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The best-reviewed films that share Elite Squad: The Enemy Within’s defining feeling.