Movies like Happy Birthday (2023)
The best movies like Happy Birthday (2023) are The Evil (1978), Bloodline (2019) and The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014). If Happy Birthday hooked you with its horror, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedScream (1996)7.4/10 from 8,412 votes
- NewestDust Bunny (2025)Released 2025
The Evil (1978)
Shortly after moving into a dark, brooding mansion, a psychologist and his co-workers are terrorized by a horrible evil being.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisBloodline (2019)
Evan values family above all else, and anyone who gets between him, his wife, and newborn son learns that the hard way. But when it comes to violent tendencies, it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014)
A masked maniac terrorizes the same small community where a murderer known as the Phantom Killer struck decades earlier.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisUrban Legend (1998)
A college campus is plagued by a vicious serial killer murdering students in ways that correspond to various urban legends.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Horror House (2012)
On Halloween night, a sorority house is overrun with ghosts, while a vengeful housemother goes on a killing spree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Ghost Within (2023)
A young woman revisits her family home desperate to discover her sister Evie's murderer 20 years before. After a series of terrifying encounters with Evie's ghost at 09:09pm, Margot knows she must fight to learn the truth once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWake Up (2024)
A group of young activists set out to make an environmental statement by vandalizing a home superstore as it closes. But their plan goes terribly wrong when they become trapped inside and must face a deranged security guard with a gruesome passion for primitive hunting. As the night fills with violence and terror, the teenagers find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNever Let Go (2024)
As an evil takes over the world beyond their front doorstep, the only protection for a mother and her twin sons is their house and their family’s protective bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBloodline Killer (2024)
Moira Cole endeavors to rebuild her shattered life after her family's murder at the hands of her deranged and obsessed cousin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisTrick (2019)
A detective tries to track down a masked killer who reappears every Halloween to wreak bloody havoc.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisPlay Dead (2022)
Criminology student Chloe fakes her own death to break into a morgue, in order to retrieve a piece of evidence that ties her younger brother to a crime gone wrong. Once inside, she discovers that a sadistic coroner is using the corpses for his sick and twisted business, and when he realises that Chloe still has a pulse, a terrifying game of cat and mouse ensues.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dogs (2025)
After fleeing his psychotic father, a young teen and his mom seek refuge in a remote farmhouse, only to face a pack of ferocious dogs and the sinister spirits that haunt the property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like this825 Forest Road (2025)
After a family tragedy, Chuck Wilson hopes to start a new life in Ashland Falls with his wife Maria and little sister Elizabeth, but he quickly discovers that the town has a dark history of being haunted by a ghostly woman who drives residents to suicide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisLemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1974)
A notorious bank robber kills his wife and flees the police, only to be captured by a mysterious group of figures in an abandoned town. His beautiful daughter, Lila Lee, receives a letter stating that her father is near death and that he needs to see her. Sneaking away at night from her minister guardian, Lila embarks on a terrifying journey...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Woman in Black (1989)
A lawyer travels to a small seaside town to settle the estate of a recently deceased woman, but soon becomes ensnared in something much more sinister.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Strangers (2008)
After a 4 a.m. knock at the door and haunting voices, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt’s remote getaway becomes a psychological night of terror as three masked strangers invade. Now they must go far beyond what they thought themselves capable of if they hope to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wailer (2006)
On their way to Mexico, six students are stranded in a small town where years before a tragedy took place.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDust Bunny (2025)
Ten-year-old Aurora asks her hitman neighbor to kill the monster under her bed that she claims ate her family. To protect her, he must battle an onslaught of assassins while accepting that some monsters are real.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Other (2025)
Unable to conceive, a couple seeks to build a family with a young orphan, survivor of tragic childhood. But their act of love turns to horror when they realize the violence in their foster's past has returned to destroy the new family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Curse of Buckout Road (2017)
A college class project on creation and destruction of modern myth, turns terrifying when a trio of young people come to realize the urban legends surrounding the famed Buckout Road may, in fact, be REAL.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScream (1996)
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisScream 2 (1997)
Two years after the Woodsboro murders, Sidney Prescott acclimates to college life while someone donning the Ghostface costume begins a new string of killings.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScream 3 (2000)
As bodies begin dropping around the Hollywood set of STAB 3, the third film based on the gruesome Woodsboro killings, Sidney and other survivors are once again terrorized by another Ghostface killer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFriday the 13th (1980)
Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPandaMonium (2020)
The guys on Level 6 like to work hard, and party harder, that means the best booze, the finest drugs and hottest women money can buy. Unfortunately for them the Strippers they've just hired have come with an unwanted guest.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Severance (2006)
Seven employees of an international weapons manufacturer are treated to a team-building weekend at the company’s newly built luxury spa lodge. Things quickly go awry as the colleagues find their corporate weekend sabotaged by a deadly enemy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMeathook Massacre (2015)
3 young women encounter car trouble on the way to a Dragonsclaw concert during a rainstorm. They are forced to go seek help, where one by bloody one they are attacked by a masked maniac and hung on meathooks. Who will survive and what will be left of them?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Brute 1986 (2026)
Leather Kobra, a Sunset Strip-style glam metal band, films a music video in an abandoned Western town in the middle of nowhere. Ignoring ‘no trespassing’ signs, the rebellious group have no idea they are being watched by the Birdy family, who will meet them with a level of brutality that is as vicious as it is creative.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Coming SoonMovies like thisHatchet (2006)
When a group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find themselves stranded in the wilderness, their evening of fun and spooks turns into a horrific nightmare.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisHalloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Two decades after surviving a massacre on October 31, 1978, former baby sitter Laurie Strode finds herself hunted by persistent knife-wielder Michael Myers. Laurie now lives in Northern California under an assumed name, where she works as the headmistress of a private school. But it's not far enough to escape Myers, who soon discovers her whereabouts. As Halloween descends upon Laurie's peaceful community, a feeling of dread weighs upon her -- with good reason.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Happy Birthday?
The closest matches to Happy Birthday are The Evil (1978), Bloodline (2019) and The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Happy Birthday?
Start with The Evil (1978), the closest match to Happy Birthday.
What is the highest-rated movie like Happy Birthday?
Scream (1996), rated 7.4/10 by 8,412 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Happy Birthday?
Dust Bunny (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Happy Birthday?
Yes: The Evil (1978), Bloodline (2019) and The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014).
How are movies similar to Happy Birthday chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Happy Birthday, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.