Movies like The Circle (2017)
The best movies like The Circle (2017) are 2073 (2024), WarGames (1983) and Stormageddon (2015). If The Circle hooked you with its drama and thriller, 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
- NewestMercy (2026)Released 2026
2073 (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 thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWarGames (1983)
High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his friend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStormageddon (2015)
What happens when you ask the most powerful computer program, run by the most powerful computers, to follow, listen and predict human behavior? The program learns, becomes sentient and begins to behave like a human. When a master computer program, Echelon, takes over America's entire online system, our country is threatened to be brought to its knees. Hacking into DARPA, Echelon gains the ability to manipulate the weather, create earthquakes, and cause a level of destruction unlike anything the country could ever imagine. But how do you stop a computer program when it has control over any and every defense you have?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPaycheck (2003)
Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Quiller Memorandum (1966)
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMinority Report (2002)
John Anderton is a top 'Precrime' cop in the late-21st century, when technology can predict crimes before they're committed. But Anderton becomes the quarry when another investigator targets him for a murder charge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisImpostor (2001)
A top-secret government weapons designer is arrested by a clandestine government organization on suspicion of being a clone created by the hostile alien race wanting to take over Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRoboCop (2014)
In RoboCop, the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years, but have been forbidden for law enforcement in America. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy – a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit – is critically injured, OmniCorp sees their chance to build a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisGemini Man (2019)
Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMercy (2026)
In the near future, a detective stands on trial accused of murdering his wife. He has ninety minutes to prove his innocence to the advanced AI Judge he once championed, before it determines his fate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSnowden (2016)
CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJonathan (2018)
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisPush (2009)
After his father, an assassin, is brutally murdered, Nick Gant vows revenge on Division, the covert government agency that dabbles in psychic warfare and experimental drugs. Hiding in Hong Kong's underworld, Nick assembles a band of rogue psychics dedicated to destroying Division. Together with Cassie, a teenage clairvoyant, Nick goes in search of a missing girl and a stolen suitcase that could be the key to accomplishing their mutual goal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNext (2007)
Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSource Code (2011)
When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Net (1995)
Angela Bennett is a freelance computer systems analyst who tracks down software viruses. At night, she hooks up to the internet and chats to others 'surfing the net'. While de-bugging a new high-tech game for a cyber friend, she comes across a top secret program and becomes the target of a mysterious organization, who will stop at nothing to erase her identity and her existence in order to protect the project.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTHX 1138 (1971)
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCypher (2002)
An unsuspecting, disenchanted man finds himself working as a spy in the dangerous, high-stakes world of corporate espionage. Quickly getting way over-his-head, he teams up with a mysterious femme fatale.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreach (2007)
Eric O'Neill, a low-level surveillance expert with the FBI, believes he is accomplishing his dream of becoming a full-fledged agent, with his unexpected promotion and assignment to clerk for Robert Hanssen, a renowned senior agent with 25 years in the FBI. However, he soon learns the reason for his promotion is to gain Hanssen's trust and find proof that he is a traitor to the country. Determined to draw the suspected double-agent out of deep cover, O'Neill finds himself in a lethal game of spy vs. spy, where nothing is as it seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSurrogates (2009)
Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Sound of Thunder (2005)
When a hunter sent back to the prehistoric era runs off the path he must not leave, he causes a chain reaction that alters history in disastrous ways.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like this419 (2012)
When a New York City actor loses everything to an internet scam based in South Africa, his two best friends take him to Cape Town to track down the scammer. With the help of a charismatic local, their search begins promisingly, leading them into Cape Town's clubs, back alleys, and townships. But as they find themselves moving into darker territory, things prove to be not all that they seem, old rivalries flare up, and the limits of friendship are tested in ways the three men could never have imagined. Designed to look and feel like a documentary, 419 is a unique thriller about the mysteries of male friendship and the true cost of revenge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
The Hit (1984)
Ten years after ratting on his old mobster friends in exchange for personal immunity, two hit men drive a hardened criminal to Paris for his execution. However, while on the way, whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Betrayed (2008)
Kidnappers force a young mother to recover money stolen by her shady husband.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisOne False Move (1992)
Following a series of drug deals and murders, three criminals -- Fantasia, Ray Malcolm and Pluto -- travel from Los Angeles to Houston, finally arriving in a small Arkansas town to go into hiding. Two detectives from the LAPD, who are already on the case, contact the town's sheriff, Dale Dixon, to alert him of the fugitives' presence in the area. Underestimating Dixon, the criminals have no idea what they are about to face.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
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 thisIron Man 2 (2010)
With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark faces pressure from the government, the press and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, with Pepper Potts and James 'Rhodey' Rhodes at his side, must forge new alliances – and confront powerful enemies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOn Deadly Ground (1994)
Forrest Taft is an environmental agent who works for the Aegis Oil Company in Alaska. Aegis Oil's corrupt CEO is the kind of person who doesn't care whether or not oil spills into the ocean or onto the land—just as long as it's making money for him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisFirewall (2006)
State-of-the-art security system creator Jack Stanfield has cemented his reputation as a man who's thought of everything. But when a criminal finds a way into his personal life, everything Jack holds dear is suddenly at stake.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisOutlaw (2007)
A group of people who feel betrayed by their government and let down by their police force form a modern-day outlaw posse in order to right what they see as the wrongs of society.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Circle?
The closest matches to The Circle are 2073 (2024), WarGames (1983) and Stormageddon (2015). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Circle?
Start with 2073 (2024), the closest match to The Circle.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Circle?
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 Circle?
Mercy (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Circle?
Yes: 2073 (2024), WarGames (1983) and Stormageddon (2015).
How are movies similar to The Circle chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Circle, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.