Movies like FEAR (2021)
The best movies like FEAR (2021) are Doctor X (1932), Wer (2013) and Virtual Assistant (2025). If FEAR 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 ratedThe Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)7.6/10 from 302 votes
- NewestVirtual Assistant (2025)Released 2025
Doctor X (1932)
A wisecracking reporter investigates the cannibalistic 'Moon Killer' murders tied to a medical academy, culminating in a chilling reenactment experiment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWer (2013)
A defense attorney begins to suspect that her client, who is charged with the murders of a vacationing family, might be more than meets the eye.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVirtual Assistant (2025)
A group of former classmates rent a country house to relax like in the good old days. The modern chalet has everything for a comfortable and fun vacation, including the smart speaker "Alyona". "Alyona" knows how to entertain her guests, she has many "skills". She can solve puzzles, manage the house, and she also knows all the "skeletons in the closet" that friends are hiding. The device invites the company to play the game "Find the Killer" and find out the circumstances of the death of their best friend, who died less than a year ago under strange circumstances.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTightrope (1984)
Wes Block is a detective who's put on the case of a serial killer whose victims are young and pretty women. The murders are getting personal when the killer chooses victims who are acquaintances of Block. Even his daughters are threatened.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoodnight Mommy (2022)
When twin brothers arrive home to find their mother’s demeanor altered and face covered in surgical bandages, they begin to suspect the woman beneath the gauze might not be their mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies 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
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Night Flier (1997)
For cynical tabloid journo Richard Dees, facts are always stranger than fiction. Every headline is a dead-line. Serial killers, UFO abductions, tales of molestation, mayhem and murder. To some the tales are mere sleazy fantasy – but his faithful readers believe. And now there's a new story: The Night Flier. What is it that travels by night in a dark-winged Cessna, lands at secluded airfields and murders local residents? Dees begins to track the unknown killer in a Cessna of his own, uncovering clues that reveal a pilot more terrifying than he could have ever imagined.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDarfur (2009)
American journalists in Sudan are confronted with the dilemma of whether to return home to report on the atrocities they have seen, or to stay behind and help some of the victims they have encountered.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisPlanet Terror (2007)
Two doctors find their graveyard shift inundated with townspeople ravaged by sores. Among the wounded is Cherry Darling, a dancer whose leg was ripped from her body. As the invalids quickly become enraged aggressors, Cherry and her ex-boyfriend El Wray lead a team of accidental warriors into the night.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGrindhouse (2007)
Grindhouse combines Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, a horror comedy about a group of survivors who battle zombie-like creatures, and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, an action thriller about a murderous stuntman who kills young women with modified vehicles. It is presented as a double feature with fictitious exploitation trailers preceding each segment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFrank and Penelope (2022)
A tale of love and violence when a man on his emotional last legs finds a savior seductively dancing in a run-down strip club. And a life most certainly headed off a cliff suddenly becomes redirected - as everything is now worth dying for.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHardware (1990)
Mark 13 is a government-built killing machine programmed with artificial intelligence, able to repair and recharge itself from any energy source. Through a series of coincidences, the cyborg's head ends up in the home of a sculptress as a bizarre Christmas present from her boyfriend. Once inside its new home, the cyborg promptly reconstructs the rest of its body using a variety of household utensils and proceeds to go on a murderous rampage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cell (2000)
A psychotherapist journeys inside the mind of a comatose serial killer in the hopes of saving his latest victim.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Good Woman Is Hard to Find (2019)
The recently widowed mother of two, Sarah, is desperate to know who murdered her husband in front of her young son, rendering him mute. Coerced into helping a low-life drug dealer stash narcotics stolen from the local Mr. Big, she's forced into taking drastic action to protect her children, evolving from downtrodden submissive to take-charge vigilante.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hitcher (1986)
On a stormy night, young Jim, who transports a luxury car from Chicago to California to deliver it to its owner, feeling tired and sleepy, picks up a mysterious hitchhiker, who has appeared out of nowhere, thinking that a good conversation will help him not to fall asleep. He will have enough time to deeply regret such an unmeditated decision.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Resurrected (1991)
Charles Dexter Ward, a wealthy scientist, uses an ancient diary and human remains to begin a terrifying and bloody pursuit for immortality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPatrick (1978)
A comatose hospital patient harasses and kills through his powers of telekinesis to claim his private nurse as his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNatural Born Killers (1994)
Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKill List (2011)
Nearly a year after a botched job, a hitman takes a new assignment with the promise of a big payoff for three killings. What starts off as an easy task soon unravels, sending the killer into the heart of darkness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Prophecy II (1998)
The archangel Gabriel returns to try to destroy the human race he despises so much, with the help of a suicidal teen and the opposition of the angel Danyael.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man in the Trunk (2019)
On an otherwise quiet night there is a startling knock at the door. Andrew Tucker answers the door to find an old friend whom he hasn't seen in years. The disheveled and absent friend comes to him with one request: "I need you to come with me but, I can't tell you where we're going." Andrew takes a chance but learns that every answer brings more questions. Nothing good ever comes knocking after midnight and Andrew's nightmare asks how far you would go to help a friend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
The I Inside (2004)
When Simon awakens in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal accident, amnesia has erased the last two years from his memory. He learns that his brother was killed, he has married a woman he doesn't remember and he's haunted by strange visions of the woman he loved.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum, he observes the professor's preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist. When Mabuse's notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor's whereabouts, and capture him for good.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRun (2012)
Ma Nan and Xiaoyu are a couple who have been in love for many years. Ma Nan bought a property in the suburbs, just in time for Xiaoyu's birthday. So he called his colleagues and friends and the party was held in a cheerful atmosphere. Next door to Ma Nan's house lived a couple who often quarreled. The unusually loud noise aroused the curiosity of party-goers. They went next door together to find out, but unexpectedly found a terrifying and bloody murder scene. The apartment, which was originally sparsely populated, seems to have turned into a huge haunted house. Flickering lights, shrill screams, and maddened murders. A plague-like virus spreads freely in the apartment.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
The Seventh Sign (1988)
Abby is a pregnant woman with a curious new boarder in the apartment over her garage. Turns out he's heaven-sent and is speeding along the Apocalypse by bloodying rivers, egging on plagues and following scripture word for word.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dead Zone (1983)
Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Zodiac (2005)
An elusive serial killer known as the Zodiac terrorizes the San Francisco Bay in the late 1960s, while detectives aim to stop him before he claims more victims. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisInvasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)
Pinhead is set loose on the sinful streets of New York City to create chaos with a fresh cadre of Cenobitic kin.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisSpecter (2014)
The town of Midground is threatened by a tsunami caused by a massive earthquake in the North Pacific Ocean. After other unexplainable events transpire, Chase Lombardi and friends are forced to discover whether they are experiencing a natural phenomenon or something else all together.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like FEAR?
The closest matches to FEAR are Doctor X (1932), Wer (2013) and Virtual Assistant (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after FEAR?
Start with Doctor X (1932), the closest match to FEAR.
What is the highest-rated movie like FEAR?
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), rated 7.6/10 by 302 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like FEAR?
Virtual Assistant (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to FEAR chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside FEAR, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.