Movies like 2036: Nexus Dawn (2017)
The best movies like 2036: Nexus Dawn (2017) are Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 (2017), 2048: Nowhere to Run (2017) and Blade Runner (1982). If 2036: Nexus Dawn hooked you with its science fiction and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBlade Runner (1982)7.9/10 from 15,628 votes
- NewestAfterburn (2025)Released 2025
Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 (2017)
This animated short revolves around the events causing an electrical systems failure on the west coast of the US. According to Blade Runner 2049’s official timeline, this failure leads to cities shutting down, financial and trade markets being thrown into chaos, and food supplies dwindling. There’s no proof as to what caused the blackouts, but Replicants — the bio-engineered robots featured in the original Blade Runner, are blamed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like this2048: Nowhere to Run (2017)
“2048: Nowhere to Run” takes place one year before the events of Blade Runner 2049. The short film focuses on Sapper, a man who is trying to make it through life day-by-day without turning back to his old ways. We’re introduced to both the gentle nature of Sapper and the violence he’s capable of when set off.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisImpostor (2001)
A top-secret government weapons designer is arrested by a clandestine government organization on suspicion of being a clone created by the hostile alien race wanting to take over Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUpgrade (2018)
A brutal mugging leaves Grey Trace paralyzed in the hospital and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure — an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body. Now able to walk, Grey finds that he also has superhuman strength and agility — skills he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Machine (2013)
Already deep into a second Cold War, Britain’s Ministry of Defense seeks a game-changing weapon. Programmer Vincent McCarthy unwittingly provides an answer in The Machine, a super-strong human cyborg. When a programming bug causes the prototype to decimate his lab, McCarthy takes his obsessive efforts underground, far away from inquisitive eyes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisDeath Machine (1995)
Chaank Armaments is experimenting with the ultimate fighting machine which is part human - part machine. So far, the Hardman project has been unreliable and has killed a number of innocent people. The genius behind this project is Jack who lives in a world of models, toys and magazines. When he is fired by Cale for killing a few corporate officers, he unleashes the ultimate killing machine called the 'Warbeast' against Cale and those who would help her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisDoomsday (2008)
The lethal Reaper virus spreads throughout Britain—infecting millions and killing hundreds of thousands. Authorities brutally and successfully quarantine the country but, three decades later, the virus resurfaces in a major city. An elite group of specialists is urgently dispatched into the still-quarantined country to retrieve a cure by any means necessary. Shut off from the rest of the world, the unit must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisSimulant (2023)
Faye attempts to replace her newly deceased husband, Evan, with an android simulant (SIM). Although SIM Evan appears like human Evan in every way, Faye does not feel the same love for SIM Evan as it does for her. SIM Evan tries to win Faye back while at the same time being on-the-run from a government agent chasing down SIMs who have become “conscious” and could potentially be a threat to humankind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisOutside the Wire (2021)
In the near future, a drone pilot is sent into a deadly militarized zone and must work with an android officer to locate a doomsday device.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFortress (1992)
In the future, the inmates of a private underground prison are computer-controlled with cameras, dream readers, and devices that can cause pain or death. John and his illegally pregnant wife Karen are locked inside "The Fortress" but are determined to escape before the birth of their baby.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWifelike (2022)
A grieving detective in the near-future hunts down criminals who trade artificial humans on the black market. In the fight to end AI exploitation, an underground resistance attempts to infiltrate him by sabotaging the programming of the artificial human assigned as his companion to behave like his late wife. She begins to question her reality as memories of a past life begin to surface in a world where nothing is as it seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & 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 thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlade Runner 2049 (2017)
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAfterburn (2025)
Set against the backdrop of a postapocalyptic Earth whose Eastern Hemisphere was destroyed by a massive solar flare, leaving what life remains mutated from radiation and fallout. The story revolves around a group of treasure hunters who extract such objects as the Mona Lisa, the Rosetta Stone and the Crown Jewels while facing rival hunters, mutants and pirates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMonsters of Man (2020)
A robotics company vying to win a lucrative military contract team up with a corrupt CIA agent to conduct an illegal live field test. They deploy four weaponized prototype robots into a suspected drug manufacturing camp in the Golden Triangle, assuming they'd be killing drug runners that no one would miss. Six doctors on a humanitarian mission witness the brutal slaughter and become prime targets.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChappie (2015)
Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings—some good, some bad—and he will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become his own man. But there's one thing that makes Chappie different from any one else: he is a robot.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlien Resurrection (1997)
Two hundred years after Lt. Ripley died, a group of scientists clone her, hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the new Ripley is full of surprises … as are the new aliens. Ripley must team with a band of smugglers to keep the creatures from reaching Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTurbo Kid (2015)
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, an orphaned teen must battle a ruthless warlord to save the girl of his dreams.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParadox Mary (2008)
Mary has a problem. And it’s right in front of her. It’s in front of everyone else too, only they haven’t recognized it yet.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
The Tell-Tale Heart (2010)
A computer-generated rendering of the classic Poe tale about a man's sanity being a point of contention as he confesses to murdering an elderly man, driven by the victim's pale blue 'vulture eye', culminating in guilt-induced auditory hallucinations of the victim's beating heart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Würfels Stern (1999)
Due to a small malfunction, the rulers of the planet are briefly distracted from the final catastrophe. Nevertheless, it arrives. We plan to film on location in the universe and elsewhere, and to rebuild the entire planet in its original size. We categorically reject special effects: We intend to interfere as little as possible.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
The Cure to Loneliness (2022)
Netty is feeling lost in life following the abrupt end of her relationship with Liam. Luckily, there's a quick fix found in pill marketed as "the cure to loneliness".
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Death Watch (1980)
In a future world where the disease has been finally defeated and everything can be sold, even the crude spectacle of death, the rare case of a dying woman becomes the morbid theme of a revolutionary reality show, broadcast through the curious eyes of a peculiar camera.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattle Royale (2000)
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Best for my Daughter (2024)
How far is a father willing to go
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
The Return of the Näcken (2024)
The Return of the Näcken is a gothic horror tale about a lonely water demon and her quest for human souls focusing on the existential anguish of being an enchanted creature doomed to an immortal life filled with grief, isolation, and loss.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Anesthetist (2014)
A nurse who needs money is offered a simple anesthetic part-time job, who soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous insurance scam and tries to escape. However, the nurse is left to the end.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Terror Of The Killer Carnivorous Coat (2011)
A group of friends struggle for survival as they are faced with the ancient, demonic evil of - the killer carnivorous coat.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like 2036: Nexus Dawn?
The closest matches to 2036: Nexus Dawn are Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 (2017), 2048: Nowhere to Run (2017) and Blade Runner (1982). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after 2036: Nexus Dawn?
Start with Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 (2017), the closest match to 2036: Nexus Dawn.
What is the highest-rated movie like 2036: Nexus Dawn?
Blade Runner (1982), rated 7.9/10 by 15,628 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like 2036: Nexus Dawn?
Afterburn (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like 2036: Nexus Dawn?
Yes: Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 (2017), 2048: Nowhere to Run (2017) and Blade Runner (1982).
How are movies similar to 2036: Nexus Dawn chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside 2036: Nexus Dawn, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.