Movies like The Headless Rider (1957)
The best movies like The Headless Rider (1957) are Older Gods (2023), The Inhabitant (2022) and The Car (1977). If The Headless Rider hooked you with its mystery and western, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedScooby-Doo! Meets the Boo Brothers (1987)7.4/10 from 280 votes
- NewestIt Ends (2026)Released 2026
- In SpanishKM 31: Kilometer 31 (2006)Also in Spanish
Older Gods (2023)
After the disappearance of his troubled friend, American Chris Rivers travels to the remote Welsh countryside to investigate what happened – leading him to a dark apocalyptic cult.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Inhabitant (2022)
Like any other teenage girl, Tara is just surviving high school — yet her father and mother seem strangely distant. Amidst a nearby spree of gruesome ax murders, Tara has sightings of terrifying entities, forcing her to question her own sanity and shocking ancestry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Car (1977)
The Utah community of Santa Ynez is being terrorized by a mysterious black coupe that appears out of nowhere and begins running people down. After the car kills off the town sheriff, Captain Wade Parent is determined to stop the murderous driver.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisForgive Us All (2025)
In a post-apocalyptic world, a virus has transformed humans into violently deranged cannibals. A bereaved mother has lost everything and takes refuge in an isolated mountain cabin, until a desperate wounded stranger arrives with a story of hope.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & western
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Caller (1987)
One night, an unusual stranger in need asks a woman living alone in a house in the woods if he can use her phone. It soon becomes clear that they're playing a strange mind game and that there's something very wrong about the woods.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Night Stalker (1972)
Wisecracking reporter Carl Kolchak investigates a string of murders in Las Vegas and suspects the culprit is a vampire. His editor thinks he's crazy and the police think he's a nuisance, so Kolchak takes matters into his own hands.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Forever Purge (2021)
All the rules are broken as a sect of lawless marauders decides that the annual Purge does not stop at daybreak and instead should never end as they chase a group of immigrants who they want to punish because of their harsh historical past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & western
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKM 31: Kilometer 31 (2006)
While driving through the kilometer 31 of a lonely road, Agata Hameran hits a boy. She leaves her car to help the victim and another car runs over her and she falls in a deep coma. Her twin sister Catalina telepathically feels the pain of Agata and hears her whispering for help. Together with her boyfriend Nuno and Agata's mate Omar, they return to the km 31 of the road, and find out that the place is surrounded by supernatural accidents caused by the ghost of a mother that lost her boy many years ago. Further, Catalina discloses that the spirit of Agata is trapped between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Ends (2026)
A group of recent grads head out on a late night drive for grub, hoping to enjoy one final hangout before their paths diverge. Instead, they accidentally turn onto a never-ending, two-lane hellscape surrounded by untold horrors and cosmic forces beyond their understanding. Cramped together inside a Jeep Cherokee and with the miles stretching infinitely ahead, they face a choice: embrace their new existence or fight to escape it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisNight of the Hunted (2023)
When an unsuspecting woman stops at a remote gas station in the dead of night, she's made the plaything of a sociopath sniper with a secret vendetta. To survive, she must not only dodge his bullets and fight for her life, but also figure out who wants her dead and why.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Casa (2020)
Responding to an urgent call for help, a police officer becomes trapped by the evil spirits of a cursed house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight Watch (1973)
A woman recovering from a nervous breakdown tries to convince her husband and and the local London police that she has witnessed a murder in the abandoned house next door.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCome Play (2020)
Oliver, a lonely autistic boy, seeks solace and refuge in his ever-present cell phone and tablet. When a mysterious creature uses the boy's devices against him, his parents must fight to save their son from the monster beyond the screen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClown in a Cornfield (2025)
Quinn and her father have just moved to the quiet town of Kettle Springs hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she discovers a fractured community that has fallen on hard times after the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning figure emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Chalk Line (2022)
After a couple finds a traumatized child of unknown origins, wife Paula must decipher the girl's strange behaviors to unlock her identity and dark past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Woman in Black (1989)
A lawyer travels to a small seaside town to settle the estate of a recently deceased woman, but soon becomes ensnared in something much more sinister.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Bury the Living (1958)
The new manager of a small-town cemetery becomes convinced that he triggered the untimely deaths of several plot owners by tampering with a certain map. When nobody believes him, he risks his sanity to play God once again and prove his point.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNocebo (2022)
A fashion designer suffers from a mysterious illness that puzzles her doctors and frustrates her husband until help arrives in the form of a Filipino caregiver who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleepy Hollow (1999)
Skeptical young detective Ichabod Crane gets transferred to the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where he is tasked with investigating the decapitations of three people – murders the townsfolk attribute to a legendary specter, The Headless Horseman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUntil Dawn (2025)
One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one...only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Ichabod Crane, a Yankee wanderer, arrives in Sleepy Hollow and becomes the new schoolmaster. He meets Katrina Van Tassel, and blissfully fantasizes about how can marry her, ultimately, inherit her father's rich estate. Her suitor Brom Bones, the blacksmith, wants to scare him away and dresses up as the legendary Headless Horseman. During the prank, the real ghost appears and drives Ichabod off
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & mystery
The Rider of the Skulls (1965)
Episodic film in which a masked hero combats a trio of classic monsters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & western
Black Mountain Side (2016)
A group of archaeologists working in Northern Canada uncover a strange structure dating over ten thousand years before the present. The team soon finds themselves isolated when their communication systems fail and they begin to feel the effects of solitude.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Little Stranger (2018)
In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house is now in decline. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
A concise adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" about Mr. Toad's motor mania, followed by a short retelling of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" concerning schoolmaster Ichabod Crane.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScooby-Doo! Meets the Boo Brothers (1987)
After the death of Shaggy's Uncle Beaureguard, he, Scooby and Scrappy arrive at the late uncle's Southern plantation to collect the inheritance. But as soon as they arrive, they find it is haunted by the ghost of a Confederate soldier. With this spook on their tails while they solve riddles in search of the inheritance, they seek help from the Boo Brothers, a trio of ghost-exterminators to help catch this nasty ghoul.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949)
Washington Irving's tale of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman is brought to life, narrated by Bing Crosby.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHeadless Horseman (2007)
Seven college kids take a shortcut on their way to a party and unfortunately end up in Wormwood – a "lost" town in the middle of nowhere. They find something strange and sinister happening there – bones and weird decorations line Main Street. The cause: local Wormwood legend says on All Hallows Eve one hundred years ago, a crazed man tortured the youngsters in town and then cut off their heads. In retaliation, the townspeople killed him by cutting off his head. Seeking revenge every seven years, he returns and takes seven heads from children in the town. Now the seven visitors find themselves hunted one by one as the Headless Horseman claims his due.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Headless (TBA)
A rudderless hitchhiker and a driven woman avenging her family’s death must stop a motorcycle-riding semi-immortal ghoul that feeds off the carnage it causes on desert highways by decapitating it and getting its head far enough away, long enough, from its relentlessly pursuant still-living body.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Who's the Ghost in the Sleepy Hollow? (1977)
A headless ghost haunts a mountain village.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Headless Rider?
The closest matches to The Headless Rider are Older Gods (2023), The Inhabitant (2022) and The Car (1977). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Headless Rider?
Start with Older Gods (2023), the closest match to The Headless Rider.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Headless Rider?
Scooby-Doo! Meets the Boo Brothers (1987), rated 7.4/10 by 280 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Headless Rider?
It Ends (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like The Headless Rider?
Yes: KM 31: Kilometer 31 (2006), La Casa (2020) and The Chalk Line (2022).
How are movies similar to The Headless Rider chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Headless Rider, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.