Movies like The Detention Girls (1969)
The best movies like The Detention Girls (1969) are Coldwater (2013), Brute Force (1947) and A Bluebird in My Heart (2018). If The Detention Girls hooked you with its thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSuccubus (2024)8.3/10 from 280 votes
- NewestEscape at Alcatraz (2026)Released 2026
Coldwater (2013)
A teenage boy is sent to a juvenile reform facility in the wilderness. As we learn about the tragic events that sent him there, his struggle becomes one for survival with the inmates, counselors, and the retired war colonel in charge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrute Force (1947)
Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Bluebird in My Heart (2018)
An ex-con's attempts to live a quiet life are derailed when the daughter of the woman sheltering him is the victim of a vicious attack.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlack Widow (1987)
Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRogue Agent (2022)
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good Neighbor (2022)
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisExtremities (1986)
A woman escapes from the man who is about to rape her, but leaves her purse behind. Afraid that her attacker might come after her, she goes to the police, but with no proof of the incident, they can do nothing. In fact, the man does use the information in her bag and comes to her apartment with the intent of rape, but she sprays him in the face with insect repellent, and then holds him captive. She is then faced with deciding whether to go to the police who might not believe her and release him, or to kill him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDead of Winter (1987)
A fledgling actress is lured to a remote mansion for a screen-test, soon discovering she is actually a prisoner in the middle of a blackmail plot.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeath Game (1977)
George Manning is a well-to-do businessman, husband, and father. While his family is away on his birthday, he invites a pair of rain-soaked young women into his house to wait out an evening thunderstorm. The two girls seduce Manning and ultimately kidnap and torture him in his own home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisLockdown (2000)
Avery (Jones) returns to college as a competitive swimmer after getting his life back on track. But his life takes another unexpected turn when he and his two friends (Bonds, Casseus) are wrongly accused of murder and end up in prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAffinity (2008)
A grieving upper class woman becomes a "Lady Visitor" at Millbank prison, hoping to escape her troubles and be a guiding figure in the lives of the female prisoners. Of all her friendships with prisoners, she is most fascinated by Selina - a medium.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Crush (1993)
A precocious and obsessive teenager develops a crush on a naive writer with harrowing consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Breath (2024)
A group of old college friends reunite on a Caribbean scuba diving trip exploring the wreckage of a WWII battleship and find themselves trapped inside the underwater labyrinth of rusted metal surrounded by great white sharks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Final (2010)
A group of high school outcasts get revenge on the students that torment them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlood Punch (2014)
Milton, a college dropout, was only supposed to cook meth for one day. Broken out of rehab by a brash young woman and her trigger-happy ("ex") boyfriend and driven to a remote cabin the woods, Milton finds himself drawn into a dangerous love triangle gone haywire. The couple's deadpan half-truths spin around Milton like a song on repeat. They seem to read him like an open book, until a mysterious message opens his eyes to his cursed existence. With unlimited ammunition, any hunting tool they could desire, and an ever-growing body count, for what did Milton really sign up?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaged (2021)
An African American male is imprisoned and placed in solitary confinement after being found guilty of murdering his wife, as he's haunted by internal demons and his dead wife, and pushed to the breaking point by an abusive female guard.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuccubus (2024)
A new father going through a marital separation joins a dating app and matches with a beautiful but mysterious young woman... whose powers of seduction and manipulation entangle him in a mystery more horrifying than he could have ever imagined.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Beast in Heat (1977)
In a remote village in occupied Europe, the SS pursue their inhuman treatment of captured partisans in efforts to force them to betray their comrades.... while Fraulein Krast, a sadistic biologist, concentrates her efforts on the womenfolk with refined tortures and humiliation, leaving them to the mercy of a sex-crazed half-man, half-beast she has created with experimental injections.... And as advancing Allied forces approach the village, Krast herself becomes a victim of her own fiendish rituals....
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Next Three Days (2010)
Life seems perfect for John Brennan until his wife, Lara, is arrested for a murder she says she didn’t commit. Three years into her sentence, John is struggling to hold his family together, raising their son and teaching at college while he pursues every means available to prove her innocence. With the rejection of their final appeal, Lara becomes suicidal and John decides there is only one possible, bearable solution: to break his wife out of prison.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRun Like Hell (1995)
In the year of 2008, war and sickness have overtaken the planet. The deranged government declares single women a threat to the human race. Singles women are imprisoned. The corrupt warden is determined to keep the prisoners locked up.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Love Camp 7 (1969)
Two female Army agents go undercover at a Nazi prison camp to get information from a scientist being held there.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Nathalie: Escape from Hell (1978)
When a Russian doctor (Patrizia Gori) falls foul of the Nazis, she finds herself imprisoned at Fort Stilberg, a luxury brothel for German top brass where the women are overseen by sadistic SS officer Helga Hortz (Jacqueline Laurent). The doctor's medical skills bring her to the attention of Nazi Lieutenant Erik Mueller (Jack Taylor), who saves the lovely lady from becoming one of the establishment's 'hostesses' by assigning her to the infirmary.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
The Vanished Murderer (2015)
In 1932, a prisoner escapes from a women's prison in northern China. Inspector Song Donglu is summoned to investigate the escape.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Escape at Alcatraz (2026)
When a covert black-ops contractor seizes Alcatraz, the CIA smuggles hardened agent Lt. Jack Callahan inside to extract whistleblower Anya Turner and her damning evidence before the mission spirals into a deadly fight for survival.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Bringing Down the House (2003)
Uptight lawyer Peter Sanderson wants to dive back into dating after his divorce and has a hard time meeting the right women. He tries online dating and lucks out when he starts chatting with a fellow lawyer. The two agree to meet in the flesh, but the woman he meets — an escaped African-American convict named Charlene — is not what he expected. Peter is freaked out, but Charlene tries to convince him to take her case and prove her innocence. Along the way, she wreaks havoc on his middle-class life as he gets a lesson in learning to lighten up.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Company She Keeps (1951)
A lady con artist sets out to steal her parole officer's fiance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Reader (2008)
The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Detention Girls?
The closest matches to The Detention Girls are Coldwater (2013), Brute Force (1947) and A Bluebird in My Heart (2018). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Detention Girls?
Start with Coldwater (2013), the closest match to The Detention Girls.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Detention Girls?
Succubus (2024), rated 8.3/10 by 280 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Detention Girls?
Escape at Alcatraz (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Detention Girls?
Yes: Coldwater (2013), Brute Force (1947) and A Bluebird in My Heart (2018).
How are movies similar to The Detention Girls chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Detention Girls, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.