Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like The Alto Knights:
The Tender Bar
While the surrounding pieces of The Tender Bar don’t do much to move the needle, the core connection between Ben Affleck and Tye Sheridan stands out. A movie that could go either way for viewers.
Miller’s Crossing
In the Coens’ filmography filled with bold tonal shifts and genre experiments, Miller’s Crossing sits as a reserved yet razor-sharp piece of storytelling. It may not wear its eccentricities on its sleeve like Barton Fink or O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but it reflects the Coens’ precision and intelligence with remarkable clarity. For most filmmakers, this would be a career-best. For the Coens, it’s just another strong chapter in a catalog that rarely misses.
Nightmare Alley
Guillermo del Toro has built a career on finding beauty in darkness, crafting stories that, even in their bleakest moments, hold onto some sense of wonder, nostalgia, or hope. Movies like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and his stop-motion Pinocchio remake all explore the perseverance of the human spirit, even in the face of terrible atrocities. That’s what makes Nightmare Alley such a striking outlier in his filmography—it’s a film almost entirely devoid of hope, a cynical neo-noir that suggests people are, at their core, selfish and opportunistic. Instead of offering redemption, Nightmare Alley leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach, hammering home its central thesis: trust is a liability, and grifters will always find a way to exploit it.
The Order
The Order may not offer anything particularly new by industry standards, but Justin Kurzel‘s direction keeps the film engaging and intriguing as the story unfolds. It’s well-made and interesting, even though it draws on themes and styles found in many similar movies. While some argue that Hollywood no longer makes films like it used to, The Order feels like it came from a different time.
A Working Man
Jason Statham continues his relentless streak of mid-tier action vehicles with A Working Man, a film that feels as workmanlike as its title suggests. Following his roles in Meg 2: The Trench and The Beekeeper, Statham trades giant sea monsters and bee-themed vengeance for a more grounded but also more generic revenge setup. He plays Levon Cade, an ex-Royal Marine Commando turned construction foreman in Chicago, in a film that’s essentially a stripped-down Taken clone without much flavor or personality to distinguish itself.
Knox Goes Away
Knox Goes Away becomes a race against time for the titular character, outrunning the police and attempting to make good on his past before his own memory deteriorates beyond recoverable. Knox Goes Away could’ve been a surprisingly enthralling genre movie, but instead resorts too often to run-of-the-mill technical work and plot choices.
Love Lies Bleeding
There’s really nothing like Love Lies Bleeding. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the blanket notion that they don’t make movies like they used to anymore – but I will say, Hollywood hasn’t consistently made films as erotic and thrilling like this since the 1980s and 90s. Rose Glass directs the dynamic duo of Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart.
Triple Frontier
J.C. Chandor delivers another remarkably succinct heist drama with Triple Frontier – with a cast about as strong as one can possibly get. Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck lead a team of former special ops soldiers into South America to retrieve a large sum of money, and the events spiral from there. Chandor’s 2019 film stands among the best action movies of the late-2010s.
Blood Simple
Nearly every time I revisit Blood Simple, I’m struck by how confident and precise Joel and Ethan Coen were right out of the gate. Released in 1984, Blood Simple is the Coen brothers’ debut film and still stands as one of the greatest first features ever made. A neo-noir steeped in paranoia, betrayal, and bloody miscommunication, it’s a film that knows exactly what it wants to be—lean, stylish, and razor-sharp.
Killers of the Flower Moon
In Martin Scorsese’s epic crime drama, Killers of the Flower Moon, we are transported back in time to the early 1920s, to the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, a land drenched in blood and oil. Adapted from David Grann’s best-selling book of the same name, Scorsese’s take on this dark chapter in American history takes us on a thrilling, if occasionally meandering, journey that showcases the director’s distinct cinematic style while exploring a unique angle on the source material.
