Movies like Waterwick: Prologue (2021)
The best movies like Waterwick: Prologue (2021) are Shock Corridor (1963), The Mean Season (1985) and Mr. Arkadin (1955). If Waterwick: Prologue hooked you with its mystery and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCitizen Kane (1941)8.0/10 from 6,344 votes
- NewestVerity (2026)Released 2026
Shock Corridor (1963)
With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Mean Season (1985)
A routine investigation of a shocking murder takes a bizarre twist when the killer contacts the reporter and appoints him his personal spokesman. As the killer's calls and clues increase, the reporter is lured into a deadly trap.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Arkadin (1955)
Claiming that he doesn't know his own past, a rich man enlists an ex-con with an odd bit of detective work. Gregory Arkadin says he can't remember anything before the late 1920s, and convict Guy Van Stratten is happy to take the job of exploring his new acquaintance's life story. Guy's research turns up stunning details about his employer's past, and as his work seems linked to untimely deaths, the mystery surrounding Mr. Arkadin deepens.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStonehearst Asylum (2014)
An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEyes of Laura Mars (1978)
A famous fashion photographer develops a disturbing ability to see through the eyes of a serial killer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisNight Watch (1973)
A woman recovering from a nervous breakdown tries to convince her husband and and the local London police that she has witnessed a murder in the abandoned house next door.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 9th Life of Louis Drax (2016)
A psychologist who begins working with a young boy who has suffered a near-fatal fall finds himself drawn into a mystery that tests the boundaries of fantasy and reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Black Book (2023)
After his son is wrongly accused of kidnapping, a deacon who has just lost his wife takes matters into his own hands and fights a crooked police gang to clear him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEvery Breath You Take (2021)
A psychiatrist, whose client commits suicide, finds his family life disrupted after introducing her surviving brother to his wife and daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisNight Train to Lisbon (2013)
Raimund Gregorius, having saved a beautiful Portuguese woman from leaping to her death, stumbles upon a mesmerizing book by a Portuguese author, which compels him to suddenly abandon the boring life he has led for years and to embark on an enthralling adventure. In search of the author, Gregorius acts as detective, pulling together pieces of a puzzle that involves political and emotional intrigue and the highest possible stakes. His voyage is one that transcends time and space, delving into the realms of history, medicine and love, all in search of true meaning to his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVerity (2026)
Lowen Ashleigh, hired to ghostwrite for best-selling author Verity Crawford, uncovers Verity's autobiographical notes, and becomes involved in what may prove to be a lethal conspiracy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Night Strangler (1973)
After being run out of Las Vegas, reporter Carl Kolchak heads for Seattle and another reporting job with the local paper. It's not long before he’s on the trail of another string of bizarre murders. It seems that every 21 years, for the past century, a killer murders a certain number of people, drains them of their blood, and then disappears into the night. Kolchak is on his trail, but can he stop him?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOther Side of the Box (2018)
A couple receives a mysterious package from an old friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe System (2022)
When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Experiment (2010)
20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChief of Station (2024)
After learning that the death of his wife was not an accident, a former CIA Station Chief is forced back into the espionage underworld, teaming up with an adversary to unravel a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAsylum (2005)
A woman becomes very curious about one of her psychiatrist husband's inmates, a man who was found guilty in the murder and disfigurement of his former wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMārama (2026)
1859. When a young Māori woman is summoned from New Zealand to North Yorkshire, she uncovers her horrific colonial heritage and is compelled to confront and destroy the titled Englishman who devastated her family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNeverwas (2005)
Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNeglected (2026)
Detective Shaw is about to retire when he finds out on his last day of work that a serial killer has buried his son alive. He then races against the clock to solve three murders and find his son’s location before he runs out of air.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFrancis (2013)
Francis is a short story written by american novelist Dave Eggers. This is the story of a young boy growing up in the suburbs of chicago. He spent his vacations in Quetico Provincial Park, up on the border of Minnesota and Canada. But he won't be going back any day soon, not after what happened to a girl called Francis Brandywine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
Trapped (2025)
Short drama film made in 5 days on the BFI Film Academy at Film Oxford 2024. Two uni students go to their accommodation for the first time, but is all as it seems?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
True Crime (1999)
Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & mystery
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: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCitizen Kane (1941)
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisA Man Walks Into a Bar... (2016)
A man walks into a bar, the start of a bad joke with an even worse pun? or a cautionary tail that tells us, don't tempt fate.........just don't.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
A Very Tight Place (2019)
A Very Tight Place finds Curtis Johnson fighting for his life after a property dispute leaves him trapped in a port-a-potty on a scorching fall weekend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Wet Asphalt (1958)
In Berlin, when the journalist Greg Bachmann is released from prison six months before the end of his sentence, there is a driver named Jupp waiting for him. Soon he learns that the famous journalist Cesar Boyd was the responsible for the shorter sentence. Cesar offers a position of his assistant to Greg; in return, Boyd would write his story about his interviews to war criminals and Greg would help him in other matters. Meanwhile Boyd welcomes the daughter of a deceased friend, Bettina, and he becomes her guardian.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Robo en el cine Capitol (1996)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Scoop (2006)
An American journalism student in London scoops a big story, and begins an affair with an aristocrat as the incident unfurls.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Waterwick: Prologue?
The closest matches to Waterwick: Prologue are Shock Corridor (1963), The Mean Season (1985) and Mr. Arkadin (1955). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Waterwick: Prologue?
Start with Shock Corridor (1963), the closest match to Waterwick: Prologue.
What is the highest-rated movie like Waterwick: Prologue?
Citizen Kane (1941), rated 8.0/10 by 6,344 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Waterwick: Prologue?
Verity (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Waterwick: Prologue?
Yes: Shock Corridor (1963), The Mean Season (1985) and Mr. Arkadin (1955).
How are movies similar to Waterwick: Prologue chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Waterwick: Prologue, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.