Movies like Tenth of a Second (1987)
The best movies like Tenth of a Second (1987) are A Dry White Season (1989), Lights Out (2024) and Art of Eight Limbs (2024). If Tenth of a Second hooked you with its thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEscape from Pretoria (2020)7.2/10 from 1,573 votes
- NewestWardriver (2026)Released 2026
A Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLights Out (2024)
A drifting ex-soldier turns underground fighter with the help of a just-released ex-con, pitting him against corrupt cops and hired killers now gunning for him and all those he cares about.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisArt of Eight Limbs (2024)
Four canisters of deadly VX nerve gas have fallen into the hands of an international arms dealer in Myanmar. A CIA recruit delivers a high-tech detection device to an agent already on the ground.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWardriver (2026)
He’s a Wardriver: a hacker who steals from banks, not people—until he’s noticed. Now the money turns violent, and the woman caught in it could save him or kill them both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Ranger (2023)
A Texas Ranger is recruited by British Intelligence to track down a dangerous terrorist and stop him from attacking London.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCatch a Fire (2006)
The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChief of Station (2024)
After learning that the death of his wife was not an accident, a former CIA Station Chief is forced back into the espionage underworld, teaming up with an adversary to unravel a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fast and the Fierce (2017)
When terrorists plant a bomb on a commercial flight, the passengers aboard the plane must fight to keep the plane in the air and all the passengers alive: the bomb is rigged to detonate whenever the plane dips below 500 feet.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisOff the Grid (2025)
After a morally-bankrupt company tries to weaponize a brilliant scientist's revolutionary technology, he goes off the grid to safeguard humanity. When the company sends a strike force to find him, they make their biggest mistake of all – they weaponize the man they are trying to catch.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShadow Master (2022)
After being slain by a group of criminals, a man is reborn with animal-like superpowers and makes it his mission to right the wrongs of his city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRight at Your Door (2006)
A dirty bomb goes off in Los Angeles, jamming freeways and spreading a toxic cloud.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisKing of Killers (2023)
Garan is a part of a group of international hitmen who are contracted to take out the most dangerous killer in the world, only to find out that they're the ones being hunted.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEscape from Pretoria (2020)
South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSoft & Quiet (2022)
Taking place in real time, elementary school teacher Emily organizes a mixer of like-minded women, but an altercation between a woman from Emily’s past and the group leads to a volatile chain of events.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Specialist (1994)
May Munro is a woman obsessed with getting revenge on the people who murdered her parents when she was still a girl. She hires Ray Quick, a retired explosives expert, to kill her parents' killers. When Ned Trent, embittered ex-partner of Quick's, is assigned to protect one of Quick's potential victims, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOur Kind of Traitor (2016)
A young Oxford academic and his attorney girlfriend holiday in Morocco. They bump into a Russian millionaire who owns a peninsula and a diamond watch. He wants a game of tennis. What else he wants propels the lovers on a tortuous journey to the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's intelligence establishment, to Paris and the Alps.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bad Seed Returns (2022)
Several years after the murderous events of the first movie left her father dead, Emma is now living with her aunt Angela and navigating high school. Angela’s husband begins to suspect that Emma may not be as innocent as she appears and suggests sending her off to boarding school. Meanwhile, a new girl at school seems to know Emma’s secrets, leaving Emma no choice but to slip back to her old ways and take care of her enemies by any means necessary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSniper: G.R.I.T. - Global Response & Intelligence Team (2023)
When an international terrorist cult threatens global political stability and kidnaps a fellow agent, Ace Sniper Brandon Beckett and the newly-formed Global Response & Intelligence Team – or G.R.I.T. – led by Colonel Stone must travel across the world to Malta, infiltrate the cult, and take out its leader to free Lady Death and stop the global threat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDangerous (2021)
A reformed sociopath heads to a remote island after the death of his brother. Soon after his arrival, the island falls under siege from a deadly gang of mercenaries, and when he discovers their role in his brother’s demise, he sets out on a relentless quest for vengeance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLondon Recruits (2024)
The story of the Londoners recruited to be freedom fighters during the South African apartheid during the 1960s.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Operation Ogre (1979)
Spain, 1973. Dictator Francisco Franco has ruled the country since 1939 with an iron fist; but he is now a very old and sick man. The future of the weakened regime is in danger. Admiral Carrero Blanco is his natural successor. The Basque terrorist gang ETA decides that he must die to prevent the dictatorship from continuing.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like this22 Minutes (2018)
Events happening in the 22 minutes before, during and after the explosions of the Thamrin bombings. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
War on Terror: KL Anarchy (2023)
Khalid, a rebellious cop from an elite special force must prove he is able to work as a team in order to thwart terrorist threats to bring down Kuala Lumpur.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
13 Bombs (2023)
An organization races against time to uncover the mastermind behind the placement of 13 bombs in Jakarta before the city falls into chaos.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Broken Wings 2: Olivia (2025)
A bomb explodes in a cafe, at the same time as Leong is released from prison. Sadikin orders Pandu to investigate Leong's trail. Pandu's time is increasingly taken up with Olivia, his daughter who needs the presence of a father after her mother died of illness. Luckily there is Suri, Olivia's teacher, who tries to fill the void by approaching Olivia. Because of Olivia, Pandu and Suri's relationship becomes closer. But the situation becomes more dangerous for Pandu because his face is seen when the ambush and revenge action are about to be carried out.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind (1980)
Three lazybones friends manufacture a firebomb and place it in a cinema. Pearl, a sadistic young girl, has observed the scene, follows the bombers and starts to manipulate them. The four criminals plan more and more daring acts.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWithout Warning: Terror in the Towers (1993)
Massive rescue efforts are mobilized to save occupants of New York City's World Trade Center after a terrorist bombing. Based on the events surrounding the bombing of the World Trade Center towers in February 1993.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Hijack 1971 (2024)
In the year 1971, former Korean Air Force fighter pilot Tae-In (Ha Jung-Woo) works as a pilot for a commercial airline. He faces a crisis inside a hijacked flight with the passengers, including Yong-Dae (Yeo Jin-Goo), and his crew members, including Captain Kyu-Sik (Sung Dong-Il) and Flight Attendant Ok-Soon (Chae Soo-Bin).
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Little Drummer Girl (1984)
An American actress with a penchant for lying is forceably recruited by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, to trap a Palestinian bomber, by pretending to be the girlfriend of his dead brother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Tenth of a Second?
The closest matches to Tenth of a Second are A Dry White Season (1989), Lights Out (2024) and Art of Eight Limbs (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Tenth of a Second?
Start with A Dry White Season (1989), the closest match to Tenth of a Second.
What is the highest-rated movie like Tenth of a Second?
Escape from Pretoria (2020), rated 7.2/10 by 1,573 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Tenth of a Second?
Wardriver (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Tenth of a Second?
Yes: A Dry White Season (1989), Lights Out (2024) and Art of Eight Limbs (2024).
How are movies similar to Tenth of a Second chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Tenth of a Second, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.