Movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
The best movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) are Misery (1990), Girl, Interrupted (1999) and The Green Mile (1999). If One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Green Mile (1999)8.5/10 from 20,135 votes
- NewestThe Wonder (2022)Released 2022
Misery (1990)
After an accident, acclaimed novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by a nurse who claims to be his biggest fan. Her obsession takes a dark turn when she holds him captive in her remote Colorado home and forces him to write back to life the popular literary character he killed off.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGirl, Interrupted (1999)
Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Green Mile (1999)
A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Professor and the Madman (2019)
Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShutter Island (2010)
World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Wonder (2022)
Haunted by her past, a nurse travels from England to a remote Irish village in 1862 to investigate a young girl's supposedly miraculous fast.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNeverwas (2005)
Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Magdalene Sisters (2002)
Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBirdy (1984)
Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReturn to Sender (2015)
A nurse mistakes a stranger who pays her a visit for her blind date and soon, the man rapes her and turns her life upside down. The woman works to reclaim her life and exact revenge on her assailant after he's paroled from prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNaked Lunch (1991)
Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFight Club (1999)
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisKiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
The story of two radically different men thrown together in a Latin American prison cell. One is Valentin, a journalist being tortured for his political beliefs. The other is Molina, a gay window-dresser who fills their lonely nights by spinning romantic fantasies drawn from memories of old movies.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Double (2014)
An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe United States of Leland (2003)
A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDesperate Measures (1998)
San Francisco police officer Frank Connor is in a frantic search for a compatible bone marrow donor for his gravely ill son. There's only one catch the potential donor is convicted multiple murderer Peter McCabe who sees a trip to the hospital as the perfect opportunity to get what he wants most: freedom. With McCabe's escape, the entire hospital becomes a battleground and Connor must pursue and, ironically, protect the deadly fugitive who is his son's only hope for survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBringing Out the Dead (1999)
Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReversal of Fortune (1990)
Wealthy Sunny von Bülow lies brain-dead, husband Claus guilty of attempted murder; but he says he's innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz for his appeal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sweet Hereafter (1997)
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRounders (1998)
Poker addict Mike McDermott knows the game inside out, but loses his money one night in a game to Russian-American gangster Teddy KGB. Promising his partner Jo he'll give up, he meets up with best friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy, just out of prison and owing lots of money to the wrong kind of people. McDermott becomes his co-guarantor and now there's only one way to raise the money, the pair have to get back into the game.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Simple Plan (1998)
Captivated by the lure of sudden wealth, the quiet rural lives of two brothers erupt into conflicts of greed, paranoia and distrust when over $4 million in cash is discovered at the remote site of a downed small airplane. Their simple plan to retain the money while avoiding detection opens a Pandora's box when the fear of getting caught triggers panicked behavior and leads to virulent consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Walk to Remember (2002)
When the popular, restless Landon Carter is forced to participate in the school drama production, he falls in love with Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's minister. Jamie has a "to-do" list for her life, as well as a very big secret she must keep from Landon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSnow White (2005)
The life of 20-year-old Nico from upper class Zurich is all party, sex and drugs when she meets Paco, the front man of a rap band. She finds herself drawn to his independent, creative and profound way of life, so different from her own. With naiveté and infinite self-confidence, she tries to adopt his lifestyle - without anticipating the consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
White Men Can't Jump (1992)
Two street basketball hustlers try to con each other, then team up for a bigger score.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLisbon-Province (2010)
A nurse takes care of a patient in her house. Maria do Céu has been a nurse for more than forty years, working at an old Hospital in Lisbon. She was sixteen, when she arrived to Lisbon, coming from a small village in Alentejo. At the Hospital, she reads the file of an old patient who was also her friend. The file is then closed. Maria do Céu returns to her village, where she sings at the people’s house choir.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Prince of Tides (1991)
A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoby Dick (1956)
In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRakastunut rampa (1975)
Krokelby in the 1920s. Sakris Kukkelman is a crippled, Nietzsche reading village idiot who believes himself to be a romantic hero.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
The closest matches to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are Misery (1990), Girl, Interrupted (1999) and The Green Mile (1999). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
Start with Misery (1990), the closest match to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
What is the highest-rated movie like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
The Green Mile (1999), rated 8.5/10 by 20,135 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
The Wonder (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
Yes: Misery (1990), Girl, Interrupted (1999) and The Green Mile (1999).
How are movies similar to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.