Movies like The Phone Call (1989)
The best movies like The Phone Call (1989) are American Son (2019), I Am Elizabeth Smart (2017) and Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012). If The Phone Call hooked you with its horror and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBrokeback Mountain (2005)7.8/10 from 7,818 votes
- NewestThe Surrender (2025)Released 2025
American Son (2019)
Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)
The story of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and captivity, as told from her perspective.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWerewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012)
Set in a 19th century village, a young man studying under a local doctor joins a team of hunters on the trail of a wolf-like creature.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Return (2006)
Joanna Mills has a successful career but feels her personal life is spinning out of control. She has few friends, an estranged father, and a crazy ex-boyfriend who is stalking her. Joanna begins having terrifying visions of a woman's murder, and it seems that she is the killer's next target. Determined to solve the mystery and escape her apparent fate, Joanna follows her visions to the victim's hometown and finds that some secrets just do not stay buried.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Transfiguration (2016)
When troubled teen Milo, who has a fascination with vampire lore, meets the equally alienated Sophie, the two form a bond that begins to blur Milo's fantasy into reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhen a Stranger Calls Back (1993)
Jill Johnson, now a crisis center counselor, reunites with retired detective John Clifford to hunt a killer stalking a coed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisGirl in the Bunker (2018)
When Elizabeth is abducted by a fugitive sexual predator, she realizes she must take matters into her own hands and plot her escape. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisResurrection (2022)
A woman's carefully constructed life is upended when an unwelcome shadow from her past returns, forcing her to confront the monster she's evaded for two decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisMr. Frost (1990)
Frost is arrested and committed for murder after he is apprehended burying his victims in the garden. However, even while under psychiatric care and tight hospital security, it becomes obvious that Mr. Frost is not all he seems to be.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fan (1981)
A record store clerk is an obsessed fan of an actress of stage and screen. However, when faced with rejection, the fan strikes out in increasingly violent ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisSavaged (2014)
After thugs brutalize a deaf-mute woman, the spirit of an Apache warrior takes over her lifeless body and sets out on a bloodthirsty quest for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNeedful Things (1993)
A mysterious new shop opens in a small town which always seems to stock the deepest desires of each shopper, with a price far heavier than expected.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Surrender (2025)
A fraught mother-daughter relationship is put to a terrifying test when the family patriarch dies, and the grieving mother hires a mysterious stranger to bring her husband back from the dead.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Vanishing (1993)
The boyfriend of an abducted woman never gives up the search as the abductor looks on.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRay Donovan: The Movie (2022)
A showdown decades in the making brings the Donovan family legacy full circle. As the events that made Ray who he is today finally come to light, the Donovans find themselves drawn back to Boston to face the past. Each of them struggles to overcome their violent upbringing, but destiny dies hard, and only their fierce love for each other keeps them in the fight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBug (2007)
In Oklahoma, Agnes, a lonely waitress living in an isolated and dilapidated roadside motel, meets Peter, a quiet and mysterious man with whom she establishes a peculiar relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCheaters (2000)
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBaby Blues (2008)
On a secluded family farm, a mother suffers a psychotic break due to postpartum depression, forcing the eldest son to protect his sibling from the mother they have always known and loved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlackwater Lane (2024)
An American school teacher in England drives past an abandoned car late one night, unaware that the driver was the victim of a murder. As she comes to terms with the realization, seemingly supernatural events start to affect the gothic manor she lives in with her husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIntruders (2015)
Anna suffers from agoraphobia so crippling that when a trio of criminals break into her house, she cannot bring herself to flee. But what the intruders don't realize is that agoraphobia is not her only psychosis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisLost Night (1974)
Returning from Rome, Warsaw writer Wacław Kisielecki's car breaks down late one evening on a country road, forcing him and his chauffeur, Konstanty, to seek lodging at a nearby manor house. Its owner is a young man, Jan, who has been managing the dilapidated estate since his mother's death. All that remains of the former estate are the manor house, a vast orchard, and two servants: Stanisław, the caretaker, and his beautiful young wife, Faustyna, who runs Jan's household.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
All About My Mother (1999)
Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMaybe... Maybe Not (1994)
The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalk on Water (2004)
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBilly Elliot (2000)
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEggs, Zombies, and Bacon (2017)
A character-driven comedy about Rachel who — struggling to accept the complexity of her sexuality — tries to run away from her latest mistake — a one-night-stand with a girl named Lena — only to find herself trapped in the house by a looming horde of zombies outside. Now, forced to stare at nothing but Lena's eyes, Rachel tries everything and anything to steer the conversation away from breakfast, and even worse, her sexuality.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Eva (2016)
Gabriel, a shy boy, decides to enlist the services of Eva to help him confront his sexual desires. Although he isn't able to make love with her, their meeting takes an unexpected turn.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Xenia (2014)
Strangers in their own birthplace, 16-year-old Danny and 18-year-old Odysseus cross the entire country in search of their Greek father, after their Albanian mother passes away.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Education (2004)
When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrokeback Mountain (2005)
In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Phone Call?
The closest matches to The Phone Call are American Son (2019), I Am Elizabeth Smart (2017) and Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Phone Call?
Start with American Son (2019), the closest match to The Phone Call.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Phone Call?
Brokeback Mountain (2005), rated 7.8/10 by 7,818 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Phone Call?
The Surrender (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Phone Call?
Yes: American Son (2019), I Am Elizabeth Smart (2017) and Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012).
How are movies similar to The Phone Call chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Phone Call, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.