Movies like The Three-Body Problem
The best movies like The Three-Body Problem are Sphere (1998), 57 Seconds (2023) and 2073 (2024). If The Three-Body Problem hooked you with its mystery and science fiction, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedInterstellar (2014)8.5/10 from 41,839 votes
- NewestQuantum Jump (2026)Released 2026
- In ChineseThe Bridge Curse (2020)Also in Chinese
Sphere (1998)
A spacecraft is discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, presumed to be at least 300 years old and of alien origin. A crack team of scientists and experts is assembled and taken to the ocean floor to investigate. However, the ship is not as it seems and when a giant perfect sphere is discovered in the cargo bay, things begin to fall apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like this57 Seconds (2023)
When a tech blogger lands an interview with a tech guru and stops an attack on him, he finds a mysterious ring that takes him back 57 seconds into the past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMultiverse (2021)
Four brilliant university students are forced to confront themselves in terrifying ways when their Quantum Physics experiment leads to an entangled parallel existence that leaves them questioning who they are and what is real.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Mandela Effect (2019)
A man becomes obsessed with facts and events that have been collectively misremembered by thousands of people. Believing the phenomena to be the symptom of something larger, his obsession eventually leads him to question reality itself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpectral (2016)
A special-ops team is dispatched to fight supernatural beings that have taken over a European city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisContainment (2015)
Neighbors in a block wake one morning to find they have been sealed inside their apartments. Can they work together to find out why? Or will they destroy each other in their fight to escape?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisStowaway (2021)
A three-person crew on a mission to Mars faces an impossible choice when an unplanned passenger jeopardizes the lives of everyone on board.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie Alone (2024)
Lost in a world reclaimed by nature and overrun by mysterious creatures, Ethan, a young man with amnesia navigates the dangerous landscape in search of his lost love Emma. His journey takes an unexpected turn when he encounters Mae, a hardened and eccentric survivor. Together, Ethan and Mae face threats both human and otherwise before a fateful encounter with Kai unravels a secret that lies just beyond Ethan's fractured memory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Signal (2007)
A horror film told in three parts, from three perspectives, in which a mysterious transmission that turns people into killers invades every cell phone, radio, and television.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisMax Winslow and The House of Secrets (2020)
Five teenagers compete to win a mansion owned by entrepreneur and scientist Atticus Virtue. To win the teens must face-off against a super computer named HAVEN who controls the mansion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisCosmos (2019)
Three astronomers accidentally intercept what they believe to be a signal from a distant alien civilization, but the truth is even more incredible than any of them could have imagined.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAllegiant (2016)
Beatrice Prior and Tobias Eaton venture into the world outside of the fence and are taken into protective custody by a mysterious agency known as the Bureau of Genetic Welfare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisProdigy (2017)
Jimmy is a committed child psychologist who uses his own playbook, but when he is brought in to work with Ellie, he is completely unprepared for his subject—a 9-year-old psychopathic genius with nothing to lose. As he begins to understand the extent of her capabilities and the fate that has been planned for her, he struggles to overcome her defenses before it is too late for them both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bridge Curse (2020)
Four years after five students mysteriously committed suicide after taking part in a courage test on the ghost bridge in Donghu university, a reporter and a cinematographer are back to that place and try to get everything clear.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStar Trek: Insurrection (1998)
When an alien race and factions within Starfleet attempt to take over a planet that has "regenerative" properties, it falls upon Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise to defend the planet's people as well as the very ideals upon which the Federation itself was founded.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & 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 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 & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dead Zone (1983)
Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWar of the Worlds (2005)
Ray Ferrier is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. Soon after his ex-wife and her new husband drop off his teenage son and young daughter for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm touches down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInfinitum: Subject Unknown (2021)
Jane is the subject of a twisted science experiment where she is placed in a parallel world and is forced to find a way to either alter her reality or be stuck in a time-loop, destined to repeat the same test over and over again, with no memory of her doing it before. But with each 'reset' she starts to retain fragments of memory. With clues pointing to the mysterious Wytness Quantum Research Centre, she tries to find a way out. (The film was shot entirely on an iPhone during the UK’s first lockdown.)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisAngels & Demons (2009)
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is recruited by the Vatican to investigate the apparent return of the Illuminati – a secret, underground organization – after four cardinals are kidnapped on the night of the papal conclave.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisQuantum Suicide (2024)
The story of a physicist on a quest for the Grand Unifying Theory of Physics. In the process of his experiments he suffers radiation poisoning, loses his vision and alienates his partner, who leaves him. But in his obsession he finds clarity and the key to understanding our reality. There is one final test he must perform.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Love & Teleportation (2013)
Brian Owens was once a prominent professor of quantum mechanics until an accident stripped him of his credentials; he now teaches at a community college. In order to reclaim his stature, he is trying to build the world's first teleportation machine in his garage at night. All of this while being romantically pursued by one of the art professors at the college, avoiding the crazy old lady next door, and being harassed by the loan sharks he borrowed money from to build his machine. But his biggest problem is he can't get his machine to work.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Timeline (2003)
A group of archaeological students become trapped in the past when they go there to retrieve their professor. The group must survive in 14th century France long enough to be rescued.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisQuantum Jump (2026)
In a surreal journey of self-discovery, a man serving twins in a luxurious mansion confronts the unknown world hidden behind the conditioning. He outplays them and embarks on a symbolic odyssey through a magic orchard, the world around him decays into fading echoes of meaning—revealing renewal within the ruins of universal self.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Mission Pakal to Mars (2016)
An actress accidentally ends up in a room with a weird group of women claiming to be travelling in a secret high-tech space device to Mars.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Interstellar (2014)
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisViva Cuba (2005)
The friendship between two children is threatened by their parents’ differences. Malú is from a family that was upper-class before the Revolution and remains well-to-do through remittances from relatives overseas, and her single mother (Larisa Vega Alamar) does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background coarse and commonplace. Jorgito’s mother (Luisa María Jiménez Rodríguez),
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sufi and the Scientist (2006)
The Sufi and the Scientist is the collective story of Sufi healer Sayyid Arif Hussain, the medieval Sufi Sheikh Haji Ali, and Dr. Thornton Streeter, a scientist working in the realm of human consciousness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Three-Body Problem?
The closest matches to The Three-Body Problem are Sphere (1998), 57 Seconds (2023) and 2073 (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Three-Body Problem?
Start with Sphere (1998), the closest match to The Three-Body Problem.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Three-Body Problem?
Interstellar (2014), rated 8.5/10 by 41,839 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Three-Body Problem?
Quantum Jump (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like The Three-Body Problem?
Yes: The Bridge Curse (2020).
How are movies similar to The Three-Body Problem chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Three-Body Problem, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.