Movies like Palimpsest (2024)
The best movies like Palimpsest (2024) are Omni Loop (2024), The Giver (2014) and My Zoe (2019). If Palimpsest hooked you with its drama and science fiction, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedArrival (2016)7.6/10 from 20,153 votes
- NewestBrownsville Bred (2025)Released 2025
Omni Loop (2024)
Diagnosed with a black hole growing inside her chest and stuck in a loop reliving the last five days of her life, a 55-year-old wife and mother from Miami, Florida decides to solve time travel in order to go back and be the person she always intended to be.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Giver (2014)
In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Zoe (2019)
Isabelle, a geneticist recovering from a toxic marriage, is raising her only daughter, Zoe, with her contentious ex-husband. Zoe means everything to her mother and so when tragedy strikes the fractured family, Isabelle travels to Russia in seeking the help of a world-renowned fertility physician who Isabelle believes can help bring back her little girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
David, a robotic boy—the first of his kind programmed to love—is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee and his wife. Though he gradually becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisArrival (2016)
Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like this2073 (2024)
Inspired by Chris Marker's iconic 1962 featurette La Jetée; the year is 2073—a not-so-distant dystopian future—and the setting is New San Francisco, the scorched-earth tech-dominant police state where democracy and personal freedom have been well and truly obliterated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJonathan (2018)
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisTHX 1138 (1971)
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFast Color (2019)
A woman goes on the run after her superhuman abilities are exposed and, with nowhere left to hide, returns to the family she abandoned years earlier.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGemini Man (2019)
Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisPaycheck (2003)
Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989)
The Bionic Woman and the Six-Million-Dollar Man reunite--with a few younger bionic assistants--and try to catch a bionic spy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once again as the journey of Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron continues. With the power and knowledge of generations behind them, the final battle begins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParadise Hills (2019)
A young woman is sent to Paradise Hills to be reformed, only to learn that the high-class facility's beautiful facade hides a sinister secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisHoly Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRoboCop (2014)
In RoboCop, the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years, but have been forbidden for law enforcement in America. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy – a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit – is critically injured, OmniCorp sees their chance to build a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisRogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
A rogue band of resistance fighters unite for a mission to steal the Death Star plans and bring a new hope to the galaxy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlita: Battle Angel (2019)
When Alita awakens with no memory of who she is in a future world she does not recognize, she is taken in by Ido, a compassionate doctor who realizes that somewhere in this abandoned cyborg shell is the heart and soul of a young woman with an extraordinary past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBuying Time (2024)
It is the year 2028 and antibiotics are no longer effective. A corporation called Lifeline has invented a health chip which everyone can get for free via the NHS. You can buy an upgrade which is effective against more infections and diseases. In 2028 computing and processing power is restricted however for someone to have an upgrade some one has to die for the power to be transferred. People are dieing randomly. Lifeline are launching their 2nd upgrade which is expected to earn them billions along with their ministerial backer. Daniel Avery has lost his wife and daughter in such circumstances and recent nightmares and flashbacks have instigated him to investigate. He slowly uncovers the truth with the help of a rebel group of the pull for power and greed that goes right to the top.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & science fiction
Diablillos de arrabal (1940)
In a poor neighborhood in Mexico City, two gangs of kids fight for control of the center where they work as "boleros", musicians or announcers. "Completo" joins the gang led by "Rorro", a rival of the group headed by "Curricán".
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Cry (2007)
In New York, detective Alex Scott is investigating with his partner Sergio Perez the disappearance of several children. When they visit the Mexican witch Gloria, the woman advises that a powerful evil force is chasing the reincarnation of her son and drowning the other children to bring pain to their mothers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Brownsville Bred (2025)
Set against the vibrant yet challenging backdrop of her urban neighborhood, the complexities of adolescence are explored as Elaine faces an unexpected upheaval in her life due to her father, Manny, an aspiring salsa musician whose struggles lead him away from his family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jacob Have I Loved (1989)
In the early 1940s, a depressed young woman, who's been eclipsed all of her life by her beautiful twin sister, tries to overcome her low self-esteem with help from a crusty old sea captain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Million Little Pieces (2019)
A young drug-addled writer approaching the bottom of his descent submits to two months of agonizing detox at a treatment center in Minnesota.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDer Duft von Holunder (2011)
Once Sofie Möller left her idyllic hometown with the aim of making a career in the big city. Now she returns with her mother Agnes to attend the funeral of her grandmother and to revamp her empty house for sale. It does not take long for Sofie to be confronted with her past, which apart from the grandmotherly love consisted of many personal injuries. When she meets her former boyhood friend Tom Sommer again, Sofie has come to the time to rethink her own emotional life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Summers Day (2025)
After nearly getting hit by a car, Abigail Summers finds her reality is no longer as it seems
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
The Christmas Secret (2014)
While her life is falling apart, single mother Christine finds a magical family heirloom that leads to love and good fortune during Christmas.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBut Muzeyyen That's the Deepest Desire (2014)
Arif, who is trying to write his first book, believes that life contains many unanswerable questions, especially about women and relationships. But when Müzeyyen appears unexpectedly, everything he has ever known or tried to learn is suddenly turned upside down.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Palimpsest?
The closest matches to Palimpsest are Omni Loop (2024), The Giver (2014) and My Zoe (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Palimpsest?
Start with Omni Loop (2024), the closest match to Palimpsest.
What is the highest-rated movie like Palimpsest?
Arrival (2016), rated 7.6/10 by 20,153 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Palimpsest?
Brownsville Bred (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Palimpsest chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Palimpsest, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.