Movies like Nineteen Eighty-Four
If Nineteen Eighty-Four hooked you with its drama and science fiction, these are the films to watch next. Every pick says why it matches.
THX 1138 (1971)
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this1984 (1956)
In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFahrenheit 451 (1966)
In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrave New World (1980)
A man who grew up in a primitive society educating himself by reading Shakespeare is allowed to join the futuristic society where his parents are from. However, he cannot adapt to their repressive ways.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & drama
Dirty Computer (2018)
The story of a young woman named Jane 57821, who is living in a totalitarian near-future society where citizens are referred to as 'computers.' 'Dirty Computer' explores humanity and what truly happens to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when mind and machines merge, and when the government chooses fear over freedom.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Winston Smith is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country's leaders in a charitable light. His trysts with Julia provide his only measure of enjoyment, but lawmakers frown on the relationship -- and in this closely monitored society, there is no escape from Big Brother.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGattaca (1997)
Vincent is an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. He is an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Handmaid's Tale (1990)
In a dystopian, polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMetropolis (1927)
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Power (1968)
One by one members of a special project team are being killed by telekinesis - the ability to move things with the power of the mind alone. The race is on to determine which of the remaining team members is the murderer and to stop them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Brave New World (1998)
In a futuristic totalitarian utopian society, babies are created through genetic engineering, everyone has a predestined place in society and their minds are conditioned to follow the rules. A tragic outsider jeopardizes the status quo.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisCyborg 2087 (1966)
In the future world of the year 2087, freedom of thought is illegal and the thoughts of the world's populations are controlled by the government. A small band of "free thinkers" send a cyborg back in time to the year 1966 to prevent a scientist from making the breakthrough that will eventually lead to the mass thought control of the future. Our time traveler soon discovers he is not alone when government agents from the future try to prevent him from carrying out his mission.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Brazil (1985)
Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe White King (2016)
Djata is a care-free 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship shut off from the outside world. When the government imprisons his father, Peter, and Djata and his mother Hannah are labeled traitors, the boy will not rest until he sees his father again.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisAlphaville (1965)
Lemmy Caution is on a mission to eliminate Professor Von Braun, the creator of a malevolent computer that rules the city of Alphaville. Befriended by the scientist’s daughter Natasha, Lemmy must unravel the mysteries of the strictly logical Alpha 60 and teach Natasha the meaning of the word “love.”
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Quatermass Conclusion (1979)
Influenced by the social and geopolitical situation of the early nineteen-seventies and the hippie youth movement of the late nineteen-sixties, Quatermass is set in a near future in which large numbers of young people are joining a cult, the “Planet People”, and gathering at ancient sites, believing they will be transported to a better life on another planet.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Bunker Palace Hotel (1989)
In an imaginary dictature of a futuristic world, rebellion has broken out. The men in power scramble to the Bunker Palace Hotel, a bunker built long ago for just this kind of contingency. But a rebel spy sneaks in, and although her nature is very quickly suspected, she is left to observe the raving of the decadent power class, who keeps wondering what happened to their leader, who has failed to show up.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Point O (2004)
Paranoid computer programmer Simon wakes up to find a package in his room one day. Despite attempts at securing his apartment, the packages keep arriving. While cameras watch Simon's every move, he struggles to find the answers to the mysterious forces taking over his life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisLa Jetée (1962)
A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & science fiction
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Aerial (2007)
An entire city has lost its voice. Mr. TV, the owner of the city's only television channel, is carrying out a sinister plan to control all of the city's inhabitants.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStalker (1979)
Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep-seated desires are granted.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisKamikaze '89 (1982)
In a futuristic, totalitarian society wherein the government controls all facets of the media, a homicide detective investigates a string of bombings and uncovers more than he bargained for.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
2073 (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: Fans watch both · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMax Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future (1985)
While trying to expose corruption and greed, television reporter Edison Carter discovers that his employer, Network 23, has created a new form of subliminal advertising (termed "blip-verts") that can be fatal to certain viewers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCollision Earth (2011)
A huge solar flare blasts Mercury out of it's orbit and provides it with an intense magnetic field and it's on collision course for Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Giver (2014)
In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStormageddon (2015)
What happens when you ask the most powerful computer program, run by the most powerful computers, to follow, listen and predict human behavior? The program learns, becomes sentient and begins to behave like a human. When a master computer program, Echelon, takes over America's entire online system, our country is threatened to be brought to its knees. Hacking into DARPA, Echelon gains the ability to manipulate the weather, create earthquakes, and cause a level of destruction unlike anything the country could ever imagine. But how do you stop a computer program when it has control over any and every defense you have?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStargate: Continuum (2008)
Ba'al travels back in time and prevents the Stargate program from being started. SG-1 must somehow restore history.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTranscendence (2014)
Two leading computer scientists work toward their goal of Technological Singularity, as a radical anti-technology organization fights to prevent them from creating a world where computers can transcend the abilities of the human brain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMetropia (2009)
In the near future, oil reserves are nearly depleted and Europe is connected by series of underground tunnels. While navigating these tunnels, Roger hears voices, one in particular. Seeking a way to rid himself of the voice only leads Roger deeper into a bizarre conspiracy of control - mind and body.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Nineteen Eighty-Four?
The closest matches to Nineteen Eighty-Four are THX 1138, 1984, Fahrenheit 451.
How are movies similar to Nineteen Eighty-Four chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Nineteen Eighty-Four, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.
Are there English movies like Nineteen Eighty-Four?
Yes: THX 1138, 1984, Fahrenheit 451.