Movies like Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)
The best movies like Tarzan the Ape Man (1981) are Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) and Carry On Up the Jungle (1970). If Tarzan the Ape Man hooked you with its action and adventure, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedOnce Upon a Deadpool (2018)7.1/10 from 886 votes
- NewestBalls Up (2026)Released 2026
Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)
A group of archaeologists asks Tarzan to help them find an ancient city in a hidden valley of women. He refuses, but Boy is tricked into doing the job. The queen of the women asks Tarzan to help them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989)
The U.S. government, eager to protect the nation's avocado supplies, recruits feminist professor Margo Hunt to make contact with the Piranha Women, an all-female tribe who believe men are only good as a source of food. Accompanying Dr. Hunt on her trip are Jim, a guide of questionable competence, and Bunny, a student of unquestionable incompetence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisCarry On Up the Jungle (1970)
The Carry On team send up the Tarzan tradition in great style. Lady Evelyn Bagley mounts an expedition to find her long-lost baby. Bill Boosey is the fearless hunter and guide. Prof. Tinkle is searching for the rare Oozalum bird. Everything is going swimmingly until a gorilla enters the camp, and then the party is captured by an all female tribe from Aphrodisia...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisRomancing the Stone (1984)
Though she can spin wild tales of passionate romance, novelist Joan Wilder has no life of her own. Then one day adventure comes her way in the form of a mysterious package. It turns out that the parcel is the ransom she'll need to free her abducted sister, so Joan flies to South America to hand it over. But she gets on the wrong bus and winds up hopelessly stranded in the jungle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946)
A tribe devoted to the leopard cult is dedicated to preventing civilization from moving further into Africa.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Jewel of the Nile (1985)
Joan Wilder is thrust back into a world of murder, chases, foreign intrigue... and love. This time out she's duped by a duplicitous Arab dignitary who brings her to the Middle East, ostensibly to write a book about his life. Of course, he's up to no good, and Joan is just another pawn in his wicked game. But Jack Colton and his sidekick Ralph show up to help our intrepid heroine save the day.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTarzan's Desert Mystery (1943)
A letter from Jane, who is nursing British troops, asks Tarzan's help in obtaining a malaria serum extractable from jungle plants. Tarzan and Boy set out across the desert looking for the plants. Along the way they befriend a stranded American lady magician.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAfrica Screams (1949)
When bookseller Buzz cons Diana into thinking that his friend Stanley knows all there is to know about Africa, they are abducted and ordered to lead Diana and her henchmen to an African tribe in search of a fortune in jewels.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisI'm for the Hippopotamus (1979)
In 1950, in Africa. Tom organizes safaris for tourists, secretly equipping them with guns loaded with blanks. When Slim, Tom’s cousin—a sly slacker and staunch environmentalist—arrives, the two men come into conflict with Jack Ormond, a local animal trafficker. A doctor, a friend of the duo, denounces Mr. Ormond’s exploitation of animals in a newspaper, prompting Ormond to send his henchmen to destroy the clinic where the good doctor practices. But at the medical facility, Ormond’s henchmen find Tom and Slim waiting for them, and in the blink of an eye, the two cousins wipe out these thugs in a brawl. Ormond then tries to bribe the two cousins, and when that fails, has them imprisoned for a theft they never committed. After escaping from prison, the two men rush toward Ormond’s ship, beating the merchant’s men to a pulp...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGreen Mansions (1959)
A young Venezuelan idealist flees his native land to escape a revolution. Hoping to find peace, he goes to the mountains and the forests of the Amazon. There he encounters Rima, the Bird Girl, an orphan living a life of nature, who is feared by a local jungle tribe.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Tarzan Triumphs (1943)
Zandra, white princess of a lost civilization, comes to Tarzan for help when Nazis invade the jungle with plans to conquer her people and take their wealth. Tarzan, the isolationist, becomes involved after the Nazis shoot at him and capture Boy: "Now Tarzan make war!"
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Emerald Forest (1985)
For ten years, engineer Bill Markham has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. This is when Bill's adventure truly begins.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFirewalker (1986)
A pair of adventurers try to track down an ancient Aztec/Mayan/Egyptian/Apache horde of gold.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisEmanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)
Intrepid photographer Emanuelle is taken deep into the Amazonian jungle to search for a cannibalistic tribe long believed to be extinct.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisSlave of the Cannibal God (1978)
A woman and her brother fly to New Guinea to look for a lost expedition, led by her husband, which has vanished in the great jungle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlack Mama, White Mama (1973)
When two troublemaking female prisoners (one a revolutionary, the other a former harem-girl) can't seem to get along, they are chained together and extradited for safekeeping. The women, still chained together, stumble, stab, and cat-fight their way across the wilderness, igniting a bloody shootout between gangsters and a group of revolutionaries.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action
SnoozefestMovies like thisFarewell to the King (1989)
An American soldier who escapes the execution of his comrades by Japanese soldiers in Borneo during WWII becomes the leader of a personal empire among the headhunters in this war story told in the style of Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. The American is reluctant to rejoin the fight against the Japanese on the urging of a British commando team but conducts a war of vengeance when the Japanese attack his adopted people.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAce Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)
Summoned from an ashram in Tibet, Ace finds himself on a perilous journey into the jungles of Africa to find Shikaka, the missing sacred animal of the friendly Wachati tribe. He must accomplish this before the wedding of the Wachati's Princess to the prince of the warrior Wachootoos. If Ace fails, the result will be a vicious tribal war.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKing Solomon's Mines (1950)
Fortune hunter Allan Quatermain teams up with a resourceful woman to help her find her missing husband lost in the wilds of 1900s Africa while being pursued by hostile tribes and a rival German explorer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSwashbuckler (1976)
A pirate and a hot-tempered noblewoman join forces to protect Jamaica from a tyrant.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTarzan the Ape Man (1932)
James Parker and Harry Holt are on an expedition in Africa in search of the elephant burial grounds that will provide enough ivory to make them rich. Parker's beautiful daughter Jane arrives unexpectedly to join them. Jane is terrified when Tarzan and his ape friends abduct her, but when she returns to her father's expedition she has second thoughts about leaving Tarzan.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHatari! (1962)
A female wildlife photographer arrives on an East African reservation where a group of men trap wild animals for zoos and circuses.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Golden Child (1986)
After a Tibetan boy, the mystical Golden Child, is kidnapped by the evil Sardo Numspa, humankind's fate hangs in the balance. On the other side of the world in Los Angeles, the priestess Kee Nang seeks the Chosen One, who will save the boy from death. When Nang sees social worker Chandler Jarrell on television discussing his ability to find missing children, she solicits his expertise, despite his skepticism over being "chosen."
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisCaveman (1981)
Disgraced and cast out of his tribe for lusting after Lana, the mate of the tribe's head muscle man, Atouk stumbles along gathering other misfits and learning a bit about the world outside of his cave. Eventually he and friends Lar and Tala learn the secrets of fire, cooked meat, and how to defend themselves from the brutal, yet very stupid dinosaurs.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHard Ticket to Hawaii (1987)
A Molokai-based civilian pilot and an undercover DEA agent intercept a delivery of diamonds intended for druglord Seth Romero. Seth, his henchmen, and other island undesirables launch a full-scale assault on the duo. If they're going to survive, they'll need the help of agent Rowdy Abilene and his partner/kickboxing expert Jade.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisBalls Up (2026)
Two marketing executives go "balls out" and pitch a bold full‑coverage condom sponsorship with the World Cup. After their drunken celebration in Brazil sparks a global scandal, they must outrun furious fans, criminals, and power-hungry officials to salvage their careers and make it home alive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & action
SnoozefestMovies like thisOnce Upon a Deadpool (2018)
A kidnapped Fred Savage is forced to endure Deadpool's PG-13 rendition of Deadpool 2, as a Princess Bride-esque story full of magic, wonder, and zero Fs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPlease Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (2023)
When three friends who live together realize that they don't like their life trajectory, they set off to find a gold treasure that is rumored to be buried in the nearby mountain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Ninja (1985)
Joe Armstrong, an orphaned drifter with little respect for much other than martial arts, finds himself on an American Army base in the Philippines after a judge gives him a choice of enlistment or prison. On one of his first missions driving a convoy, his platoon is attacked by a group of rebels who try to steal the weapons the platoon is transporting and kidnap the base colonel's daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wild Geese (1978)
A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & adventure
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Tarzan the Ape Man?
The closest matches to Tarzan the Ape Man are Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) and Carry On Up the Jungle (1970). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Tarzan the Ape Man?
People who watched Tarzan the Ape Man most often go on to Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) and Carry On Up the Jungle (1970).
What is the highest-rated movie like Tarzan the Ape Man?
Once Upon a Deadpool (2018), rated 7.1/10 by 886 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Tarzan the Ape Man?
Balls Up (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Tarzan the Ape Man?
Yes: Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) and Carry On Up the Jungle (1970).
How are movies similar to Tarzan the Ape Man chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Tarzan the Ape Man, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.