Movies like The Guardian (1990)
The best movies like The Guardian (1990) are Gate II (1990), Thinner (1996) and Cat People (1982). If The Guardian hooked you with its horror and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAngel Heart (1987)7.1/10 from 1,849 votes
- NewestCheat (2023)Released 2023
Gate II (1990)
It's been five years since Terry's friend Glen discovered The Gate to hell in his backyard. Glen has now moved away and Terry begins practicing rituals in Glen's old house and eventually bringing back demons through The Gate and leading to demoniac possession and near world domination.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThinner (1996)
An obese lawyer finds himself growing "Thinner" when an old Romani man places a hex on him. Now the lawyer must call upon his friends in organized crime to help him persuade the old man to lift the curse. Time is running out for the desperate lawyer as he draws closer to his own death, and grows ever thinner.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisCat People (1982)
After years of separation, Irena Gallier and her minister brother, Paul, reunite in New Orleans. When zoologists capture a wild panther, Irena is drawn to the cat – and zoo curator Oliver to her. Soon, Paul will have to reveal the family secret: that when sexually aroused, they revert into predatory jungle cats.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPumpkinhead (1988)
When a group of teenagers inadvertently kill his only son, Ed Harley seeks the powers of a backwoods witch to bring the child back to life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Kiss (1988)
After the death of her mother, a teenage girl is faced with bizarre supernatural occurrences when her mother's estranged sister arrives and begins to infiltrate her and her father's lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisSometimes They Come Back (1991)
Desperate for a job to help him support his family, Jim Norman takes a position teaching high school in the town where his brother was murdered in front of him by teenage bullies twenty-seven years before. The teens who committed the crime are long dead, but now the kids in Jim's new class keep dying and being replaced by new students who look like the deceased hoodlums.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisSleepwalkers (1992)
Charles Brady and his mother, Mary, are the last of a dying breed whose needs are not of this world. They are Sleepwalkers - able to stay alive only by feeding on the life-force of the innocent, but destined to roam the earth, avoiding discovery while searching for their next victim. That search takes them to the sleepy little town of Travis, Indiana, where beautiful teenager Tanya Robertson is about to become an unwilling pawn in their nightmarish fight for survival.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Temp (1993)
Peter Derns, an executive at Mrs. Appleby's Cooke Company, fears his future prospects are crumbling fast, until the arrival of Kris Bolin, a gorgeous, cooly efficient temp - and sultry temptress - who helps him develop a marketing campaign that slays the competition. But after two executives mysteriously die, Peter discovers his job security may vanish due to the one person he needs to trust: his temp.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe First Power (1990)
A dedicated L.A. police detective and a female psychic must stop a demonic serial killer who was given the powers of resurrection, teleportation and possession.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisDon't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
A young couple inherits an old mansion inhabited by small demon-like creatures who are determined to make the wife one of their own.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHallowed Ground (2007)
After she becomes stranded in a small town, a young woman discovers her arrival there was foretold a century earlier by the town's founding preacher and that she is an integral part of his impending - and terrifying - rebirth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisPet Sematary (1989)
After the Creed family's cat is accidentally killed, a friendly neighbor advises its burial in a mysterious nearby cemetery.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good Son (1993)
A young boy stays with his aunt and uncle, and befriends his cousin who's the same age. But his cousin begins showing increasing signs of psychotic behavior.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStranger in Our House (1979)
After a country family of five take in charming cousin Julie, whose parents recently died in a car crash, their teenage daughter Rachel grows to suspect that Julie has a sinister agenda.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies 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: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSingle White Female (1992)
Having recently split from her fiancé, Allison Jones welcomes new roommate Hedra Carlson. The young women quickly form a bond, but soon Allison begins to notice not all’s well with her new tenant.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngel Heart (1987)
A down-and-out Brooklyn detective is hired to track down a singer on an odyssey that will take him through the desperate streets of Harlem, the smoke-filled jazz clubs of New Orleans, and the swamps of Louisiana and its seedy underworld of voodoo.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Craft (1996)
A Catholic school newcomer falls in with a clique of teen witches who wield their powers against all who dare to cross them -- be they teachers, rivals or meddlesome parents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Kindred (1987)
Amanda's deathbed request to her son, John, was for him to destroy all the lab notes etc. from her last experiment. She also blurts out he had a brother. At the funeral John meets Melissa, who claims to be his mother's biggest fan. Together with some of John's friends they go to Amanda's house, but none are prepared for what they find there.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMikey (1992)
Mikey just needs a good stable home. He's bounced from foster home to foster home his whole life. He finally lands himself with a new loving family, but their perfect little child is not what he appears to be. His previous caretakers all died of mysterious "accidents" that weren't really accidents at all. Mikey is a cold blooded killer, and it doesn't take long for him to aim his sights on his new adoptive family and anyone else who stands in his way.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisHaunted (1995)
Professor David Ash exposes false spiritulists and mediums. He is invited to Edbrook to resolve the fears and torments within its secretive family. Soon after arriving Ash begins to doubt his own senses, and watching the strange behaviour of its residents does not make his task any easier. In time, he finds there's more to Edbrook than even he can debunk.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Night Caller (1998)
For 11 years, Beth's life is limited to working nights in a convenience store while her daytime hours are spent caring for her bed-ridden, bitter and abusive mother. All that keeps her going is a voice on the radio of a psychologist, Dr Roland. Her obsession grows to the point where nothing, not even murder, will stop her from getting to the woman she desires!
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & thriller
To Die For (1988)
L.A. real estate agent Kate Wooten gets a new lease on life when she learns that her new client, a mysterious and handsome man named Vlad, is looking for a house isolated in the Hollywood Hills where he wants to live and doesn't want to be disturbed. It doesn't take long for Kate to fall in love with her new client and to learn that he's a real vampire.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
The Sleeping Car (1990)
Jason moves into an abandoned train car where he resurrects the vicious ghost of his landlady's dead husband... The Mister. After some near-fatal encounters with the violent specter, he consults a local exorcist.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror
The Skeleton Key (2005)
A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDaddy's Little Girl (2014)
After the police find Derek’s daughter brutally murdered on the beach, he vows to make the culprit suffer for his actions, even if that person is ‘part of the family.’ With careful research into the history of torture, Derek prepares himself and his basement for a week of brutal tactics that will make his daughter’s killer feel the pain that he has inflicted upon so many others. In a time when stranger danger is ever present, a single father learns that it’s the ones you trust most who have to be watched the closest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBloodline (2019)
Evan values family above all else, and anyone who gets between him, his wife, and newborn son learns that the hard way. But when it comes to violent tendencies, it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisCheat (2023)
On the surface it's believed to be another urban legend - a supernatural being from the afterlife is violently killing anyone who cheats on their significant other in the small college town of Silvercreek, Pennsylvania. But the town's unusually high suicide rate is finally convincing both locals and college students that everything is not as it seems. When Maeve - a female college student - sleeps with Charlie, the married man of the host family she is staying with, both sense the deadly curse is closing in on them. Unable to get anyone to believe them, Maeve and Charlie seek out a local history student to help find answers and figure out a way to defend themselves. It all comes undone, however, as several people are horrifically killed by the savage being - one-by-one at a rapid pace. Eventually, Maeve, Charlie and the few survivors band together in an attempt to defeat the monster once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlood Punch (2014)
Milton, a college dropout, was only supposed to cook meth for one day. Broken out of rehab by a brash young woman and her trigger-happy ("ex") boyfriend and driven to a remote cabin the woods, Milton finds himself drawn into a dangerous love triangle gone haywire. The couple's deadpan half-truths spin around Milton like a song on repeat. They seem to read him like an open book, until a mysterious message opens his eyes to his cursed existence. With unlimited ammunition, any hunting tool they could desire, and an ever-growing body count, for what did Milton really sign up?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwisted Nerve (1968)
Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Guardian?
The closest matches to The Guardian are Gate II (1990), Thinner (1996) and Cat People (1982). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Guardian?
People who watched The Guardian most often go on to Gate II (1990), Thinner (1996) and Cat People (1982).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Guardian?
Angel Heart (1987), rated 7.1/10 by 1,849 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Guardian?
Cheat (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Guardian?
Yes: Gate II (1990), Thinner (1996) and Cat People (1982).
How are movies similar to The Guardian chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Guardian, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.