Movies like Glare (2021)
The best movies like Glare (2021) are Contagion (2011), Experimenter (2015) and Sleep Dealer (2008). If Glare hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAwakenings (1990)7.8/10 from 3,010 votes
- NewestLa Candidate (2026)Released 2026
Contagion (2011)
As an epidemic of a lethal airborne virus - that kills within days - rapidly grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisExperimenter (2015)
Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment that still resonates to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve been told to do so. With Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living rooms across America, Milgram strikes a nerve in popular culture and the scientific community with his exploration into people’s tendency to comply with authority. Celebrated in some circles, he is also accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster, but his wife Sasha stands by him through it all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleep Dealer (2008)
Set in a near-future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the barriers of technology.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Wave (1981)
A teacher conducts an experiment in an American high school where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUpstream Color (2013)
A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the lifecycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReality (2023)
Augusta, Georgia, United States, June 3, 2017. After running some errands, Reality Winner returns home, where she is approached by two men.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSteve Jobs (2015)
Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Believe in Unicorns (2015)
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAwakenings (1990)
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFinch (2021)
On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a robot, built to protect the life of his dying creator's beloved dog, learns about life, love, friendship, and what it means to be human.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHere (2024)
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017)
An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMad City (1997)
A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHereafter (2010)
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMr. Church (2016)
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
An alien and a robot land on Earth after World War II and tell mankind to be peaceful or face destruction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSafe (1995)
Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisControl (1987)
An experiment of psychological effects under stressful conditions in a shelter. When fifteen strangers are put into a nuclear shelter to see how long they can survive without interaction with the outside, things work out fine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Tree of Life (2011)
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'll Follow You Down (2013)
After the disappearance of a young scientist on a business trip, his son and wife struggle to cope, only to make a bizarre discovery years later – one that may bring him home.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Candidate (2026)
A candidate attends a casting call. She is asked a question: What is beauty? This question obsesses her, but she is at a loss for words. Nothing comes to mind, but her determination may prove to be the ultimate solution...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Wave (2008)
A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBecause We Are Too Many (2024)
A single mother is forced to confront her dark past, while raising her young Autistic son. Shot and Set in Glasgow during the pandemic. The director herself and her son play the lead roles.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Human Nature (2001)
Obsessive scientist Nathan and his lover, the naturalist Lila, discover Puff: a man born and raised in the wild. As Nathan trains the wild man in the civilized ways of the world, Lila fights to preserve the man’s natural state. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Jacket (2005)
A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWasted (2002)
A high-school track star (Nick Stahl) watches without judgment as his two best friends (Summer Phoenix, Aaron Paul) abuse heroin.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Glare?
The closest matches to Glare are Contagion (2011), Experimenter (2015) and Sleep Dealer (2008). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Glare?
Start with Contagion (2011), the closest match to Glare.
What is the highest-rated movie like Glare?
Awakenings (1990), rated 7.8/10 by 3,010 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Glare?
La Candidate (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Glare?
Yes: Contagion (2011), Experimenter (2015) and Sleep Dealer (2008).
How are movies similar to Glare chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Glare, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.