Movies like Tropic of Cancer (1972)
The best movies like Tropic of Cancer (1972) are The Bloodstained Shadow (1978), Torso (1973) and Grindhouse (2007). If Tropic of Cancer hooked you with its thriller and horror, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Handmaiden (2016)8.2/10 from 4,590 votes
- NewestPlay Dead (2025)Released 2025
- In ItalianThe Bloodstained Shadow (1978)Also in Italian
The Bloodstained Shadow (1978)
A schoolgirl was murdered seven years ago, and the case was never solved; now, the murderer seems to be back.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTorso (1973)
A masked serial killer with psychosexual issues strangles female coeds with scarves before dismembering them. When a wealthy student identifies one of the scarves and thinks she has a lead on a suspect, she becomes the killer's next target, retreating to her family's remote cliffside villa with three of her girlfriends.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & 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 & horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974)
An unidentified fifteen year-old girl is found hanged after an anonymous tip-off. The girl, Silvia Polvesi, is soon discovered to have been murdered. A peeping tom is caught with photos of her having sex with a teenage drop-out but he is later released due to lack of evidence. The investigation, conducted by Inspector Silvestri and the assistant public prosecutor Vittoria Stori, focuses on the girl's parents. Conspiracies and horrors pile up, as do the body parts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCheat (2023)
On the surface it's believed to be another urban legend - a supernatural being from the afterlife is violently killing anyone who cheats on their significant other in the small college town of Silvercreek, Pennsylvania. But the town's unusually high suicide rate is finally convincing both locals and college students that everything is not as it seems. When Maeve - a female college student - sleeps with Charlie, the married man of the host family she is staying with, both sense the deadly curse is closing in on them. Unable to get anyone to believe them, Maeve and Charlie seek out a local history student to help find answers and figure out a way to defend themselves. It all comes undone, however, as several people are horrifically killed by the savage being - one-by-one at a rapid pace. Eventually, Maeve, Charlie and the few survivors band together in an attempt to defeat the monster once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
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 & horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDaddy's Little Girl (2014)
After the police find Derek’s daughter brutally murdered on the beach, he vows to make the culprit suffer for his actions, even if that person is ‘part of the family.’ With careful research into the history of torture, Derek prepares himself and his basement for a week of brutal tactics that will make his daughter’s killer feel the pain that he has inflicted upon so many others. In a time when stranger danger is ever present, a single father learns that it’s the ones you trust most who have to be watched the closest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrange Darling (2024)
Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBloodline (2019)
Evan values family above all else, and anyone who gets between him, his wife, and newborn son learns that the hard way. But when it comes to violent tendencies, it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies 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 horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeep Red (1975)
An English pianist living in Rome witnesses the brutal murder of his psychic neighbor. With the help of a tenacious young reporter, he tries to discover the killer using very unconventional methods. The two are soon drawn into a shocking web of dementia and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne on Top of the Other (1969)
A San Francisco doctor encounters a prostitute who bears a striking resemblance to his late wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
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 thisShadow Master (2022)
After being slain by a group of criminals, a man is reborn with animal-like superpowers and makes it his mission to right the wrongs of his city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDark Angel (1990)
Jack Caine is a Houston vice cop who's forgotten the rule book. His self-appointed mission is to stop the drugs trade and the number one supplier Victor Manning. While involved in an undercover operation to entrap Victor Manning, his partner is killed, and a sinister newcomer enters the scene...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPlay Dead (2025)
A woman wakes up injured in a basement surrounded by corpses. To survive, she pretends to be dead while a grotesque ritual unfolds in the house above.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Blood (2014)
When her husband goes missing during their Caribbean vacation, a woman sets off on her own to take down the men she thinks are responsible.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisRise of the Footsoldier (2007)
Carlton Leach rises from one of the most feared generals of the football terraces to becoming a member of a notorious gang of criminals who rampaged their way through London and Essex in the late '80s and early '90s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHollow Man (2000)
Cocky researcher Sebastian Caine is working on a project to make living creatures invisible. Determined to achieve the ultimate breakthrough, Caine pushes his team to move to the next phase — using himself as the subject. The test is a success, but when the process can't be reversed and Caine seems doomed to future without flesh, he starts to turn increasingly dangerous.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
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 Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971)
Inspector Tellini investigates serial crimes where victims are paralyzed while having their bellies ripped open with a sharp knife.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSummer's Blood (2009)
A demented handyman comes to the rescue of a young woman, then imprisons her in his basement.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisMail Order (2011)
A Wall Street trader who is obsessed with snuff films thinks he sees an old girlfriend starring in one.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & horror
Slaughter Hotel (1971)
A masked killer stalks an institution for mentally disturbed rich women.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1974)
An ex-convict, troubled by dreams that he strangles women, is hired as the caretaker on an estate owned by three very strange sisters. Soon after his arrival, a serial killer begins slaughtering blonde, blue-eyed women - and leaving their eyeballs in a bowl of water.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Dragonfly for Each Corpse (1975)
A killer is cleaning up the streets of Milan by murdering those considered as deviant. An ornamental dragonfly, soaked in the blood of the victim, is left on each body.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & horror
Naked Weapon (2002)
A mysterious woman, known as Madame M, kidnaps forty pre-teen girls and transports them to a remote island to train them as the most deadly assassins. CIA operative Jack Chen follows the case for 6 years with no leads, but when a series of assassinations begin to occur, Jack suspects that Madame M is back in business.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisO (2001)
Even though he's the only black student at the elite Palmetto Grove Academy, star basketball player Odin James has the adoration of all, including the team's coach and the Dean's beautiful daughter Desi. Odin's troubled friend Hugo, the coach's son, deeply resentful of his father's preference of Odin on and off the court, plots a diabolical scheme to sow the seed of mistrust between O and Desi, setting in motion a disturbing chain of events which erupts into a firestorm of breathtaking intensity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Handmaiden (2016)
1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sook-hee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Last of Sheila (1973)
A year after Sheila is killed in a hit-and-run, her multimillionaire husband invites a group of friends to spend a week on his yacht playing a scavenger hunt-style mystery game—but the game turns out to be all too real and all too deadly.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Tropic of Cancer?
The closest matches to Tropic of Cancer are The Bloodstained Shadow (1978), Torso (1973) and Grindhouse (2007). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Tropic of Cancer?
Start with The Bloodstained Shadow (1978), the closest match to Tropic of Cancer.
What is the highest-rated movie like Tropic of Cancer?
The Handmaiden (2016), rated 8.2/10 by 4,590 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Tropic of Cancer?
Play Dead (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Italian movies like Tropic of Cancer?
Yes: The Bloodstained Shadow (1978), Torso (1973) and What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974).
How are movies similar to Tropic of Cancer chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Tropic of Cancer, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.