Movies like The Invention of Life (2015)
The best movies like The Invention of Life (2015) are Rabbits (2002), The Caller (1987) and The Inhabitant (2022). If The Invention of Life hooked you with its mystery, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDark City (1998)7.3/10 from 3,438 votes
- NewestThe Dogs (2025)Released 2025
- In SpanishMoebius (1996)Also in Spanish
Rabbits (2002)
A story of a group of humanoid rabbits and their depressive, daily life. The plot includes Suzie ironing, Jane sitting on a couch, Jack walking in and out of the apartment, and the occasional solo singing number by Suzie or Jane. At one point the rabbits also make contact with their “leader”.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Caller (1987)
One night, an unusual stranger in need asks a woman living alone in a house in the woods if he can use her phone. It soon becomes clear that they're playing a strange mind game and that there's something very wrong about the woods.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Inhabitant (2022)
Like any other teenage girl, Tara is just surviving high school — yet her father and mother seem strangely distant. Amidst a nearby spree of gruesome ax murders, Tara has sightings of terrifying entities, forcing her to question her own sanity and shocking ancestry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisMr. K (2025)
Mr. K, a traveling magician, finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of his hotel. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVideodrome (1983)
As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDark City (1998)
A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoebius (1996)
Deep within Buenos Aires's labyrinthine subway system, a train mysteriously disappears along with it's 30 passengers. The subway officials are greatly troubled and call in topographer Daniel Pratt to help them find it. Unfortunately, the tunnels are so vast and complex, that Pratt needs his mentor Hugo Mistein to help him. Unfortunately, he too has vanished.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer's decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2022)
A young woman with psychokinetic powers breaks out of a Louisiana asylum and makes her way to New Orleans, where she falls into the city’s netherworld of misfits and miscreants.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thismother! (2017)
A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Limits of Control (2009)
A mysterious stranger works outside the law and keeps his objectives hidden, trusting no one. While his demeanor is paradoxically focused and dreamlike all at once, he embarks on a journey that not only takes him across Spain, but also through his own consciousness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Casa (2020)
Responding to an urgent call for help, a police officer becomes trapped by the evil spirits of a cursed house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Follows (2015)
A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dogs (2025)
After fleeing his psychotic father, a young teen and his mom seek refuge in a remote farmhouse, only to face a pack of ferocious dogs and the sinister spirits that haunt the property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnder the Silver Lake (2018)
Young and disenchanted Sam meets a mysterious and beautiful woman who's swimming in his building's pool one night. When she suddenly vanishes the next morning, Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles to decode the secret behind her disappearance, leading him into the murkiest depths of mystery, scandal and conspiracy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Prize (1963)
A group of Nobel laureates descends on Stockholm to accept their awards. Among them is American novelist Andrew Craig, a former literary luminary now writing pulp detective stories to earn a living. Craig, who is infamous for his drinking and womanizing, formulates a wild theory that physics prize winner Dr. Max Stratman has been replaced by an impostor, embroiling Craig and his chaperone in a Cold War kidnapping plot.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSociety (1990)
Bill Whitney is worried that he is different to his sister and parents. They mix with other upper-class people while Bill is more down to earth. Even his girlfriend seems a bit odd. All is revealed when Bill returns home to find a party in full swing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Stone Tape (1972)
A research team from an electronics company move into an old Victorian house to start work on finding a new recording medium. When team member Jill Greeley witnesses a ghost, team director Peter Brock decides not only to analyse the apparition, which he believes is a psychic impression trapped in a stone wall (dubbed a "stone tape"), but to exorcise it too - with terrifying results...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmelia’s Children (2024)
When Edward’s search for his biological family leads him and his girlfriend Ryley to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal, he is full of excitement at meeting his long-lost mother and twin brother. Finally, he will discover who he is and where he comes from. But nothing is as it seems, and Edward will soon learn that he is linked to them by a monstrous secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHaze (2005)
A man awakes to find himself trapped in a dirty, confined crawlspace. He barely has enough room to move. He also has no memory of why he's there, or why he's bleeding from a stomach wound. Apparently drugged, he occasionally 'zones out' of his surroundings as he tries to edge towards his way to freedom. But the more he explores, the more pain he has to endure, and the more frightening his predicament becomes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRoseville (2013)
In the early autumn of 1985 the police are seeing the consequences of a shocking and mysterious incident that took place in an isolated mountain hut in the Balkan Mountains. The film "Roseville " is artistic interpretations inspired by eyewitness accounts and clues found within the cabin.Vasil ( Kalin Vratchanski ) and Nadia ( Lydia Indjova ) are a young couple who arrive on holiday in "Roseville". There they meet the keeper George ( Plamen Manassiev ) and his best friend Dora ( Elena Petrova ). Later joining the gang is Stephen Court ( David Chokachi ) - an old associate of George. The presence of Vasil unlocked " storm " of unexplained events that will test the sanity of all. Everyone faces the the horror of their own fears and the invisible force that wants to control them, lurking in the dark and quietly knocks on the door to their minds.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz (2000)
The last day of creation. A stranger arrives in London. No one knows who he is or where he has come from. By the time he leaves, the entire universe will have been erased.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Survive Style 5+ (2004)
Five bizarre stories with no apparent connection to one another eventually become intertwined, resulting in surreal circumstances.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIblard Time (2007)
A quiet stroll through the imaginary world of Iblard, originally depicted in the paintings by Naohisa Inoue, influenced by Impressionism and Surrealism.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChase a Crooked Shadow (1958)
A woman who lives in Spain has trouble convincing anybody that a complete stranger has taken her dead brother's identity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDust Devil (1992)
A woman on the run from her abusive husband encounters a mysterious hitch-hiker.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Woman (1962)
Within a single space, the director treats the sorrows of two people married to each other.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Alphaville (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: Similar story and style · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAu Pays des Clochers (2019)
Surrealist experimental & silent short film made by film students.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Like The Invention of Life and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Invention of Life?
The closest matches to The Invention of Life are Rabbits (2002), The Caller (1987) and The Inhabitant (2022). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Invention of Life?
Start with Rabbits (2002), the closest match to The Invention of Life.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Invention of Life?
Dark City (1998), rated 7.3/10 by 3,438 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Invention of Life?
The Dogs (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like The Invention of Life?
Yes: Moebius (1996) and La Casa (2020).
How are movies similar to The Invention of Life chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Invention of Life, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.