Movies like Area 51 Confidential (2011)
The best movies like Area 51 Confidential (2011) are Dark Light (2019), The Signal (2007) and Alien Abduction (2014). If Area 51 Confidential hooked you with its horror and science fiction, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPredator (1987)7.6/10 from 9,674 votes
- NewestThe Astronaut (2025)Released 2025
Dark Light (2019)
A woman returns to her family home and discovers it to be inhabited by monsters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Signal (2007)
A horror film told in three parts, from three perspectives, in which a mysterious transmission that turns people into killers invades every cell phone, radio, and television.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisAlien Abduction (2014)
A vacationing family encounters an alien threat in this pulse-pounding thriller based on the real-life Brown Mountain Lights phenomenon in North Carolina.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisDie Alone (2024)
Lost in a world reclaimed by nature and overrun by mysterious creatures, Ethan, a young man with amnesia navigates the dangerous landscape in search of his lost love Emma. His journey takes an unexpected turn when he encounters Mae, a hardened and eccentric survivor. Together, Ethan and Mae face threats both human and otherwise before a fateful encounter with Kai unravels a secret that lies just beyond Ethan's fractured memory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Astronaut (2025)
After returning from her first space mission, astronaut Sam Walker is placed under NASA’s care at a high security house for rehabilitation and medical testing. However, when disturbing occurrences begin happening around the property, she fears that something extraterrestrial has followed her back to Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisExtinction (2015)
And suddenly, overnight, the world came to a halt. Two men, two survivors, one kid, and hatred that separates them. A place forgotten by everyone, including the creatures that inhabit the Earth... until now.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDouble Blind (2024)
After an experimental drug trial goes awry, the test subjects face a terrifying side effect: if you fall asleep you die. Trapped in an isolated facility, panic ensues as they try to escape and somehow stay awake.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPhoenix Forgotten (2017)
Twenty years after three teenagers disappeared in the wake of mysterious lights appearing above Phoenix, Arizona, unseen footage from that night has been discovered, chronicling the final hours of their fateful expedition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe X-Files (1998)
Mulder and Scully, now taken off the FBI's X Files cases, must find a way to fight the shadowy elements of the government to find out the truth about a conspiracy that might mean the alien colonization of Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPredator 2 (1990)
A police chief in the war-torn streets of Los Angeles discovers that an extraterrestrial creature is hunting down residents - and that he is the next target.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOsiris (2025)
Special Forces commandos on a mission are abducted mid-operation by a mysterious spacecraft. Upon waking aboard, they find themselves prey to a relentless alien race in a fight for survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Asphyx (1972)
Hugo is a brilliant turn-of-the-century scientist, loved and respected by his family and friends, admired by his colleagues. But he is a man quickly becoming obsessed with a curious and frightening question...What is the mysterious apparition found in the photographs of his dying subjects?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlien Nation (1988)
A few years from now, Earth will have the first contact with an alien civilization. These aliens, known as Newcomers, slowly begin to be integrated into human society after years of quarantine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBooks of Blood (2020)
A journey into uncharted and forbidden territory through three tales tangled in space and time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMargaux (2022)
As a group of seniors celebrate their final college days at a smart house, the house's highly advanced AI system, Margaux, begins to take on a deadly presence of her own. A carefree weekend of partying turns into a dystopian nightmare as they realize Margaux's plans to eliminate her tenants one way or another. Time begins to run out as the group desperately tries to survive and outsmart the smart home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)
Mulder and Scully are called back to duty by the FBI when a former priest claims to be receiving psychic visions pertaining to a kidnapped agent.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlood and Snow (2023)
When researchers rescue a fellow scientist who survived a meteorite strike in the Arctic, they discover she may not be who they think she is. Is she some-how changed?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMonster Hunters (2020)
When an alien prison ship crash lands and unleashes creature after creature in the California desert, they make quick work of the army that tries to stop them. Now, the only hope of stopping the aliens rests with a secret branch of the government specializing in alien weaponry. But with the team untested in actual combat, the battle for Earth will be brutal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisImpostor (2001)
A top-secret government weapons designer is arrested by a clandestine government organization on suspicion of being a clone created by the hostile alien race wanting to take over Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlien: Romulus (2024)
While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisConspiracy Theory (2016)
A television crew heads to Nevada to search for alien life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & science fiction
Predator (1987)
A team of elite commandos on a secret mission in a Central American jungle come to find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStar Trek: Insurrection (1998)
When an alien race and factions within Starfleet attempt to take over a planet that has "regenerative" properties, it falls upon Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise to defend the planet's people as well as the very ideals upon which the Federation itself was founded.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Brandon Corey Story (2006)
A faux-documentary directed by Brian Kraft, detailing the disappearance of an anti-war activist during his investigations into Dick Cheney.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
Twitz from Pluto: Graff, Jackass and TV Casualty (2022)
The story of two teenage extraterrestrial refugees from the planet Pluto, who escape to Earth after their planet is destroyed by the US government, as it was deemed “insignificant.” For many years prior, tensions between the Plutonians and the Earthlings had seen a steady incline, as Pluto held camps where Earthlings were experimented on and tortured. The two aliens make their crash landing, undertake human form and undergo the aliases “Hugh Jainus” and “E. Rection”. In an effort to wage revenge on the nation, with their brainwashed sidekick Potator under their wing, the trio hijack television stations worldwide and broadcast mind-numbingly stupid and ridiculous, yet insane and often violent programs to dumb down and distract the nation’s citizens from their devious plans. The tube tells the story...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & science fiction
Alistair1918 (2015)
A social work grad student’s film project on L.A. homelessness becomes something quite other when she and her friends encounter a man claiming to be from another time and place.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Jerusalem (2003)
Jerusalem is the first of four videos (followed by Sublimation [2003], Conjunction [2003] and The Pearl [2004]) exploring inter-dimensional travel. In this inaugural episode a group of young actors inhabit an empty apartment, their behavior taped and edited in-camera. An analog solarization technique captures their rituals of improvised dance, frozen poses and trimming of hair. Each cast member recounts painful personal life episodes that unfold like cheap sci-fi stories of otherworldly abductions, familial vanishings, strange dreams and reptilian passions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
K-PAX (2001)
Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Cosmic Eye (1986)
Earth is visited by a race of aliens, who issue an ultimatum: either peace or complete destruction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Love Shark (2023)
Love Shark is a wildly unhinged parody of Japanese paranormal TV and YouTube popularity culture. Natsume and Momoka run the failing psychic investigations channel Big Summer until a clickbait dating show they put on leads Momoka to find true love- with a contestant who is also a man-shark. Cue assassins, magic priests, decapitations, and chaos galore in this hysterical rom-com monster movie.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Area 51 Confidential?
The closest matches to Area 51 Confidential are Dark Light (2019), The Signal (2007) and Alien Abduction (2014). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Area 51 Confidential?
Start with Dark Light (2019), the closest match to Area 51 Confidential.
What is the highest-rated movie like Area 51 Confidential?
Predator (1987), rated 7.6/10 by 9,674 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Area 51 Confidential?
The Astronaut (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Area 51 Confidential?
Yes: Dark Light (2019), The Signal (2007) and Alien Abduction (2014).
How are movies similar to Area 51 Confidential chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Area 51 Confidential, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.