Movies like The First Purge (2018)
The best movies like The First Purge (2018) are The Purge: Election Year (2016), God Is a Bullet (2023) and The Hunt (2020). If The First Purge hooked you with its action and horror, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDie Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)7.3/10 from 6,949 votes
- NewestThis Is Not a Test (2026)Released 2026
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
Seventeen years after choosing not to kill the man who killed his son, former police sergeant Leo Barnes has become head of security for Senator Charlene Roan, the front runner in the next Presidential election due to her vow to eliminate the Purge. On the night of what should be the final Purge, a betrayal from within the government forces Barnes and Roan out onto the street where they must fight to survive the night.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGod Is a Bullet (2023)
Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hunt (2020)
Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are—or how they got there. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, ruthless elitists gather at a remote location to hunt humans for sport. But their master plan is about to be derailed when one of the hunted turns the tables on her pursuers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWake Up (2024)
A group of young activists set out to make an environmental statement by vandalizing a home superstore as it closes. But their plan goes terribly wrong when they become trapped inside and must face a deranged security guard with a gruesome passion for primitive hunting. As the night fills with violence and terror, the teenagers find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEnd of Days (1999)
Cynical bodyguard Jericho is hired by a man possessed by Satan, who is in search of his bride. When Jericho realizes what is happening, he must do everything he can to save the woman and the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Believers (1987)
Mourning the accidental death of his wife and having just moved to New York with his young son, laconic police psychologist Cal Jamison is reluctantly drawn into a series of grisly, ritualistic murders involving the immolation of two youths.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like this28 Years Later (2025)
Twenty-eight years after the Rage virus outbreak, a heavily-defended island survives connected to the mainland by a single causeway. When one of the group leaves the island into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrange Darling (2024)
Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThis Is Not a Test (2026)
Sloane and four classmates take cover in Cortege High to escape a world plagued by the infected. As danger relentlessly pounds on the doors, Sloane begins to see the world through the eyes of those who actually want to live and takes matters into her own hands.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Purge (2013)
Given the country's overcrowded prisons, the U.S. government begins to allow 12-hour periods of time in which all illegal activity is legal. During one of these free-for-alls, a family must protect themselves from a home invasion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Deliverance (2024)
Ebony Jackson, a struggling single mother fighting her personal demons, moves her family into a new home for a fresh start. But when strange occurrences inside the home raise the suspicions of Child Protective Services and threaten to tear the family apart, Ebony soon finds herself locked in a battle for her life and the souls of her children.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Island (2005)
In 2019, Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly "Utopian" but contained facility. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully-controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to The Island — reportedly the last uncontaminated location on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisApartment 7A (2024)
A struggling young dancer finds herself drawn in by dark forces when a peculiar, well-connected older couple promise her a shot at fame.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Book of Eli (2010)
A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWorld War Z (2013)
Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScream VI (2023)
Following the latest Ghostface killings, the four survivors leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter.
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 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 thisDangerous (2021)
A reformed sociopath heads to a remote island after the death of his brother. Soon after his arrival, the island falls under siege from a deadly gang of mercenaries, and when he discovers their role in his brother’s demise, he sets out on a relentless quest for vengeance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like this28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)
Dr. Kelson finds himself in a shocking new relationship - with consequences that could change the world as they know it - and Spike's encounter with Jimmy Crystal becomes a nightmare he can't escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDead in 3 Days (2006)
When Nina and her high school friends receive eerie text messages declaring that they will all die within three days, they dismiss it as a hokey prank - until one by one, the pals start turning up dead in the alpine countryside. With the cops stymied, Nina and her remaining friends must scour their past for clues to identify the madman before he kills them all.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisStreet Kings (2008)
Tom Ludlow is a disillusioned L.A. Police Officer, rarely playing by the rules and haunted by the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPig (1999)
A young man journeys through a desert, where he is kidnapped by a sadistic stranger clad in a pig mask. The stranger proceeds to brutally torture the young man, who then finds himself escaping into his imagination, with fantasy and reality intersecting.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
John McClane is back and badder than ever, and this time he calls on the services of a young hacker in his bid to stop a ring of Internet terrorists intent on taking control of America's computer infrastructure.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
New York detective John McClane is back and kicking bad-guy butt in the third installment of this action-packed series, which finds him teaming with civilian Zeus Carver to prevent the loss of innocent lives. McClane thought he'd seen it all, until a genius named Simon engages McClane, his new "partner" -- and his beloved city -- in a deadly game that demands their concentration.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDie Hard 2 (1990)
One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Christmas Eve, as he waits for his wife's plane to land at Washington Dulles International Airport, terrorists take over the air traffic control system in a plot to free a South American army general and drug smuggler being flown into the US to face drug charges. It's now up to McClane to take on the terrorists, while coping with an inept airport police chief, an uncooperative anti-terrorist squad, and the life of his wife and everyone else trapped in planes circling overhead.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisResident Evil (2002)
When a virus leaks from a top-secret facility, turning all resident researchers into ravenous zombies and their lab animals into mutated hounds from hell, the government sends in an elite military task force to contain the outbreak.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisResident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
As the city is locked down under quarantine, Alice finds out that the people that died from the previous incident at the Umbrella Corporation have turned into zombies. She then joins a small band of elite soldiers, who are enlisted to rescue the missing daughter of the creator of the mutating T-virus. Once lack of luck and resources happen, they begin to wage an exhilarating battle to survive and escape before the Umbrella Corporation erases its experiment from the face of the earth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Recall (2017)
When five friends vacation at a remote lake house, they expect nothing less then a good time, unaware that Earth is under attack by an alien invasion and mass-abductions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisLonely Hearts (2006)
In the late 1940s, a murderous couple known as the 'The Lonely Hearts Killers' kills close to a dozen people. Two detectives try to nab the duo who find their targets via the personals in the paper.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The First Purge?
The closest matches to The First Purge are The Purge: Election Year (2016), God Is a Bullet (2023) and The Hunt (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The First Purge?
Start with The Purge: Election Year (2016), the closest match to The First Purge.
What is the highest-rated movie like The First Purge?
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), rated 7.3/10 by 6,949 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The First Purge?
This Is Not a Test (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The First Purge?
Yes: The Purge: Election Year (2016), God Is a Bullet (2023) and The Hunt (2020).
How are movies similar to The First Purge chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The First Purge, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.