So I finally checked out Vanessa's recommendation
City of GodI wasn't really sure what to expect. It is a foreign film, but reading the subtitles is cool. It tells the stories of several people over the decades and ties them all together. The movie involes robbery, rape, killing, corruption and selling drugs. It's intense. Kinda long but doesn't seem like it. (2 hours and 10 mins.)
That was my take on it here's another:
Busca-Pe (Alexandre Rodrigues) lives in Cidade de Deus (City of God), a housing project reputed to be one of the most dangerous parts of otherwise magical Rio de Janeiro. He's frightened he'll end up like the countless others around him -- troubled, violent or dead. But his saving grace is his photographer's eye, through which the stories of several people who live in this forsaken "city" unfold. …Check it out. It's really good.