Movies like Needful Things
If Needful Things hooked you with its drama and horror, these are the films to watch next. Every pick says why it matches.
The Gift (2000)
Annie Wilson, young widow and mother of three, makes her living foretelling others' futures—though her own has become cloudier than even she can see. Threatened by a client's violent husband and plagued by visions of a missing local woman, Annie finds herself pulled into a thicket of lies and deception in which her extraordinary gift may ultimately get her killed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Skeleton Key (2005)
A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpellbinder (1988)
After leaving work one night, Los Angeles attorney Jeff Mills and his colleague rescue a young, beautiful woman from an abusive boyfriend. Jeff soon becomes romantically involved with her and embroiled in the web of intrigue that follows her, despite a string of ominous happenstances and repeated warnings from his secretary.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHallowed Ground (2007)
After she becomes stranded in a small town, a young woman discovers her arrival there was foretold a century earlier by the town's founding preacher and that she is an integral part of his impending - and terrifying - rebirth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Dead Zone (1983)
Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fog (1980)
Strange things begin to occur as a tiny California coastal town prepares to commemorate its centenary. Inanimate objects spring eerily to life; Rev. Malone stumbles upon a dark secret about the town's founding; radio announcer Stevie witnesses a mystical fire; and hitchhiker Elizabeth discovers the mutilated corpse of a fisherman. Then a mysterious iridescent fog descends upon the village, and more people start to die.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sentinel (1977)
As a young girl, Alison Parker attempted suicide after being traumatized by her father's sexual exploits. Now an elite fashion model, she moves to a Brooklyn Heights apartment building where she encounters a number of bizarre, eccentric tenants and attempts to uncover the building's sinister secret.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCool Air (1999)
Randolph Carter moves into a squalid boarding house in the summer of 1925 where he becomes friends with a mysterious doctor who revives him after a near-fatal heart attack. Soon after Carter discovers the awful truth about the doctor, and the fragile line that separates life and death. Featuring a stellar performance by Jack Donner as Dr. Muñoz, Cool Air remains a haunting reminder of the power of the human will.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & horror
The Reaping (2007)
Katherine Morrissey, a former Christian missionary, lost her faith after the tragic deaths of her family. Now she applies her expertise to debunking religious phenomena. When a series of biblical plagues overrun a small town, Katherine arrives to prove that a supernatural force is not behind the occurrences, but soon finds that science cannot explain what is happening. Instead, she must regain her faith to combat the evil that waits in a Louisiana swamp.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Ninth Gate (1999)
A rare book dealer finds himself at the heart of a string of paranormal events when he is hired to find the last two copies of a text, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, capable of summoning the Devil.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dark Half (1993)
Following the public's realization that Thad Beaumont and George Stark are one and the same, the former stages a mock funeral, only for a series of gruesome murders to begin occurring as in his books.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Devil's Advocate (1997)
Aspiring Florida defense lawyer Kevin Lomax accepts a job at a New York law firm. With the stakes getting higher every case, Kevin quickly learns that his boss has something far more evil planned.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAngel Heart (1987)
A down-and-out Brooklyn detective is hired to track down a singer on an odyssey that will take him through the desperate streets of Harlem, the smoke-filled jazz clubs of New Orleans, and the swamps of Louisiana and its seedy underworld of voodoo.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn the Mouth of Madness (1995)
An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Craft (1996)
A Catholic school newcomer falls in with a clique of teen witches who wield their powers against all who dare to cross them -- be they teachers, rivals or meddlesome parents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Exorcist (1973)
When a mysterious entity possesses a young girl, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThinner (1996)
An obese lawyer finds himself growing "Thinner" when an old Romani man places a hex on him. Now the lawyer must call upon his friends in organized crime to help him persuade the old man to lift the curse. Time is running out for the desperate lawyer as he draws closer to his own death, and grows ever thinner.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisCandyman (1992)
The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDesperation (2006)
When a sheriff arrests a writer, a family, a couple, and a hitchiker and throws them in a jail cell in the deserted town of Desperation, they must fight for their lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisSometimes They Come Back (1991)
Desperate for a job to help him support his family, Jim Norman takes a position teaching high school in the town where his brother was murdered in front of him by teenage bullies twenty-seven years before. The teens who committed the crime are long dead, but now the kids in Jim's new class keep dying and being replaced by new students who look like the deceased hoodlums.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHideaway (1995)
Hatch Harrison, his wife, Lindsey, and their daughter, Regina, are enjoying a pleasant drive when a car crash leaves wife and daughter unharmed but kills Hatch. However, an ingenious doctor, Jonas Nyebern, manages to revive Hatch after two lifeless hours. But Hatch does not come back unchanged. He begins to suffer horrible visions of murder -- only to find out the visions are the sights of a serial killer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Sleeping Car (1990)
Jason moves into an abandoned train car where he resurrects the vicious ghost of his landlady's dead husband... The Mister. After some near-fatal encounters with the violent specter, he consults a local exorcist.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Sleepwalkers (1992)
Charles Brady and his mother, Mary, are the last of a dying breed whose needs are not of this world. They are Sleepwalkers - able to stay alive only by feeding on the life-force of the innocent, but destined to roam the earth, avoiding discovery while searching for their next victim. That search takes them to the sleepy little town of Travis, Indiana, where beautiful teenager Tanya Robertson is about to become an unwilling pawn in their nightmarish fight for survival.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMary Reilly (1996)
A housemaid falls in love with Dr. Jekyll and his darkly mysterious counterpart, Mr. Hyde.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisJ.D.'s Revenge (1976)
After notorious New Orleans gangster J.D. Walker is murdered in the 1940s, his spirit remains restless for three decades, until a hypnotist's supernatural nightclub act allows him to take over the body of a mild-mannered law student and seek revenge on those who had him killed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
The Guardian (1990)
Phil and Kate select the winsome young Camilla as a live-in nanny for their newborn child, but the seemingly lovely Camilla is not what she appears to be...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisHer Name Was Christa (2020)
Stephen is a socially awkward, middle-aged telemarketer and is desperately alone. At the suggestion of a co-worker, he goes out into the night to find a prostitute for "The Girlfriend Experience." He meets Christa, a streetwise call girl who's happy to fulfill his needs, and something unexpected happens. What starts as a business agreement blossoms into true love. But what happens when death enters the picture? How far would you go to keep the one person you've always wanted?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & horror
Antlers (2021)
A small-town Oregon teacher and her brother, the local sheriff, discover a young student is harbouring a dangerous secret that could have frightening consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStarve Acre (2024)
When their son starts acting strangely, a couple unwittingly allow dark and sinister forces into their home, awakening a long-dormant ancient evil rooted deep in the countryside.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWerewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012)
Set in a 19th century village, a young man studying under a local doctor joins a team of hunters on the trail of a wolf-like creature.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Needful Things?
The closest matches to Needful Things are The Gift, The Skeleton Key, Spellbinder.
How are movies similar to Needful Things chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Needful Things, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.
Are there English movies like Needful Things?
Yes: The Gift, The Skeleton Key, Spellbinder.