Movies like The Infinite Monkey Theorem (2025)

2073 (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 science fiction & drama

Jonathan (2018)

Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction

Victor Frankenstein (2015)

While searching for animal body parts at a London circus, radical scientist Victor Frankenstein meets gifted surgeon Igor Strausman. Not only does the brilliant doctor offer Strausman his friendship, but also a chance to work with him on groundbreaking research that could change the world forever. When Victor's experiments with life and death go too far, only Igor can bring him back from the brink of madness and save him from his monstrous creation.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction

Cloud Atlas (2012)

A set of six nested stories spanning time between the 19th century and a distant post-apocalyptic future. Cloud Atlas explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave through the story as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. Based on the award winning novel by David Mitchell. Directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction

No Escape (1994)

In the year 2022, a ruthless prison warden has created the ultimate solution for his most troublesome and violent inmates: Absolom, a secret jungle island where prisoners are abandoned and left to die. But Marine Captain John Robbins, convicted of murdering a commanding officer, is determined to escape the island in order to reveal the truth behind his murderous actions and clear his name.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction

After the Dark (2013)

At an international school in Jakarta, a philosophy teacher challenges his class of twenty graduating seniors to choose which ten of them would take shelter underground and reboot the human race in the event of a nuclear apocalypse.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Astronaut Taylor crash lands on a distant planet ruled by apes who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Taylor finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama

The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act (2026)

With Caine gone and the circus dark, the cast are left with only the mistakes and traumas of their pasts to keep them company. As the prospect of eternity closes in around them, they discover the truth about the Digital Circus and its history. Will they come to terms with what they uncover, or will they make... the other choice? Also, presumably at some point someone says something funny, because this ending can’t be THAT depressing, can it? A theatrical screening of episode 8 and the all new, hour-long episode 9.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction

Things to Come (1936)

The story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction

THX 1138 (1971)

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama

Bronson (2009)

A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Inherit the Wind (1960)

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)

In 1971, Stanford's Professor Philip Zimbardo conducts a controversial psychology experiment in which college students pretend to be either prisoners or guards, but the proceedings soon get out of hand. Based on a true story.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Max imagines running away from his mom and sailing to a far-off land where large talking beasts—Ira, Carol, Douglas, the Bull, Judith and Alexander—crown him as their king, play rumpus, build forts and discover secret hideaways.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Experiment (2010)

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

The world is shocked by the appearance of three talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a spacecraft. Intrigued by their intelligence, humans use them for research - until the apes attempt to escape.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction

Instinct (1999)

In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything—even put his very life on the line—in a harrowing attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hollow Man (2000)

Cocky researcher Sebastian Caine is working on a project to make living creatures invisible. Determined to achieve the ultimate breakthrough, Caine pushes his team to move to the next phase — using himself as the subject. The test is a success, but when the process can't be reversed and Caine seems doomed to future without flesh, he starts to turn increasingly dangerous.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction

Zardoz (1974)

In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction

The Quiet Earth (1985)

After a top-secret experiment misfires, a scientist may be the only man left alive in the world.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & science fiction

Any Last Words (TBA)

The crew are missing, the ship is damaged, the salvage is at risk. With no help coming and the oxygen running low, an officer and private begin to mistrust one another as their morals and mortality are put to the ultimate test.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & drama

Escape from L.A. (1996)

Into the 9.6-quaked Los Angeles of 2013 comes Snake Plissken. His job: wade through L.A.'s ruined landmarks to retrieve a doomsday device.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction

Lucifer, My Love (2022)

A man's life becomes threatened after he goes on a date with a woman who's in love with the Devil.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Gridiron Gang (2006)

Under the leadership of their counselor, teenagers at a juvenile detention center gain self-esteem by playing football together. Based on a true story.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Voyager 1 (2024)

Under the supervision of the tyrannous ruler Supremo, a fleet of aliens responsible for the creation of the universe conduct their daily work around the Milky Way. Among them is a curious alien called Melius, who dreams of leaving their weary job as a star polisher to explore distant planets. When the space probe ‘Voyager 1’ crashes into their ship, Melius sees their chance of escaping using the probe’s coordinates for planet Earth. What follows is an adventure full of extraordinary surprises and new friends, where our hero will be forced to choose between duty and love, their teachings and beliefs.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction

Animal (2005)

His name: infamous. His reputation: ruthless. But when James "Animal"Allen is locked up in a maximum security prison, he meets a revolutionary who changes his life. Now a reformed man, James is released only to find that his own son has assumed a life of crime and violence. Can a father haunted by his past redeem his family from the very streets he created, or will he be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice?

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Lunchbox (2009)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Hunger (2008)

The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Lock Up (1989)

Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama