Movies like The Third Planet (1991)
The best movies like The Third Planet (1991) are Solaris (1972), Dead Man's Letters (1986) and Warning Sign (1985). If The Third Planet hooked you with its science fiction and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEvangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)8.2/10 from 1,010 votes
- NewestRage of Stars (2026)Released 2026
Solaris (1972)
A psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the mental problems of cosmonauts on the station. He soon discovers that the water on the planet is a type of brain which brings out repressed memories and obsessions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDead Man's Letters (1986)
In a desolate world following the nuclear apocalypse, a scholar helps a small group of adults and children survive in the basement of a former museum of history. In his mind, he writes letters to his only son that will never be read and tries to find shreds of hope in his new reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWarning Sign (1985)
An accident occurs in an ultra-secret government biological weapons laboratory spreading a sinister bacteria.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Ugly Swans (2006)
In the near future, writer Victor Banev gets himself on a UN commission to investigate the goings-on in the remote town of Tashlinsk, where reports tell of a virus-created race of brainiac mutants. His tween daughter Ira is enrolled at a school for gifted children which has been taken over by the mutants, who have grown to despise ordinary humanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStalker (1979)
Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep-seated desires are granted.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPanic in Year Zero! (1962)
While on a fishing trip, Harry Baldwin and his family hear an explosion and realize that Los Angeles has been leveled by a nuclear attack. Looters and killers are everywhere. Escaping to the hills with his family, he sets about the business of surviving in a world where, he knows, the old ideals of humanity will be the first casualties.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Andromeda Strain (1971)
When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scrambles to a secure laboratory and tries first to isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form, unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSpaceman (2024)
Six months into a solo mission, a lonely astronaut confronts the cracks in his marriage with help from a mysterious creature he discovers on his ship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInvasion (2020)
Two years after the fall of the alien ship, the life of a young woman from Moscow has been changed forever. Her growing powers are now at the focus of both human and celestial investigation: an alien force takes an interest in her, and will stop short of nothing, including an invasion. Can love and compassion save humanity, when faced with a much greater and more demanding test this time?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAwake (2021)
After a sudden global event wipes out all electronics and takes away humankind’s ability to sleep, chaos quickly begins to consume the world. Only Jill, an ex-soldier with a troubled past, may hold the key to a cure in the form of her own daughter. The question is, can Jill safely deliver her daughter and save the world before she herself loses her mind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like this2073 (2024)
Inspired by Chris Marker's iconic 1962 featurette La Jetée; the year is 2073—a not-so-distant dystopian future—and the setting is New San Francisco, the scorched-earth tech-dominant police state where democracy and personal freedom have been well and truly obliterated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOn the Beach (2000)
The world has finally managed to blow itself up and only Australia has been spared from nuclear destruction and a gigantic wave of radiation is floating in on the breezes. One American sub located in the Pacific has survived and is met with disdain by the Australians. The calculations of Australia's most renowned scientist says the country is doomed. However, one of his rivals says that he is wrong. He believes that 1000 people can be relocated to the northern hemisphere, where his assumptions indicate the radiation levels may be lower. The American Captain is asked to take a mission to the north to determine which scientist is right.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMonsters (2010)
Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an infected zone. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures," while a journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the U.S. border.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSerenity (2005)
A group of rebels travel the outskirts of space evading the sinister Alliance regime. Their lives of smuggling and cargo-running are interrupted by a psychic passenger who harbours a dangerous secret. Soon, the crew find themselves being pursued by an Alliance agent who will stop at nothing to find them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Blackout (2019)
Contact between most towns on Earth has been severed. A small ring-like area in Eastern Europe still has electricity, and maybe even life is being reported from space. What military forces find outside the ring is shocking.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Abyss (1989)
A civilian oil rig crew is recruited to conduct a search and rescue effort when a nuclear submarine mysteriously sinks. One diver soon finds himself on a spectacular odyssey 25,000 feet below the ocean's surface where he confronts a mysterious force that has the power to change the world or destroy it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRage of Stars (2026)
A story about a woman from the International Special Forces Unit, who has a premonition about the impending end of humanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwelve Monkeys (1995)
In the year 2035, convict James Cole reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to discover the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population and forced the survivors into underground communities. But when Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990 instead of 1996, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital. There he meets psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly and the son of a famous virus expert who may hold the key to the Army of the 12 Monkeys; thought to be responsible for unleashing the killer disease.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMan Down (2016)
When a U.S. Marine returns home from Afghanistan, he finds that the place he once called home is no better than the battlefields he fought on overseas. Accompanied by his best friend, he searches desperately for the whereabouts of his estranged son and wife. In their search, the two intercept a man carrying vital information about his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Signal (2014)
On a road trip, Nic and two friends are drawn to an isolated area by a computer genius. When everything suddenly goes dark, Nic regains consciousness – only to find himself in a waking nightmare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEvangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)
In the aftermath of the Fourth Impact, stranded without their Evangelions, Shinji, Asuka and Rei find refuge in one of the rare pockets of humanity that still exist on the ruined planet Earth. There, each lives a life far different from their days as an Evangelion pilot. However, the danger to the world is far from over. A new impact is looming on the horizon—one that will prove to be the true end of Evangelion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLolita (1997)
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisProof (2005)
Catherine is a woman in her late twenties who is strongly devoted to her father, Robert, a brilliant and well-known mathematician whose grip on reality is beginning to slip away. As Robert descends into madness, Catherine begins to wonder if she may have inherited her father's mental illness along with his mathematical genius.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Queen of the Lizards (2019)
A spaceship is about to come to pick up Javi, so him and Berta have to put an end to their summer love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
The Russia House (1990)
Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmici per la pelle (2022)
During a vacation in the United States, the protagonist is seized by severe abdominal pain that forces him to return to Italy in a daring way and to be hospitalized urgently.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sergio and Sergei (2018)
In 1991, the USSR is falling apart and Cuba enters its hardest economic crisis. Sergio, a professor of Marxism who can't provide for his family, and Sergei, a Soviet cosmonaut stranded in the Mir space station, share a common passion: amateur radio. Through this hobby, both men will be able to help each other in facing the dramatic changes of their countries.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Damnation (1988)
Karrer plods his way through life in quiet desperation. His environment is drab and rainy and muddy. Eaten up with solitude, his hopelessness would be incurable but for the existence of the Titanik Bar and its beautiful, haunting singer. But the lady is married and Karrer is determined to keep her husband away...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTakeshis' (2005)
Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThings You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000)
In California, a group of women struggle with personal problems as their paths intertwine in unexpected ways. Dr. Elaine Keener, the sole caretaker for her aging mother, turns to tarot card reader Christine for spiritual aid. Christine grapples with her own angst due to her lover's debilitating illness. Meanwhile, a bank manager deals with an unwanted pregnancy, two sisters pursue romantic interests and a housewife gets back into the dating game.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Third Planet?
The closest matches to The Third Planet are Solaris (1972), Dead Man's Letters (1986) and Warning Sign (1985). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Third Planet?
Start with Solaris (1972), the closest match to The Third Planet.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Third Planet?
Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021), rated 8.2/10 by 1,010 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Third Planet?
Rage of Stars (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to The Third Planet chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Third Planet, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.