Movies like The Strange
The best movies like The Strange are Contagion of Fear (2023), Cruel & Unusual (2014) and 2073 (2024). If The Strange hooked you with its science fiction and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
The Strange
Quick picks
- Highest ratedInvasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)7.5/10 from 1,266 votes
- NewestNot Without Hope (2025)Released 2025
Contagion of Fear (2023)
A catastrophic train derailment sends the city spiraling into chaos. But the derailment is just the beginning. A biological gas attack sees crash survivors collapsing and dying within minutes. And the sickness is rapidly spreading.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCruel & Unusual (2014)
Wrongly condemned for killing his wife, a man finds himself in a mysterious institution where he is sentenced to relive her death for eternity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDark 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 science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Resurrected (1991)
Charles Dexter Ward, a wealthy scientist, uses an ancient diary and human remains to begin a terrifying and bloody pursuit for immortality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisProdigy (2017)
Jimmy is a committed child psychologist who uses his own playbook, but when he is brought in to work with Ellie, he is completely unprepared for his subject—a 9-year-old psychopathic genius with nothing to lose. As he begins to understand the extent of her capabilities and the fate that has been planned for her, he struggles to overcome her defenses before it is too late for them both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpectral (2016)
A special-ops team is dispatched to fight supernatural beings that have taken over a European city.
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 science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Wrinkle in Time (2003)
Meg and Charles Wallace are aided by Calvin and three interesting women in the search for their father who disappeared during a government experiment. Their travels take them around the universe to a place unlike any other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTimescape (1992)
Before they can complete renovations on their new country inn, a widowed father and his young daughter are visited by a strange group of tourists. He soon makes a chilling discovery: they are disaster junkies from the future who visit the past to witness history's greatest catastrophes—and his small town is their next stop.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGod Is a Bullet (2023)
Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChaos Walking (2021)
Two unlikely companions embark on a perilous adventure through the badlands of an unexplored planet as they try to escape a dangerous and disorienting reality, where all inner thoughts are seen and heard by everyone.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBabylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers - To Live and Die in Starlight (2002)
After being punished for retreat from combat, Ranger David Martel is given command of the Liandra, a haunted 20-year old Minbari fighting ship. He's escorting ambassadors to a secret archaeological site, the oldest city on record and a clue to a dangerous ancient race.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlien: Alone (2019)
An abandoned crew member aboard a derelict chemical hauler is trying to keep her ship and herself alive. After discovering hidden cargo, she risks it all to power up the broken ship in search of human life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 5th Wave (2016)
16-year-old Cassie Sullivan tries to survive in a world devastated by the waves of an alien invasion that has already decimated the population and knocked mankind back to the Stone Age.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisZygote (2017)
The two remaining crew members of a mining operation in the Arctic Circle fight to survive against an alien creature.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Marsh King's Daughter (2023)
Helena, a woman living a seemingly ordinary life, hides a dark secret—her father is the infamous 'Marsh King', the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. After a lifetime of trying to escape her past, Helena is forced to face her demons when her father unexpectedly escapes from prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMortal Engines (2018)
Many thousands of years in the future, Earth’s cities roam the globe on huge wheels, devouring each other in a struggle for ever diminishing resources. On one of these massive traction cities, the old London, Tom Natsworthy has an unexpected encounter with a mysterious young woman from the wastelands who will change the course of his life forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNot Without Hope (2025)
A group of friends' fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico and they're left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVesper (2022)
After the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed Father, meets a mysterious Woman with a secret that forces Vesper to use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of a future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Omega Man (1971)
Due to an experimental vaccine, Dr. Robert Neville is the only human survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. Besides him, only a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people remain; sensitive to light, and homicidally psychotic.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Similar story and style · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInvasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKamikaze '89 (1982)
In a futuristic, totalitarian society wherein the government controls all facets of the media, a homicide detective investigates a string of bombings and uncovers more than he bargained for.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
The Fury (1978)
When a devious plot separates CIA agent Peter Sandza from his son, Robin, the distraught father manages to see through the ruse. Taken because of his psychic abilities, Robin is being held by Ben Childress, who is studying people with supernatural powers in hopes of developing their talents as weapons. Soon Peter pairs up with Gillian, a teen who has telekinesis, to find and rescue Robin.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPresumed Innocent (1990)
Rusty Sabich is a deputy prosecutor engaged in an obsessive affair with a coworker who is murdered. Soon after, he's accused of the crime. And his fight to clear his name becomes a whirlpool of lies and hidden passions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeneath the Surface (TBA)
Beneath the Surface introduces readers to the story of the wealthy Kingsley family of Southern California. At the center of the action are the power-hungry children of an aging billionaire, who prove unprepared for a storm of deceptions and ruthless family ambition, while out on a weekend voyage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Bloody Crayons (2017)
A group of friends goes to an island for a short film project when they are attacked by a mysterious killer after playing a game of bloody crayons.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Taking Lives (2004)
Recruited to assist Montreal police in their desperate search for a serial killer who assumes the identities of his victims, FBI profiler Illeana Scott knows it's only a matter of time before the killer strikes again. Her most promising lead is a museum employee who might be the killer's only eyewitness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSoul Reaper (2024)
A teenager with the ability to enter other people's dreams. When he witnesses a dark spirit taking people's lives in their dreams, he quickly realizes that it's related to the mysterious deaths that are happening in the real world.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Like The Strange and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Strange?
The closest matches to The Strange are Contagion of Fear (2023), Cruel & Unusual (2014) and 2073 (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Strange?
Start with Contagion of Fear (2023), the closest match to The Strange.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Strange?
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), rated 7.5/10 by 1,266 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Strange?
Not Without Hope (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Strange?
Yes: Contagion of Fear (2023), Cruel & Unusual (2014) and 2073 (2024).
How are movies similar to The Strange chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Strange, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.




























