Movies like The Barrier (2014)
The best movies like The Barrier (2014) are The Most Hated Woman in America (2017), All Together Now (2020) and Richard Jewell (2019). If The Barrier hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIkiru (1952)8.3/10 from 1,427 votes
- NewestHunting Season (2025)Released 2025
The Most Hated Woman in America (2017)
The true story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair -- iconoclast, opportunist, and outspoken atheist -- from her controversial rise to her untimely demise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll Together Now (2020)
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRichard Jewell (2019)
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sound of Silence (2019)
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Parts You Lose (2019)
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this40 Acres (2025)
Hailey Freeman and her family are the last descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada after the Civil War. In a famine-decimated near future, they now struggle to safeguard their farm, as they make one last stand against a vicious militia hell-bent on taking their 40 Acres.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisF.I.S.T. (1978)
Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHerself (2020)
Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSAS: Red Notice (2021)
An off-duty SAS soldier, Tom Buckingham, must thwart a terror attack on a train running through the Channel Tunnel. As the action escalates on the train, events transpire in the corridors of power that may make the difference as to whether Buckingham and the civilian passengers make it out of the tunnel alive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisIn Too Deep (1999)
Drug lord Dwayne Gittens rules Cincinnati with an iron fist. No wonder he's known as "God" on the streets. Determined to break Gittens' stranglehold on the city is undercover cop Jeffrey Cole. But as Cole takes on an assumed identity to penetrate Gittens' criminal empire, he makes a disturbing discovery -- he kind of likes being a gangster.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRogue Agent (2022)
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCrimes of Passion (1984)
Fashion designer Joanna Crane leads a double life. By night she is China Blue, a prostitute who's attracted the attention of a sexually frustrated private detective, and a psychopathic priest in possession of a murderous sex toy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBelly (1998)
Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (2017)
An adrenaline seeking snowboarder gets lost in a massive winter storm in the back country of the High Sierras where he is pushed to the limits of human endurance and forced to battle his own personal demons as he fights for survival....
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisStaten Island (2009)
Sully is desperate to give his unborn son the chance he never had. Jasper wants to escape the mobsters that have infiltrated his life and business. Parmie, a local mob boss, dreams of crushing the competition. All three men live in Staten Island, and once their lives intersect, nothing will ever be the same.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHunting Season (2025)
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBig Red Gun (2018)
At the riflery club, Jannis runs into his former schoolmate Marvin, who is hiding from a gang. The two accidentally mix up their backpacks. At the office Christmas party, Jannis finds Marvin‘s pistol. He tries to hide it, unnoticed – above all, he doesn’t want his ex-girlfriend, who is at the party, to see it. But then Marvin shows up at the office and wants his gun back.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Angel (2018)
True story of Ashraf Marwan, who was President Nasser's son-in-law and special adviser and confidant to his successor Anwar Sadat - while simultaneously Israeli Intelligence's most precious asset of the 20th century. Based on NYT bestselling book 'The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel' by Uri Bar-Joseph.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIkiru (1952)
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDům Na poříčí (1977)
The film was based on the novel "Milión" by Karel Štorkán. The book and the film depict the events surrounding the great construction disaster in Prague in 1928, in which 46 construction workers died. The disaster thrilled the entire republic at the time, yet was never fully explained. The filmmakers focus on the story of Ing. Vondrák, the designer of the construction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Bold, the Corrupt and the Beautiful (2017)
Madame Tang colludes and mediates between the government and the private businesses for the benefits of her all-female family. One case does not go according to plan, and an entire family close to Madame Tang fall victim to a gruesome murder. Ambition, desire and lust eventually change Tang's relationships with her own family forever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Johnstown Flood (1926)
A dramatic recreation of the Johnstown Flood of 1889.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Pearlescent Fog (2025)
In 1882, when Jelena Ilka Marković – the widow of Jevrem Marković, accused of participating in the Topolska Rebellion and summarily executed – attempted to assassinate King Milan Obrenović and thus avenge her husband. She was arrested, and a few months later she was found dead in her prison cell.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Appartement proche Paris, charme atypique (2025)
Five floors. Forty apartments. Rats, leaks and debts. In Pantin, I live in a building with a danger order. Under court order, we have to renovate it. Between Dantesque arguments, missing money and humor as a fire extinguisher, I film our collective rescue.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Off Track (2020)
Two students plot an escape from the campus besieged by police of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in during the student-led anti-extradition movement in 2019.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mountains (2024)
While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Barrier?
The closest matches to The Barrier are The Most Hated Woman in America (2017), All Together Now (2020) and Richard Jewell (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Barrier?
Start with The Most Hated Woman in America (2017), the closest match to The Barrier.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Barrier?
Ikiru (1952), rated 8.3/10 by 1,427 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Barrier?
Hunting Season (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Barrier?
Yes: The Most Hated Woman in America (2017), All Together Now (2020) and Richard Jewell (2019).
How are movies similar to The Barrier chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Barrier, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.