Movies like Sanctuary (2023)
The best movies like Sanctuary (2023) are Elle (2016), Crash (1996) and Simon Killer (2012). If Sanctuary hooked you with its drama and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEyes Wide Shut (1999)7.5/10 from 7,460 votes
- NewestPretty Thing (2025)Released 2025
Elle (2016)
When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCrash (1996)
A car crash victim inexplicably finds himself aroused by car accidents and becomes involved with an underground subculture of like-minded souls.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSimon Killer (2012)
A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisPretty Thing (2025)
A successful executive fights back when a scorned young lover takes his obsession too far.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisNocturnal Animals (2016)
Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVenus in Fur (2013)
An enigmatic actress may have a hidden agenda when she auditions for a part in a misogynistic writer's play.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wasp (2024)
Heather bumps into Carla, having not spoken to her in years, and presents her with a very unexpected proposition that could change both of their lives forever.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEyes Wide Shut (1999)
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThoroughbreds (2018)
Lily and Amanda, two high school students living in suburban Connecticut, rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of drifting apart. Together, they devise a plan to kill Lily's abusive stepfather by hiring a lowlife drug dealer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Bigger Splash (2015)
An American couple, Paul and Marianne, spend their vacation in Italy and experience trouble when Marianne invites a former lover and his teenage daughter to visit, which leads to jealousy and dangerous sexual scenarios.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBitch (2017)
A woman snaps and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog as her checked-out, philandering husband attempts to keep the family together.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisDeep Water (2022)
A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisGraphic Desires (2023)
When reclusive Franklin cheats on his partner with a mysterious girl he meets on a dating app, it becomes the start of a deadly obsession.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Dr. Steven Murphy is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who presides over a spotless household with his wife and two children. Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin, a fatherless teen who insinuates himself into the doctor's life in gradually unsettling ways.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFatal Attraction (1987)
A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBitter Moon (1992)
A passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic's wife.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisQueen of Earth (2015)
Two women retreat to a lake house to get a break from the pressures of the outside world, only to realize how disconnected from each other they have become, allowing their suspicions to bleed into reality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Comfort of Strangers (1990)
An Italian diplomat's son follows and seduces English lovers in Venice.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisAllure (2018)
Plagued by the abuse of her past and the turmoil of failed intimate encounters, Laura struggles to find a lover and a sense of normalcy. Her beacon of hope comes in sixteen year-old Eva, a talented pianist disillusioned by the life her mother imposes upon her. An unlikely relationship is formed between the two and Eva becomes an obsession to Laura. In light of Eva's unhappiness, Laura convinces her to runaway to her house and they soon find themselves caught within an intense entanglement. Manipulation, denial and codependency fuel what ultimately becomes a fractured dynamic that can only sustain itself for so long.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisPiercing (2019)
After kissing his wife and baby goodbye for a seemingly normal business trip, Reed checks himself into a hotel room to accomplish something he’s always dreamed of: the perfect murder. As his sinister plans unfold, he soon realizes he might be in over his head with a mysteriously unhinged call girl named Jackie.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisSafe Inside (2019)
Young lovers Tom and Ana, travelling through Europe, find work at the estate of the otherworldly Richard. Remote and cut off, they soon realise that they need to escape Richard’s powerful and controlling mind, before he traps them in his imagined world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
The Skin I Live In (2011)
A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEileen (2023)
During a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by Rebecca, the glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisHeatwave (2022)
A woman's life takes an unexpected turn when she falls for her boss's wife. She must soon defend herself as she becomes entangled in a web of malice.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Duke of Burgundy (2015)
Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCompulsion (2024)
Two women—Diana, a flamboyant and ruthless thief, and Evie, a seemingly innocent young woman with a troubled past—become embroiled in a series of horrific murders on the island of Malta.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Secret Lives of Cheerleaders (2019)
A new transfer student reluctantly tries out for the cheerleading team at the insistence of her overly ambitious mother.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
The Tutor (2023)
When a professional tutor takes a job at a remote manor, he soon finds himself battling his disturbed student’s obsessions, which threaten to expose his darkest secrets and unravel his carefully crafted persona.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Bear (2020)
At a remote lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, a couple entertains an out-of-town guest looking for inspiration in her filmmaking. The group quickly falls into a calculated game of desire, manipulation, and jealousy, unaware of how dangerously intertwined their lives will soon become.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDerailed (2005)
When two married business executives having an affair are blackmailed by a violent criminal, they are forced to turn the tables on him to save their families.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like Sanctuary and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Sanctuary?
The closest matches to Sanctuary are Elle (2016), Crash (1996) and Simon Killer (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Sanctuary?
People who watched Sanctuary most often go on to Elle (2016), Crash (1996) and Simon Killer (2012).
What is the highest-rated movie like Sanctuary?
Eyes Wide Shut (1999), rated 7.5/10 by 7,460 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Sanctuary?
Pretty Thing (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Sanctuary?
Yes: Crash (1996), Simon Killer (2012) and Pretty Thing (2025).
How are movies similar to Sanctuary chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Sanctuary, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.