Movies like Ascension (2002)
The best movies like Ascension (2002) are The Goldfinch (2019), Dorian Gray (2009) and I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). If Ascension hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEverybody’s Everything (2019)8.4/10 from 311 votes
- NewestChaos Walking (2021)Released 2021
The Goldfinch (2019)
A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals 'The Goldfinch', a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDorian Gray (2009)
Seduced into the decadent world of Lord Henry Wotton, handsome young aristocrat Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with maintaining his youthful appearance, and commissions a special portrait that will weather the winds of time while he remains forever young. When Gray's obsession spirals out of control, his desperate attempts to safeguard his secret turn his once-privileged life into a living hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Art of Getting By (2011)
George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who's made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World of Suzie Wong (1960)
A Hong Kong prostitute tries modeling and falls for the artist who's painting her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Double (2014)
An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
Struggling artist Geoffrey Carroll meets Sally while on holiday in the country. A romance develops, but he doesn't tell her he's already married. Suffering from mental illness, Geoffrey returns home where he paints an impression of his wife as the angel of death and then promptly poisons her. He marries Sally but after a while he finds a strange urge to paint her as the angel of death too and history seems about to repeat itself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisArt School Confidential (2006)
Starting from childhood attempts at illustration, the protagonist pursues his true obsession to art school. But as he learns how the art world really works, he finds that he must adapt his vision to the reality that confronts him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisExtinction (2018)
A chief mechanic at a factory, haunted by apocalyptic nightmares, becomes a hero when Earth is invaded by a mysterious army bent on destruction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInvaders from Mars (1953)
A boy tries to stop aliens that have taken over his town and are brainwashing its inhabitants.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisLust for Life (1956)
An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
A handsome young man trades his soul so that his portrait ages while he stays eternally young.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEverybody’s Everything (2019)
The story of artist Lil Peep from his birth in Long Island and meteoric rise as a genre blending pop star & style icon, to his death due to an accidental opioid overdose in Arizona at just 21 years of age.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Human Stain (2003)
Coleman Silk is a worldly and admired professor who loses his job after unwittingly making a racial slur. To clear his name, Silk writes a book about the events with his friend and colleague Nathan Zuckerman, who in the process discovers a dark secret Silk has hidden his whole life. All the while, Silk engages in an affair with Faunia Farley, a younger woman whose tormented past threatens to unravel the layers of deception Silk has constructed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1991)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, minor characters from the play 'Hamlet', find themselves on the road to Elsinore Castle at the behest of the King of Denmark. The duo encounter a band of players before arriving to find that they are needed to try to discern what troubles the prince Hamlet. Meanwhile, they ponder the meaning of their existence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChaos Walking (2021)
Two unlikely companions embark on a perilous adventure through the badlands of an unexplored planet as they try to escape a dangerous and disorienting reality, where all inner thoughts are seen and heard by everyone.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEddie Izzard: Definite Article (1996)
Eddie arrives on stage through a huge book which opens to reveal herself sitting at the top of a staircase. Then discusses Caesar dog food, 24 hour garages, Latin, and winds her way through James Bond gadgets, Einstein and Pavlov.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisIt's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Devil's Candy (2016)
A struggling painter is possessed by satanic forces after he and his young family move into their dream home in rural Texas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTuesday Darkness (2016)
Evolution and change are usually observed within a positive sphere, nevertheless and according to the history of humanity, we are stubborn beings reluctant to change and the unknown. I wrote this short with that thought in my mind. Mardi Darkness shows a small glance in the life of a recent graduate that resists to change, the possibility of happiness and above all the acceptance of his new life. Far away from his family, from what he once called home and his youth. The short film was made in an experimental fashion. It was initially framed as a sequence shot but it was just evoking melancholy and the chaos went too unperceived. For this reason, I decided to use a split screen technique to tell the story in a more chaotic and voyeuristic manner. It is as though it was seen through monitors that loop the life of a man who refuses to change, remaining so until it merges with the darkness of the screen and the unexplored.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Age 12: Love with a Little L (1991)
This film is depicts early lesbian sexuality, using reenacted scenes from the experience of a 12-year old girl as the platform for a meditation on forbidden desire, transgression, and Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts of identity formation. Raw adolescent memories counterpoint staged scenes, exploring mechanisms of power and submission.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls (1988)
A gang of women wreak havoc in the city, killing various men who have treated women poorly. And sometimes they do it just for fun.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Five Obstructions (2003)
In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoonwalker (1988)
This fantastical movie inspired by the music of Michael Jackson features imaginative interpretations of hit tracks from the iconic 1987 album “Bad”.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUranium Hex (1987)
A memory-using location film of a stay with a uranium mining community. Using a kaleidoscopic array of experimental techniques, this film explores uranium mining in Canada and its destructive effects on both the environment and the women working in the mines. A plethora of images ranging from the women at work to spine-chilling representations of cancerous bodies are accompanied by unnerving industrial sounds and straightforward information from some of the women.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Adrift (2004)
"Adrift" is shot on the arctic island of Spitzbergen and in Norway. It combines time-lapse photography with stop-motion animation of the landscape. Through camera-angles and framing the film gradually dislocates the viewer from a stable base where one loses the sense of scale and grounding.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Transitions (1986)
A look at the various modes of transportation made for the Expo '86 World Fair in Vancouver, Canada.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Enigma: Nazo (1978)
Enigma is something of a more glamorous version of White Hole, with a wide variety of elaborate textures (often composed of iconographic and religious symbols) converging towards the centre of the screen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Fantastic Vision (1957)
Footage filmed in Spain, subjected a new visual effects process. Deslaw devoted himself to the discovery of a new machine that enabled film to be developed while using a new method called solarisation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Ascension?
The closest matches to Ascension are The Goldfinch (2019), Dorian Gray (2009) and I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Ascension?
Start with The Goldfinch (2019), the closest match to Ascension.
What is the highest-rated movie like Ascension?
Everybody’s Everything (2019), rated 8.4/10 by 311 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Ascension?
Chaos Walking (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Ascension?
Yes: The Goldfinch (2019), Dorian Gray (2009) and I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020).
How are movies similar to Ascension chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Ascension, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.