Movies like Insomnia (2012)
The best movies like Insomnia (2012) are Before I Wake (2016), The Return (2006) and Malignant (2021). If Insomnia hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Insomnia
Quick picks
- Highest ratedA Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)7.4/10 from 6,065 votes
- NewestYou Shall Not Sleep Tonight (2024)Released 2024
Before I Wake (2016)
An orphaned child's dreams—and nightmares—manifest physically as he sleeps.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMalignant (2021)
Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities with a mysterious tie to her past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe I Inside (2004)
When Simon awakens in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal accident, amnesia has erased the last two years from his memory. He learns that his brother was killed, he has married a woman he doesn't remember and he's haunted by strange visions of the woman he loved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisMadhouse (1974)
A horror movie star returns to his famous role after spending years in a mental institution, but the character seems to be committing murders independent of his will.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYou Shall Not Sleep Tonight (2024)
A boy is haunted by terrifying nightmares where a monster lurks inside the closet. To his relief, his father appears in the middle of the night helping him to face his fears. But the boy will begin to question the true nature of these apparitions, having to face the truth about his father's destiny and the evil force that threatens to consume him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Score to Settle (2019)
A former mob enforcer who is released from prison after serving 22 years for a crime he didn't commit sets out on a path for revenge against the people who wronged him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisKing of the Ants (2004)
A young drifter, struggling to makes ends meet, accepts a job to kill a prominent accountant. When he isn't paid for the hit, revenge is now his path.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisThirteen at Dinner (1985)
Actress Jane Wilkinson wants a divorce, but her husband, Lord Edgware, refuses. She convinces Hercule Poirot to use his famed tact and logic to make her case. Lord Edgware turns up murdered, a well-placed knife wound at the base of his neck. It will take the precise Poirot to sort out the lies from the alibis - and find the criminal before another victim dies.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMiss Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1992)
A town busybody is poisoned at a busy reception in the home of famous film star Marina Gregg. The poisoned drink seemed intended for Marina, but Miss Marple is not so sure. She sets out to discover the true identity of the killer before he or she can strike again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Study in Terror (1965)
When Watson reads from the newspaper there have been two similar murders near Whitechapel in a few days, Sherlock Holmes' sharp deductive is immediately stimulated to start its merciless method of elimination after observation of every apparently meaningless detail. He guesses right the victims must be street whores, and doesn't need long to work his way trough a pawn shop, an aristocratic family's stately home, a hospital and of course the potential suspects and (even unknowing) witnesses who are the cast of the gradually unraveled story of the murderer and his motive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Night Walker (1964)
A woman is haunted by recurring nightmares, which seem to be instigated by her late husband who supposedly was killed in a fire.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Number 23 (2007)
Animal control officer Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him, as more and more similarities between himself and his literary alter ego seem to arise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuper Dark Times (2017)
Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives, but when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFear in the Night (1972)
It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Peggy is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisGhost Story (1981)
Four successful elderly gentlemen, members of the Chowder Society, share a gruesome, 50-year-old secret. When one of Edward Wanderley's twin sons dies in a bizarre accident, the group begins to see a pattern of frightening events developing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
A psychiatrist, familiar with the knife-wielding dream demon Freddy Krueger, helps teens at a mental hospital battle the killer who is invading their dreams.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCrooked House (2017)
A private investigator helps a former flame solve the murder of her wealthy grandfather, who lived in a sprawling estate surrounded by his idiosyncratic family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEver Reaching Fairly Preachily (2017)
Flitter like tittertatter trying to breathe while working, like a mad hatter; the outofbreath feeling rising from recursive reforgettings (or their resemblances).
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Automatic Writing (2003)
Charcoal animation, taken from from Point of View: An Anthology of the Moving Image (2003).
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Face Lift (2017)
Be better and more beautiful than you were before.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
A Movie Made of (2019)
In Vigo, Spain, during Christmas, Ángel, a Spanish filmmaker, walks through the crowded streets while thinking about a possible movie made of…
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Mad About Being Mad (2017)
Setting, settling; still seething as I barely breathe.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Cels (1972)
A showcase for the MCAD Animation Workshop 1972 where each student was given one of a series of cells to animate whatever they pleased.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Confession (1968)
A filmmaker recalls his youth in the town of Onomichi. In the present, he shoots a film in Onomichi alongside his cast, crew and family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
To Teach a Bird to Fly (2020)
This experimental nature documentary by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts depicts climate change and the wave of extinction from the point of view of our near future. Actually, it depicts the age we live in now, or rather its fateful consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Like Insomnia and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Insomnia?
The closest matches to Insomnia are Before I Wake (2016), The Return (2006) and Malignant (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Insomnia?
Start with Before I Wake (2016), the closest match to Insomnia.
What is the highest-rated movie like Insomnia?
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), rated 7.4/10 by 6,065 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Insomnia?
You Shall Not Sleep Tonight (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Insomnia?
Yes: Before I Wake (2016), The Return (2006) and Malignant (2021).
How are movies similar to Insomnia chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Insomnia, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.