Movies like Play Dead (2025)
The best movies like Play Dead (2025) are Nightmare Cinema (2018), Strange Darling (2024) and Mother's Day (2010). If Play Dead hooked you with its horror, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSaw (2004)7.4/10 from 10,485 votes
- NewestRedwood Diaries (2026)Released 2026
Nightmare Cinema (2018)
A series of down-on-their-luck individuals enter the decrepit and spine-chilling Rialto theater, only to have their deepest and darkest fears brought to life on the silver screen by The Projectionist – a mysterious, ghostly figure who holds the nightmarish futures of all who attend his screenings.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisStrange Darling (2024)
Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMother's Day (2010)
Crazed members of a sadistic family return to their childhood home to terrorize the new owners.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJigsaw (2017)
Law enforcement finds itself chasing the ghost of a man dead for over a decade, embroiled in a diabolical new game that's only just begun.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGrindhouse (2007)
Grindhouse combines Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, a horror comedy about a group of survivors who battle zombie-like creatures, and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, an action thriller about a murderous stuntman who kills young women with modified vehicles. It is presented as a double feature with fictitious exploitation trailers preceding each segment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Final (2010)
A group of high school outcasts get revenge on the students that torment them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Divide (2012)
Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.
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 thisBarbarian (2022)
In town for a job interview, a young woman arrives at her Airbnb late at night only to find that it has been mistakenly double-booked and a strange man is already staying there. Against her better judgement, she decides to stay the night anyway.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaw III (2006)
Jigsaw has disappeared. Along with his new apprentice Amanda, the puppet-master behind the cruel, intricate games that have terrified a community and baffled police has once again eluded capture and vanished. While city detectives scramble to locate him, Doctor Lynn Denlon and Jeff Reinhart are unaware that they are about to become the latest pawns on his vicious chessboard.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaw (2004)
Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of equally psychopathic killers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
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 horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaw 3D (2010)
As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw's brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGhostland (2018)
A mother of two inherits a home from her aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies 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 horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)
Retired military commander Colonel Dale Murphy hosts the simulated post-apocalyptic reality show where participants are challenged to survive a remote West Virginia wasteland. But the show turns into a nightmarish showdown when each realizes they are being hunted by an inbred family of cannibals determined to make them all dinner!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBone Lake (2025)
A couple’s romantic vacation at a secluded lakeside estate is upended when they are forced to share the mansion with a mysterious and attractive couple. In this darkly hilarious and seductive horror story, a dream getaway spirals into a nightmarish maze of sex, lies, and manipulation, bringing terrifying secrets to light and triggering a bloody battle for survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Domestics (2018)
A young husband and wife must fight to return home in a post-apocalyptic mid-western landscape ravaged by gangs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaint Catherine (2024)
An orphaned girl is rescued from a satanic ritual and taken to Saint Catherine Institute for homeless youth. There she will learn new skills while facing demons that stalk her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRedwood Diaries (2026)
When strange entries begin appearing in her diary written in handwriting that isn't hers, new student Evie Quinn is pulled into a chilling mystery as the messages reveal secrets, predict impossible events, and point toward a truth someone has desperately tried to bury.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
The Strangler (1964)
An overweight lab technician with low self esteem, brought on by his dominant mother, becomes a serial killer of female nurses.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (1989)
Ricky Caldwell, the notorious 'Killer Santa Claus', awakens from a six-year coma after being kept alive on life-support by a slightly crazed doctor experimenting with ESP and other special abilities. Ricky targets a young, clairvoyant blind woman, named Laura, whom is traveling with her brother Chris, and his girlfriend Jerri to their grandmother's house for Christmas Eve, and Ricky decides to go after her, leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Slaughterhouse Killer (2020)
Small town living suits Box just fine. Blue collar, safe, simple. A passion for slaughter keeps him in line at the local abattoir where he has the chance to quench his thirst for blood. When Nathan, a young parolee arrives in town, Box is instructed to take him under his wing, and soon the two men bond over a bloody murder. Unable to resist the temptations of blood, the two form a friendship revolving around their sickness for power. A friendship which is bad news for everyone in town as they become lambs for the slaughter used solely as entertainment for the duo.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Roadgames (1981)
A truck driver plays a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious serial killer in a van who lures young female hitchhiker victims on a desolate Australian highway.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPig (2018)
A serial killer is going around killing Iran's most beloved filmmakers. Hasan, a blacklisted filmmaker himself, is depressed and wonders: why isn't he being targeted?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
The 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: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisConfessions of a Serial Killer (1985)
After being arrested, a Texas man begins confessing to the brutal murder of over 200 women. He recounts his random selection of victims and his traveling companions, his friend and friend's sister. But the police can't be sure whether to believe him or not until he locates a body and shows them some polaroids. Based on the true story of Henry Lee Lucas.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
3 from Hell (2019)
After barely surviving a furious shootout with the police, Baby Firefly, Otis Driftwood and Captain Spaulding are behind bars. But pure evil cannot be contained. Teaming up with Otis’ half-brother Winslow, the demented Firefly clan escape to unleash a whole new wave of murder, madness and mayhem.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisUnspeakable (2003)
Despite vocal objections from Warden Blakely, prison psychologist Diana Purlow journeys deep inside the mind of serial killer Jesse Mowat in a desperate attempt to reveal the source of his psychotic tendencies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Play Dead?
The closest matches to Play Dead are Nightmare Cinema (2018), Strange Darling (2024) and Mother's Day (2010). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Play Dead?
Start with Nightmare Cinema (2018), the closest match to Play Dead.
What is the highest-rated movie like Play Dead?
Saw (2004), rated 7.4/10 by 10,485 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Play Dead?
Redwood Diaries (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Play Dead?
Yes: Nightmare Cinema (2018), Strange Darling (2024) and Mother's Day (2010).
How are movies similar to Play Dead chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Play Dead, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.