Movies like Circus of Horrors (1960)
The best movies like Circus of Horrors (1960) are Frank and Penelope (2022), Saw III (2006) and American Mary (2013). If Circus of Horrors hooked you with its horror and crime, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedInsidious: Out of the Further (2026)7.7/10 from 1,057 votes
- NewestInsidious: Out of the Further (2026)Released 2026
Frank and Penelope (2022)
A tale of love and violence when a man on his emotional last legs finds a savior seductively dancing in a run-down strip club. And a life most certainly headed off a cliff suddenly becomes redirected - as everything is now worth dying for.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSaw III (2006)
Jigsaw has disappeared. Along with his new apprentice Amanda, the puppet-master behind the cruel, intricate games that have terrified a community and baffled police has once again eluded capture and vanished. While city detectives scramble to locate him, Doctor Lynn Denlon and Jeff Reinhart are unaware that they are about to become the latest pawns on his vicious chessboard.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Mary (2013)
A young medical student struggling to pay tuition is drawn into the shady world of underground body-modification.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNightmare Cinema (2018)
A series of down-on-their-luck individuals enter the decrepit and spine-chilling Rialto theater, only to have their deepest and darkest fears brought to life on the silver screen by The Projectionist – a mysterious, ghostly figure who holds the nightmarish futures of all who attend his screenings.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Flesh and the Fiends (1960)
Edinburgh surgeon Dr. Robert Knox requires cadavers for his research into the functioning of the human body; local ne'er-do-wells Burke and Hare find ways to provide him with fresh specimens...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Accursed (2021)
Hana spends twenty years suppressing a maleficent curse that was placed upon her bloodline, only to have a family member knowingly release it forcing her to kill or to be killed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCleaner (2007)
Single father and former cop Tom Cutler has an unusual occupation: he cleans up death scenes. But when he's called in to sterilize a wealthy suburban residence after a brutal shooting, Cutler is shocked to learn he may have unknowingly erased crucial evidence, entangling himself in a dirty criminal cover-up.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSudden Impact (1983)
When a young rape victim takes justice into her own hands and becomes a serial killer, it's up to Dirty Harry Callahan, on suspension from the SFPD, to bring her to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire (2005)
Walker investigates a murder connected with a missing government weapon. In addition, he tries to track down a teen on the run from a crime syndicate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAwake (2007)
While undergoing heart surgery, a man experiences a phenomenon called ‘anesthetic awareness’, which leaves him awake but paralyzed throughout the operation. As various obstacles present themselves, his wife must make life-altering decisions while wrestling with her own personal drama.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHalloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers awakens on Halloween Eve and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInsidious: Out of the Further (2026)
Gemma, a young mother raising her daughter in the house she grew up in, discovers she can travel into The Further, where she possesses an ability to bring what lives there back to the real world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Hand (1981)
Jon Lansdale is a comic book artist who loses his right hand in a car accident. The hand was not found at the scene of the accident, but it soon returns by itself to follow Jon around, and murder those who anger him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisClown (2014)
A loving father finds a clown suit for his son's birthday party, only to realize the suit is part of an evil curse that turns its wearer into a killer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisTightrope (1984)
Wes Block is a detective who's put on the case of a serial killer whose victims are young and pretty women. The murders are getting personal when the killer chooses victims who are acquaintances of Block. Even his daughters are threatened.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTed Bundy: American Boogeyman (2021)
Set in a gritty and decadent 1970s America, American Boogeyman follows the elusive and charming killer and the manhunt that brought him to justice involving the detective and the FBI rookie who coined the phrase ‘serial killer’.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGet Out (2017)
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Evil (1978)
Shortly after moving into a dark, brooding mansion, a psychologist and his co-workers are terrorized by a horrible evil being.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisHappy Birthday to Me (1981)
Virginia is proud that she belongs to a clique. The best students at a private school. But before her 18th birthday, a gruesome set of murders take place and her friends are the ones who are falling prey. Could it be her? She suffers from blackouts due to a freak accident one year earlier. We soon learn the truth behind her accident and what is going on.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNick of Time (1995)
An ordinary man is suddenly forced into a plot to kill a politician in exchange for his kidnapped daughter's freedom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Child I Never Was (2002)
A serial killer dispassionately discusses the nuts and bolts of his grisly avocation, as well as the youthful traumas which helped to mold him into a psychopath, in this disturbing independent drama from Germany, based on the true story of of Germany's most famous child murderer Juergen Bartsch who, between the ages of 15 and 19, abused, tortured and killed four schoolboys in the Ruhr region of Germany from 1962 to 1966.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Friday the 13th (1980)
Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJerry Cotton: Death in the Red Jaguar (1968)
Part Seven in Jerry Cotton Series. The FBI agent tackles an organisation of assassins who kill to order.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
The Devil's Familiar (2020)
Found footage Horror film about two student filmmakers making a documentary about the Ribbersford woods murders that happened in 2006. Sally Edwards was sent down for the murder, but a mist of controversy surrounds the case, with conspiracy theories about a Mythical creature living in the Woods... Elliott and Jake try to find out what really happened back in 2006. A video camera containing a mini dv tape was handed into the Henwick Police station on August 2nd 2019. This is actual Footage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Woman of Straw (1964)
Anthony Richmond schemes to get the fortune of his tyrannical, wheelchair-using tycoon uncle Charles Richmond by persuading Maria, a nurse he employs, to marry him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCarry On Screaming! (1966)
The sinister Dr. Watt has an evil scheme going—he's kidnapping beautiful young women and turning them into mannequins to sell to local stores. Fortunately for him, Detective Sergeant Bung is on the case, and he doesn't have a clue!
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJail Bait (1954)
Don Gregor, the son of famous plastic surgeon Dr. Boris Gregor, begins to hang around with young criminal Vic Brady and carry a gun. The pair attempt an armed holdup, and when things start to go wrong Gregor accidentally kills a night watchman. Fearing that Gregor plans to turn himself in, Brady kills him and blackmails Dr. Gregor into giving him a new face.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisStrangler vs Strangler (1984)
When it comes to crime, Belgrade is same as any other modern metropolis, except for having its own serial killers. That blank is filled when a flower salesman begins strangling women. A popular, but very disturbed rock star soon becomes telepathically connected with the killer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Circus of Horrors?
The closest matches to Circus of Horrors are Frank and Penelope (2022), Saw III (2006) and American Mary (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Circus of Horrors?
Start with Frank and Penelope (2022), the closest match to Circus of Horrors.
What is the highest-rated movie like Circus of Horrors?
Insidious: Out of the Further (2026), rated 7.7/10 by 1,057 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Circus of Horrors?
Insidious: Out of the Further (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Circus of Horrors?
Yes: Frank and Penelope (2022), Saw III (2006) and American Mary (2013).
How are movies similar to Circus of Horrors chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Circus of Horrors, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.