Movies like J.A.W. (2011)
The best movies like J.A.W. (2011) are Ghost Recon: Alpha (2012), Space/Time (2025) and Spectral (2016). If J.A.W. hooked you with its science fiction and action, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCarne (1991)6.8/10 from 257 votes
- NewestRage of Stars (2026)Released 2026
Ghost Recon: Alpha (2012)
Ghost Recon: Alpha sees a team led by Ghost Leader infiltrate a trade at a Russian depot between a general and a mysterious other figure.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies 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 · both science fiction & action
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisSlash/Back (2022)
In a remote Arctic community, a group of Inuit girls fight off an alien invasion, all while trying to make it to the coolest party in town.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGemini Man (2019)
Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRage of Stars (2026)
A story about a woman from the International Special Forces Unit, who has a premonition about the impending end of humanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCode 8 Part II (2024)
In a world where superpowered people are heavily policed by robots, an ex-con teams up with a drug lord he despises to protect a teen from a corrupt cop.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMonster Hunters (2020)
When an alien prison ship crash lands and unleashes creature after creature in the California desert, they make quick work of the army that tries to stop them. Now, the only hope of stopping the aliens rests with a secret branch of the government specializing in alien weaponry. But with the team untested in actual combat, the battle for Earth will be brutal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOsiris (2025)
Special Forces commandos on a mission are abducted mid-operation by a mysterious spacecraft. Upon waking aboard, they find themselves prey to a relentless alien race in a fight for survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & action
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 thisAfterburn (2025)
Set against the backdrop of a postapocalyptic Earth whose Eastern Hemisphere was destroyed by a massive solar flare, leaving what life remains mutated from radiation and fallout. The story revolves around a group of treasure hunters who extract such objects as the Mona Lisa, the Rosetta Stone and the Crown Jewels while facing rival hunters, mutants and pirates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 355 (2022)
A group of top female agents from American, British, Chinese, Colombian, and German government agencies are drawn together to try and stop an organization from acquiring a deadly weapon to send the world into chaos.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMonsters of Man (2020)
A robotics company vying to win a lucrative military contract team up with a corrupt CIA agent to conduct an illegal live field test. They deploy four weaponized prototype robots into a suspected drug manufacturing camp in the Golden Triangle, assuming they'd be killing drug runners that no one would miss. Six doctors on a humanitarian mission witness the brutal slaughter and become prime targets.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Signal (2007)
A horror film told in three parts, from three perspectives, in which a mysterious transmission that turns people into killers invades every cell phone, radio, and television.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies 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 & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPeter's To-Do List (2019)
On the eve of his departure to Europe, Peter Parker tells Ned Leeds that he has several things to do before they leave.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once again as the journey of Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron continues. With the power and knowledge of generations behind them, the final battle begins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFinal Flight of the Osiris (2003)
Immediately before the events of The Matrix Reloaded, the crew of the hovercraft Osiris discovers a quarter of a million sentinels drilling through the surface of the earth towards the last human city of Zion. But can the Osiris survive long enough to warn Zion?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChief of Station (2024)
After learning that the death of his wife was not an accident, a former CIA Station Chief is forced back into the espionage underworld, teaming up with an adversary to unravel a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisContainment (2015)
Neighbors in a block wake one morning to find they have been sealed inside their apartments. Can they work together to find out why? Or will they destroy each other in their fight to escape?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisAthena (2017)
Two technicians are stranded on a foreign planet by an unexplained explosion and must act fast to stay alive when their rescue team turns out to be a hit squad.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & action
Cross (2011)
First a boy is forced to run. Then he runs on his own. Then he watches another one run.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & science fiction
Apparat (TBA)
A middle aged, married couple spend a night at their desert cabin. What was planned as an anniversary getaway erupts into a brutalizing void of two tortured souls.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
The Uncanny Valley (2021)
Desperate for a clue to a mysterious case, an Investigator pushes for a last-minute interview with his only witness: a corrupt A.I. Now the Investigator has 10 minutes to find out what the A.I. knows before it is dismantled by the scientists.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Carne (1991)
After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPig (1999)
A young man journeys through a desert, where he is kidnapped by a sadistic stranger clad in a pig mask. The stranger proceeds to brutally torture the young man, who then finds himself escaping into his imagination, with fantasy and reality intersecting.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
The Vandal (2021)
Set in a world not unlike mid-20th century America, The Vandal centers on Harold, whose tormented search for peace from traumatic loss results in an unexpectedly destructive awakening after he undergoes a lobotomy. When the procedure “turns his mind inside out” and his great love is suddenly gone, Harold’s desperate search intensifies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
CLEAN (TBA)
"Have you ever answered the wrong call—only to change a life? When a middle-aged sanitation worker picks up a ringing helpline phone, she becomes an unexpected lifeline to a young woman in despair, revealing the quiet power of empathy from society’s most overlooked."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Miss Fortune (2022)
A young queer girl is entered into an eerie beauty pageant, of unknown stakes, that ultimately turns against her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Return (2008)
Polish animator Anna Błaszczyk’s humorous short—a collage of drawing, cut-out, and computer animation—was inspired by Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel Return from the Stars, a time-paradox tale of an astronaut who returns to Earth after many years away.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like J.A.W.?
The closest matches to J.A.W. are Ghost Recon: Alpha (2012), Space/Time (2025) and Spectral (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after J.A.W.?
Start with Ghost Recon: Alpha (2012), the closest match to J.A.W..
What is the highest-rated movie like J.A.W.?
Carne (1991), rated 6.8/10 by 257 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like J.A.W.?
Rage of Stars (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like J.A.W.?
Yes: Ghost Recon: Alpha (2012), Space/Time (2025) and Spectral (2016).
How are movies similar to J.A.W. chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside J.A.W., then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.