Movies like Serenity (2019)
The best movies like Serenity (2019) are Leave the World Behind (2023), Bunraku (2010) and Dolores Claiborne (1995). If Serenity hooked you with its thriller and mystery, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLéon: The Professional (1994)8.3/10 from 16,775 votes
- NewestThe Bluff (2026)Released 2026
Leave the World Behind (2023)
A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBunraku (2010)
In a world with no guns, a mysterious drifter, a bartender and a young samurai plot revenge against a ruthless leader and his army of thugs, headed by nine diverse and deadly assassins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisDolores Claiborne (1995)
Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDrop (2025)
Violet, a widowed mother on her first date in years, arrives at an upscale restaurant where she is relieved that her date, Henry, is more charming and handsome than she expected. But their chemistry begins to curdle as Violet begins being irritated and then terrorized by a series of anonymous drops to her phone.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStowaway (2022)
A tenacious party girl fights to survive after three thieves commandeer her luxury yacht. Unable to escape and trapped on the yacht at high seas, the prey becomes the hunter as she turns the tables on the intruders and takes matters into her own hands.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleeping with the Enemy (1991)
A young woman fakes her own death in an attempt to escape her nightmarish marriage, but discovers it is impossible to elude her controlling husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNot Without Hope (2025)
A group of friends' fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico and they're left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKen Park (2003)
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lighthouse (2019)
Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHellion (2014)
When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLimbo (1999)
Traumatized by a fishing boat accident many years before, Joe Gastineau has given up his hopes for a life beyond the odd jobs he takes to support himself. That quickly changes when nomadic club singer Donna de Angelo and her troubled teen-age daughter enter Joe’s life. Both mother and daughter fall for Joe, increasing the friction between them. The tension continues to build when Joe invites them on a pleasure cruise up the Alaskan coast, discovering too late that the trip may cost them their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSecret Window (2004)
Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCape Fear (1962)
Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2022)
A young woman with psychokinetic powers breaks out of a Louisiana asylum and makes her way to New Orleans, where she falls into the city’s netherworld of misfits and miscreants.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreakwater (2023)
A young ex-con risks his newfound freedom to track down the estranged daughter of a fellow inmate, and unknowingly brings a devil from her past straight to her doorstep.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCape Fear (1991)
Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHunting Season (2025)
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bluff (2026)
When her tranquil life on a remote island is shattered by the return of her vengeful former captain, a skilled ex-pirate must confront her bloody past and unleash her deadly talents to save her family from a ruthless siege.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReminiscence (2021)
Nicolas Bannister, a rugged and solitary veteran living in a near-future Miami flooded by rising seas, is an expert in a dangerous occupation: he offers clients the chance to relive any memory they desire. His life changes when he meets a mysterious young woman named Mae. What begins as a simple matter of lost and found becomes a passionate love affair. But when a different client's memories implicate Mae in a series of violent crimes, Bannister must delve through the dark world of the past to uncover the truth about the woman he fell for.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisByzantium (2013)
Residents of a coastal town learn, with deadly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought refuge at a local boarding house, the Byzantium.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJackie Brown (1997)
Jackie Brown is a flight attendant who gets caught in the middle of smuggling cash into the country for her gunrunner boss. When the cops try to use Jackie to get to her boss, she hatches a plan — with help from a bail bondsman — to keep the money for herself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMemento (2000)
Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of short-term memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he's going, or why.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBlade Runner (1982)
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisYoung Adam (2003)
A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisBarton Fink (1991)
A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInsomnia (2002)
Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wizard (1989)
A boy and his brother run away from home and hitch cross-country, with help from a girl they meet, to compete in the ultimate video game championship.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSin City (2005)
Welcome to Sin City. This town beckons to the tough, the corrupt, the brokenhearted. Some call it dark… Hard-boiled. Then there are those who call it home — Crooked cops, sexy dames, desperate vigilantes. Some are seeking revenge, others lust after redemption, and then there are those hoping for a little of both. A universe of unlikely and reluctant heroes still trying to do the right thing in a city that refuses to care.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
Some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLéon: The Professional (1994)
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Serenity?
The closest matches to Serenity are Leave the World Behind (2023), Bunraku (2010) and Dolores Claiborne (1995). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Serenity?
Start with Leave the World Behind (2023), the closest match to Serenity.
What is the highest-rated movie like Serenity?
Léon: The Professional (1994), rated 8.3/10 by 16,775 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Serenity?
The Bluff (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Serenity?
Yes: Leave the World Behind (2023), Bunraku (2010) and Dolores Claiborne (1995).
How are movies similar to Serenity chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Serenity, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.