Movies like Donovan's Brain (1953)
The best movies like Donovan's Brain (1953) are Jekyll & Hyde (1990), The Signal (2007) and Tau (2018). If Donovan's Brain hooked you with its science fiction and horror, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFrankenstein (1931)7.5/10 from 1,886 votes
- NewestDie Alone (2024)Released 2024
Jekyll & Hyde (1990)
Henry Jekyll is a troubled man. His wife died of pneumonia. He wants his sister-in-law, but her father forbids any contact. And his experiments into the dual nature of man have yielded a personality-splitting drug that he has tested on himself, changing him into an uninhibited brute who seeks violent and undignified pleasures. Jekyll quickly becomes addicted to the sordid freedom induced by the drug. He can commit the most enjoyably revolting deeds, then return to his laboratory and use an antidote to change back to his original form, so that his lofty persona remains untarnished.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies 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 horror & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisTau (2018)
Held captive in a futuristic smart house, a woman hopes to escape by befriending the A.I. program that controls the house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPatrick (1978)
A comatose hospital patient harasses and kills through his powers of telekinesis to claim his private nurse as his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPossessor (2020)
Tasya Vos, an elite corporate assassin, uses brain-implant technology to take control of other people’s bodies to terminate high profile targets. As she sinks deeper into her latest assignment, Vos becomes trapped inside a mind that threatens to obliterate her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & 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 horror & 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 & horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCrimes of the Future (2022)
With his partner Caprice, celebrity performance artist Saul Tenser publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. An investigator from the National Organ Registry obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed... Their mission — to use Tenser's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Resurrected (1991)
Charles Dexter Ward, a wealthy scientist, uses an ancient diary and human remains to begin a terrifying and bloody pursuit for immortality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & 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 & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Medusa Touch (1978)
A French detective in London reconstructs the life of a man lying in hospital with severe injuries with the help of journals and a psychiatrist. He realises that the man had powerful telekinetic abilities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScanners (1981)
A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called 'scanning' to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non-Scanners.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLooker (1981)
Plastic surgeon Larry Roberts performs a series of minor alterations on a group of models who are seeking perfection. The operations are a resounding success. But when someone starts killing his beautiful patients, Dr. Roberts becomes suspicious and starts investigating. What he uncovers are the mysterious - and perhaps murderous - activities of a high-tech computer company called Digital Matrix.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
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 thisLimitless (2011)
The life of an unsuccessful writer is transformed by a top-secret 'smart drug' that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Black Sleep (1956)
In 19th century England, a noted brain surgeon rescues a former student from being hanged on a false conviction for murder, and spirits him away to an ancient, repurposed abbey far in the countryside. There, he connives his pupil into assisting him in mapping the functions of the various parts of the human brain, using living subjects who are under a terrible animation-suspending drug called "black sleep". Subsequently, the student, along with the daughter of one of the subjects, discover that most of these subjects have survived but are being kept in a dungeon-like cellar, in various stages of physical and mental derangement...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlood of the Vampire (1958)
A man and wife are terrorized by Mad Scientist Dr. Callistratus who was executed but has returned to life with a heart transplant. Along with his crippled assistant Carl, the 'anemic' Mad Scientist, believed to be a vampire, conducts blood deficiency research on the inmates of a prison hospital for the criminally insane to sustain his return to life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisSaw III (2006)
Jigsaw has disappeared. Along with his new apprentice Amanda, the puppet-master behind the cruel, intricate games that have terrified a community and baffled police has once again eluded capture and vanished. While city detectives scramble to locate him, Doctor Lynn Denlon and Jeff Reinhart are unaware that they are about to become the latest pawns on his vicious chessboard.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStonehearst Asylum (2014)
An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMan-Made Monster (1941)
Mad scientist turns a man into an electrically-controlled monster to do his bidding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Friday (1940)
University professor George Kingsley is struck by gangsters while crossing the street, leaving him with brain damage and one of the gangsters, Cannon, paralyzed. Kingsley's friend Dr. Sovac attends to both men, and when Cannon offers him a reward for aiding his recovery, Kovac transplants part of Cannon's brain into the dying Kingsley's skull, creating a dual personality.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShake, Rattle & Roll II (1990)
Three terrifying tales follow a young groom in Baguio for his honeymoon is possessed by a homicidal spirit when he discovers a cursed ring and decides to wear it; in the eerie halls of a mysterious hospital, a doctor practices voodoo and dead bodies wander in the night; and a student who learns, while a guest at a town fiesta in a remote province, that the locals' hospitable ways leave her clueless about a mysterious nightly ritual.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & horror
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)
Professor Frankenstein creates a teenager from an accident victim, who gets angry when he learns he is going to be taken apart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & science fiction
Frankenstein '80 (1972)
A mad scientist creates a monster called "Mosaico," who breaks out of the laboratory to hunt down and kill beautiful women.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & science fiction
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFrankenstein (1931)
Obsessed scientist Dr. Henry Frankenstein attempts to create life by assembling a creature from deceased body parts. Aided by his loyal misshapen assistant, Fritz, Frankenstein succeeds in animating his monster, but it flees into the countryside and begins to wreak havoc.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)
Now confined to a mental hospital, young Kirsty insists her supposedly dead father is actually stuck in Hell following his wife’s betrayal. Few believe the young woman’s lurid stories aside from the thrill-seeking Dr. Channard. Kirsty is undeterred and, with the help of a fellow patient, heads to Hell for a rescue.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHouse of Dracula (1945)
A scientist working on cures for rare afflictions, such as a bone softening agent made from molds to allow him to correct the spinal deformity of his nurse, finds the physical causes of lycanthropy in wolf-man Larry Talbot and of vampirism in Count Dracula, but himself becomes afflicted with homicidal madness while exchanging blood with Dracula.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Unearthly (1957)
A mad doctor uses patients at his isolated psychiatric institute as subjects in his attempts to create longevity by surgically installing an artificial gland in their skulls.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & horror
The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
Dr. Bonner plans to live forever through periodic gland transplants from younger, healthier human victims. Bonner looks about 40; he's really 104 years old. But people are starting to get suspicious, and he may not make 200.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Donovan's Brain?
The closest matches to Donovan's Brain are Jekyll & Hyde (1990), The Signal (2007) and Tau (2018). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Donovan's Brain?
People who watched Donovan's Brain most often go on to Jekyll & Hyde (1990).
What is the highest-rated movie like Donovan's Brain?
Frankenstein (1931), rated 7.5/10 by 1,886 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Donovan's Brain?
Die Alone (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Donovan's Brain?
Yes: Jekyll & Hyde (1990), The Signal (2007) and Tau (2018).
How are movies similar to Donovan's Brain chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Donovan's Brain, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.