Movies like Backbone
If Backbone hooked you with its horror and drama, these are the films to watch next. Every pick says why it matches.
Repulsion (1965)
Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIt Comes at Night (2017)
Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, a man has established a tenuous domestic order with his wife and son, but this will soon be put to test when a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisExtreme Measures (1996)
Guy Luthan, a British doctor working at a hospital in New York, starts making unwelcome enquiries when the body of a man who died in his emergency room disappears. After the trail leads Luthan to the door of an eminent surgeon at the hospital, Luthan soon finds himself in extreme danger from people who want the hospital's secret to remain undiscovered.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSmile (2022)
After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDevil (2010)
A group of people are trapped in an elevator high above Philadelphia, and one of them is the Devil.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDoctor X (1932)
A wisecracking reporter investigates the cannibalistic 'Moon Killer' murders tied to a medical academy, culminating in a chilling reenactment experiment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDark Waters (2019)
A tenacious attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths to one of the world's largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything — his future, his family, and his own life — to expose the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
What starts as a poignant medical documentary about Deborah Logan's descent into Alzheimer's disease and her daughter's struggles as caregiver degenerates into a maddening portrayal of dementia at its most frightening, as hair-raising events begin to plague the family and crew and an unspeakable malevolence threatens to tear the very fabric of sanity from them all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHereafter (2010)
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDream House (2011)
Publisher Will Atenton quits a lucrative job in New York to relocate his wife, Libby, and their daughters to a quaint town in New England. However, as they settle into their home the Atentons discover that a woman and her children were murdered there, and the surviving husband is the town's prime suspect. With help from a neighbor who was close to the murdered family, Will pieces together a horrifying chain of events.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Dr. Steven Murphy is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who presides over a spotless household with his wife and two children. Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin, a fatherless teen who insinuates himself into the doctor's life in gradually unsettling ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisColossal (2017)
A woman discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which she's suffering.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
Father and son coroners receive a mysterious unidentified corpse with no apparent cause of death. As they attempt to examine the "Jane Doe," they discover increasingly bizarre clues that hold the key to her terrifying secrets.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSynchronic (2020)
Two New Orleans paramedics' lives are ripped apart after encountering a series of horrific deaths linked to a designer drug with bizarre, otherworldly effects.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStonehearst Asylum (2014)
An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFinal Destination 2 (2003)
When Kimberly has a violent premonition of a highway pileup she blocks the freeway, keeping a few others meant to die, safe...Or are they? The survivors mysteriously start dying and it's up to Kimberly to stop it before she's next.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGreta (2019)
A young woman returns a lonely widow’s lost purse, leading to an unlikely relationship between the two — until the young woman discovers the widow might not be all that she seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSinister (2012)
True-crime writer Ellison Oswalt is in a slump; he hasn't had a best seller in more than 10 years and is becoming increasingly desperate for a hit. So, when he discovers the existence of a snuff film showing the deaths of a family, he vows to solve the mystery. He moves his own family into the victims' home and gets to work. However, when old film footage and other clues hint at the presence of a supernatural force, Ellison learns that living in the house may be fatal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShivers (1975)
The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are infected by parasites that turn them into mindless nymphomaniac fiends.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRaising Cain (1992)
Child psychologist Carter Nix is a loving and caring family man, but under this appearance lies a dark and troubled past. Grappling with the consequences of this past on his own psyche and the influence of his returning father and violent brother Cain, Carter becomes involved in a series of murders and kidnappings. Meanwhile, his wife Jenny rekindles an old love affair, placing herself in the crosshairs of her increasingly unstable husband.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSubway in the Sky (1959)
Berlin provides the backdrop for this crime drama that centers on a military doctor falsely accused of dealing illegal drugs. Determined to prove his innocence, he escapes from the MPs and ends up holing up in the apartment his wife rented. He doesn't know that she has sublet the flat to a nightclub singer. When he finds out, he begs the singer to assist him. She is attracted to him and agrees. The doctor believes that his wife is behind the black-market dealings, but in the end, they find the real culprit.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Desert Cathedral (2014)
The true story of a real estate developer who disappeared into the Southwestern desert in 1992, leaving behind a series of VHS tapes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blazing Men (1990)
A hospital in the suburbs of Tokyo. This is a gay hospital. Doctor Goto treats his favorite patient with all his heart, and even takes care of his lower body. On the other hand, he was a bit of a troubled man who gave SM treatment to patients he didn't like...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942)
Dr. Kildare's friend Dr. Gillespie is called in to investigate when a young man suffering from mental problems disappears on a killing spree.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Number 23 (2007)
Animal control officer Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him, as more and more similarities between himself and his literary alter ego seem to arise.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
Ever since killing the Fisherman one year ago, Julie James is still haunted by images of him after her. When her best friend Karla wins free tickets to the Bahamas, Julie finds this a perfect opportunity to finally relax. But someone is waiting for her. Someone who she thought was dead. Someone who is out again for revenge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Innocent (1976)
Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he believes she has been unfaithful he becomes enamored of her again.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl, Interrupted (1999)
Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLeroy (2007)
A gently humorous look at otherness and xenophobia in modern day German with this tale of a black Berlin teen named Leroy who rediscovers his roots after falling for a pretty white girl and meeting her racist family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Backbone?
The closest matches to Backbone are Repulsion, It Comes at Night, Extreme Measures.
How are movies similar to Backbone chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Backbone, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.