Movies like Instant (2018)
The best movies like Instant (2018) are Tau (2018), ARQ (2016) and Containment (2015). If Instant 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 ratedBack to the Future (1985)8.3/10 from 22,730 votes
- NewestSpace/Time (2025)Released 2025
Tau (2018)
Held captive in a futuristic smart house, a woman hopes to escape by befriending the A.I. program that controls the house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisARQ (2016)
Two old friends living in a dystopic future become trapped in a mysterious time loop — one that may have something to do with an ongoing battle between an omnipotent corporation and a ragtag band of rebels.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & 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 & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisSpectral (2016)
A special-ops team is dispatched to fight supernatural beings that have taken over a European city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Time Shifters (1999)
Tom Merrick gets caught up in a time-traveling conspiracy and must set the timeline right before it is irrevocably altered.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like this10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
After a catastrophic car crash, a young woman wakes up in a survivalist's underground bunker, where he claims to have saved her from an apocalyptic attack that has left the outside world uninhabitable.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGemini Man (2019)
Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLooper (2012)
In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTimecop (1994)
In 2004, an officer for a security agency that regulates time travel must fend for his life against a shady politician who has a tie to his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 this2073 (2024)
Inspired by Chris Marker's iconic 1962 featurette La Jetée; the year is 2073—a not-so-distant dystopian future—and the setting is New San Francisco, the scorched-earth tech-dominant police state where democracy and personal freedom have been well and truly obliterated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpace/Time (2025)
After a fatal test shuts down their project, a disgraced team of scientists enters the criminal underworld to rebuild a forbidden space-bending engine that could rescue humanity or annihilate it entirely.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisTerminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
It's been 10 years since John Connor saved Earth from Judgment Day, and he's now living under the radar, steering clear of using anything Skynet can trace. That is, until he encounters T-X, a robotic assassin ordered to finish what T-1000 started. Good thing Connor's former nemesis, the Terminator, is back to aid the now-adult Connor … just like he promised.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRampage: Capital Punishment (2014)
A man takes over a TV station and holds a number of hostages as a political platform to awaken humanity, instead of money.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaptive (2020)
A teenage runaway who’s trapped by a delusional man, pretends to be his daughter in order to escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOmni Loop (2024)
Diagnosed with a black hole growing inside her chest and stuck in a loop reliving the last five days of her life, a 55-year-old wife and mother from Miami, Florida decides to solve time travel in order to go back and be the person she always intended to be.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisToy Soldiers (1991)
After federal agents arrest a drug czar and put him on trial, the cartel leader's vicious son storms a prep school and takes its students hostage. They rebel against the armed intruders and try to take back their academy by any means necessary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 355 (2022)
A group of top female agents from American, British, Chinese, Colombian, and German government agencies are drawn together to try and stop an organization from acquiring a deadly weapon to send the world into chaos.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInside Man: Most Wanted (2019)
An NYPD hostage negotiator teams up with a federal agent to rescue dozens of tourists held hostage during a 10-hour seige at the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMad City (1997)
A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStar Trek: First Contact (1996)
The Borg, a relentless race of cyborgs, are on a direct course for Earth. Violating orders to stay away from the battle, Captain Picard and the crew of the newly-commissioned USS Enterprise E pursue the Borg back in time to prevent the invaders from changing Federation history and assimilating the galaxy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Terminator (1984)
In the post-apocalyptic future, reigning tyrannical supercomputers teleport a cyborg assassin known as the "Terminator" back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son is destined to lead insurgents against 21st century mechanical hegemony. Meanwhile, the human-resistance movement dispatches a lone warrior to safeguard Sarah. Can he stop the virtually indestructible killing machine?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTwelve Monkeys (1995)
In the year 2035, convict James Cole reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to discover the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population and forced the survivors into underground communities. But when Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990 instead of 1996, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital. There he meets psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly and the son of a famous virus expert who may hold the key to the Army of the 12 Monkeys; thought to be responsible for unleashing the killer disease.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStar Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
A renegade Vulcan with a startling secret hijacks the U.S.S. Enterprise in order to find a mythical planet.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisTerminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Ten years after the events of the original, a reprogrammed T-800 is sent back in time to protect young John Connor from the shape-shifting T-1000. Together with his mother Sarah, he fights to stop Skynet from triggering a nuclear apocalypse.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & science fiction
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Time Machine (1960)
A Victorian Englishman travels to the far future and finds that humanity has divided into two hostile species.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBack to the Future Part III (1990)
The final installment finds Marty digging the trusty DeLorean out of a mineshaft and looking for Doc in the Wild West of 1885. But when their time machine breaks down, the travelers are stranded in a land of spurs. More problems arise when Doc falls for pretty schoolteacher Clara Clayton, and Marty tangles with Buford Tannen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMiami Vice (2006)
A case involving drug lords and murder in South Florida takes a personal turn for undercover detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. Unorthodox Crockett gets involved romantically with the Chinese-Cuban wife of a trafficker of arms and drugs, while Tubbs deals with an assault on those he loves.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBack to the Future (1985)
Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBack to the Future Part II (1989)
Marty and Doc are at it again as the time-traveling duo head to 2015 to nip some McFly family woes in the bud. But things go awry thanks to bully Biff Tannen and a pesky sports almanac. In a last-ditch attempt to set things straight, Marty finds himself bound for 1955 and face to face with his teenage parents -- again.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like Instant and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Instant?
The closest matches to Instant are Tau (2018), ARQ (2016) and Containment (2015). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Instant?
Start with Tau (2018), the closest match to Instant.
What is the highest-rated movie like Instant?
Back to the Future (1985), rated 8.3/10 by 22,730 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Instant?
Space/Time (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Instant?
Yes: Tau (2018), ARQ (2016) and Containment (2015).
How are movies similar to Instant chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Instant, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.