Movies like Encounters in the Milky Way (2025)
The best movies like Encounters in the Milky Way (2025) are Can You Keep a Secret? (2019), Star Trek (2009) and The Philadelphia Experiment (1984). If Encounters in the Milky Way hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedNight on Earth (1991)7.5/10 from 1,111 votes
- NewestYou Can See Everything (2026)Released 2026
Can You Keep a Secret? (2019)
Emma Corrigan, a girl with a few secrets, thinks she’s about to die on a turbulent plane ride. She spills them all to the handsome stranger sitting next to her. At least, she thought he was a stranger. But then, her company’s young and elusive CEO, arrives at the office. It’s him. And he knows every single humiliating detail about her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStar Trek (2009)
The fate of the galaxy rests in the hands of bitter rivals. One, James Kirk, is a delinquent, thrill-seeking Iowa farm boy. The other, Spock, a Vulcan, was raised in a logic-based society that rejects all emotion. As fiery instinct clashes with calm reason, their unlikely but powerful partnership is the only thing capable of leading their crew through unimaginable danger, boldly going where no one has gone before. The human adventure has begun again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
Based on an "actual event" that took place in 1943. About a US Navy Destroyer Escort that disappeared from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and sent two men 40 years into the future to 1984.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNational Geographic: Journey to the Edge of the Universe (2008)
In one single, epic camera move we journey from Earth's surface to the outermost reaches of the universe on a grand tour of the cosmos, to explore newborn stars, distant planets, black holes and beyond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Adam Project (2022)
After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self on a mission to save the future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBabylon 5: The Road Home (2023)
Travel across the galaxy with John Sheridan as he unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Along the way he reunites with some familiar faces, while discovering cosmic new revelations about the history, purpose, and meaning of the Universe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStargate: Continuum (2008)
Ba'al travels back in time and prevents the Stargate program from being started. SG-1 must somehow restore history.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLong Distance (2024)
After crash-landing on an alien planet, an asteroid miner must contend with the challenges of his new surroundings, while making his way across the harsh terrain to the only other survivor – a woman who is trapped in her escape pod.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYou Can See Everything (2026)
Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisVoyagers (2021)
With the future of the human race at stake, a group of young men and women -- bred for intelligence and obedience -- embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet. When they uncover disturbing secrets about the mission, they defy their training and begin to explore their most primitive natures. As life on the ship descends into chaos, they soon become consumed by fear, lust and an insatiable hunger for power.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Time Machine (2002)
Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th-century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds mankind divided into two warring races.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCountdown (1967)
Desperate to land a man on the moon before Russia does, NASA hastily preps a would-be spaceman for a mission that would leave him alone in a lunar shelter for a year.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisInfinite (2021)
Evan McCauley has skills he never learned and memories of places he has never visited. Self-medicated and on the brink of a mental breakdown, a secret group that call themselves “Infinites” come to his rescue, revealing that his memories are real.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpace/Time (2025)
After a fatal test shuts down their project, a disgraced team of scientists enters the criminal underworld to rebuild a forbidden space-bending engine that could rescue humanity or annihilate it entirely.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisFireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020)
This remarkable journey across our planet and universe explores how meteorites, shooting stars, and deep impacts have awoken our wonder about other realms—and make us rethink our destinies.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight on Earth (1991)
A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoonraker (1979)
After Drax Industries' Moonraker space shuttle is hijacked, secret agent James Bond is assigned to investigate, traveling to California to meet the company's owner, the mysterious Hugo Drax. With the help of scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond soon uncovers Drax's nefarious plans for humanity, all the while fending off an old nemesis, Jaws, and venturing to Venice, Rio, the Amazon...and even outer space.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnder the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Frances Mayes, a 35-year-old professor and writer from San Francisco, decides to take a tour of Tuscany following a difficult divorce. After impulsively buying a run-down villa in the Italian countryside, she begins to piece her life back together in unexpected ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStarship Troopers (1997)
Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as "the Bugs."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStowaway (2021)
A three-person crew on a mission to Mars faces an impossible choice when an unplanned passenger jeopardizes the lives of everyone on board.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like Encounters in the Milky Way and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Encounters in the Milky Way?
The closest matches to Encounters in the Milky Way are Can You Keep a Secret? (2019), Star Trek (2009) and The Philadelphia Experiment (1984). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Encounters in the Milky Way?
Start with Can You Keep a Secret? (2019), the closest match to Encounters in the Milky Way.
What is the highest-rated movie like Encounters in the Milky Way?
Night on Earth (1991), rated 7.5/10 by 1,111 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Encounters in the Milky Way?
You Can See Everything (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Encounters in the Milky Way?
Yes: Can You Keep a Secret? (2019), Star Trek (2009) and The Philadelphia Experiment (1984).
How are movies similar to Encounters in the Milky Way chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Encounters in the Milky Way, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.