Movies like Chronos (1985)
The best movies like Chronos (1985) are The City Dark (2012), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Microcosmos (1996). If Chronos hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHuman (2015)8.4/10 from 317 votes
- NewestArchitecton (2024)Released 2024
The City Dark (2012)
When filmmaker Ian Cheney moves to New York City and discovers skies almost completely devoid of stars, a simple question – what do we lose, when we lose the night? – spawns a journey to America's brightest and darkest corners. Astronomers, cancer researchers, ecologists and philosophers provide glimpses of what is lost in the glare of city lights. Blending a humorous, searching tone with poetic footage of the night sky, what unravels is an introduction to the science of the dark, and an exploration of the human relationship to the stars.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Powaqqatsi (1988)
An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMicrocosmos (1996)
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEarth: One Amazing Day (2017)
An astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world. Over the course of one single day, we track the sun from the highest mountains to the remotest islands to exotic jungles.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKoyaanisqatsi (1983)
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSamsara (2011)
Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisNaqoyqatsi (2002)
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBaraka (1992)
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAmazing Journeys (1999)
By land, by air, and by sea, viewers can now experience the struggle that millions of creatures endure in the name of migration as wildlife photographers show just how deeply survival instincts have become ingrained into to the animals of planet Earth. From the monarch butterflies that swarm the highlands of Mexico to the birds who navigate by the stars and the millions of red crabs who make the perilous land journey across Christmas Island, this release offers a look at animal instinct in it's purest form.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Arcadia (2017)
A provocative and poetic exploration of how the British people have seen their own land through more than a century of cinema. A hallucinated journey of immense beauty and brutality. A kaleidoscopic essay on how magic and madness have linked human beings to nature since the beginning of time.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The End of Time (2012)
Working at the limits of what can easily be expressed, filmmaker Peter Mettler takes on the elusive subject of time, and once again turns his camera to filming the unfilmable. From the particle accelerator in Switzerland, where scientists seek to probe regions of time we cannot see, to lava flows in Hawaii which have overwhelmed all but one home on the south side of Big Island; from the disintegration of inner-city Detroit, to a Hindu funeral rite near the place of Buddha's enlightenment, Mettler explores our perception of time. He dares to dream the movie of the future while also immersing us in the wonder of the everyday. THE END OF TIME, at once personal, rigorous and visionary, Peter Mettler has crafted a film as compelling and magnificent as its subject.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Visitors (2013)
From the director of KOYAANISQATSI, an astonishing film that documents the drama of how we both live and witness what we experience. Shot in rich black and white Godfrey Reggio's latest film finds the full spectrum of emotion in human faces, gorgeous landscapes and even the behavior of an especially expressive gorilla.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Seasons (1975)
The last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
Why it matches: Fans watch both
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOceans (2010)
An ecological drama/documentary, filmed throughout the globe. Part thriller, part meditation on the vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRivers and Tides (2001)
Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Clock (2010)
A 24-hour compendium of time-themed film clips, all synched to the time that appears on the clocks and watches within.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Decasia: The State of Decay (2002)
A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Love Life of an Octopus (1967)
An octopus slithers into a narrow crack near the shore; we see its eye up close. It feeds on a crab. In spring it's time to mate. A male grabs a female; he inserts his third arm in her respiratory cavity. We watch another pair: a larger female is the aggressor here. Mating is repeated over hours and days. The female releases strings of fertilized eggs that hang from the roof of a nest. She guards her spawn for a month, fanning the strings to circulate water for oxygen and cleanliness.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)
A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Logistics (2012)
Logistics or Logistics Art Project is an experimental art film. At 51,420 minutes (857 hours or 35 days and 17 hours), it is the longest movie ever made. A 37 day-long road movie in the true sense of the meaning. The work is about Time and Consumption. It brings to the fore what is often forgotten in our digital, ostensibly fast-paced world: the slow, physical freight transportation that underpins our economic reality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Enchanted Kingdom (2014)
An extraordinary, spell-binding journey through the realms of nature to discover that the natural world is stranger, more magical, more mystical than anything you could possibly imagine. You'll be propelled from enchanted forests to the edge of the underworld, from a paranormal planet into fantastical seas, from celestial mountains through mercurial waters, finally to experience the ultimate celebration of nature's magic, the greatest gathering of wildlife on Earth. You won't believe your eyes or ears as you meet amazing creatures and experience nature as it's never been seen before, eye-to-eye with the creatures, on an adventure where you will truly believe the real world is more extraordinary and awe-inspiring than any fiction.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Planetary (2015)
Planetary presents a stunning visual portrait of our Earth, taking us on a journey across continents: from the African savannah to the Himalayas, and from the heart of Tokyo to the view of our fragile planet from orbit. Through intimate interviews with a diversity of people, from NASA astronauts and environmentalists to philosophers and Tibetan lamas, the film explores our shared future. It suggests that the key to transforming our civilisation lies in an understanding that all life is inseparably interconnected, and that we cannot change the world unless we change the way we see ourselves, our planet, and the wider cosmos we are embedded within.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Earthlings (2005)
Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, Earthlings chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHuman (2015)
A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisArchitecton (2024)
An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone. Victor Kossakovsky raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Fata Morgana (1972)
Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDahomey (2024)
Thousands of royal artifacts of Dahomey, a West African kingdom, were taken by French colonists in the 19th century for collection and display in Paris. Centuries later, a fraction returned to their home in modern-day Benin. This dramatized documentary follows the journey of 26 of the treasures as told by cultural art historians, embattled university students, and one of the repatriated statues himself.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAshes and Snow (2005)
Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMondo Cane (1962)
A documentary consisting of a series of travelogue vignettes providing glimpses into cultural practices throughout the world intended to shock or surprise, including an insect banquet and a memorable look at a practicing South Pacific cargo cult.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Chronos?
The closest matches to Chronos are The City Dark (2012), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Microcosmos (1996). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Chronos?
People who watched Chronos most often go on to The City Dark (2012), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Microcosmos (1996).
What is the highest-rated movie like Chronos?
Human (2015), rated 8.4/10 by 317 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Chronos?
Architecton (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Chronos?
Yes: The City Dark (2012), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Earth: One Amazing Day (2017).
How are movies similar to Chronos chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Chronos, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.