Movies like The City of Lost Children (1995)
The best movies like The City of Lost Children (1995) are Brazil (1985), Delicatessen (1991) and MirrorMask (2005). If The City of Lost Children hooked you with its fantasy and science fiction, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBrazil (1985)7.7/10 from 3,897 votes
- NewestTwo People Exchanging Saliva (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchDelicatessen (1991)Also in French
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 thisDelicatessen (1991)
In a post-apocalyptic world, the residents of an apartment above the butcher shop receive an occasional delicacy of meat, something that is in low supply. A young man new in town falls in love with the butcher's daughter, which causes conflicts in her family, who need the young man for other business-related purposes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMirrorMask (2005)
In a fantasy world of opposing kingdoms, a 15-year old girl must find the fabled MirrorMask in order to save the kingdom and get home.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Zero Theorem (2013)
A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies 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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTime Bandits (1981)
Young history buff Kevin can scarcely believe it when six dwarfs emerge from his closet one night. Former employees of the Supreme Being, they've purloined a map charting all of the holes in the fabric of time and are using it to steal treasures from different historical eras. Taking Kevin with them, they variously drop in on Napoleon, Robin Hood and King Agamemnon before the Supreme Being catches up with them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien who has come to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. Aided by lawyer Oliver Farnsworth, Thomas uses his knowledge of advanced technology to create profitable inventions. While developing a method to transport water, Thomas meets Mary-Lou, a quiet hotel clerk, and begins to fall in love with her. Just as he is ready to leave Earth, Thomas is intercepted by the U.S. government, and his entire plan is threatened.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLabyrinth (1986)
Frustrated with babysitting on yet another weekend night, Sarah, a teenager with an active imagination, summons the Goblins to take her baby stepbrother away. When little Toby actually disappears, Sarah must follow him into a fantastical world to rescue him from the Goblin King. Guarding his castle is the labyrinth itself, a twisted maze of deception, populated with outrageous characters and unknown dangers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
After a carnival troupe saves his life, a man agrees to help its immortal leader collect five souls and win a bet with the devil.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisZardoz (1974)
In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlack Moon (1975)
There is a global gender war between men and women. A teenage girl tries to escape this reality and arrives at a hidden place where a strange unicorn lives with a family: sister, brother, many children and an old, bedridden woman who stays in contact with the world through her radio.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBunker 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 thisThe Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Science of Sleep (2006)
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy
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: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrave 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 thisKin-dza-dza! (1986)
Two Soviet humans previously unknown to each other are transported to the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy due to a chance encounter with an alien teleportation device. They must come to grips with a language barrier and Plukian social norms (not to mention the laws of space and time) if they ever hope to return to Earth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSexmission (1984)
Two scientists are chosen as guinea pigs for a time experiment: they are placed in hibernation and should be brought back to life after three years. In the meantime, however, World War III breaks out and life has been wiped off the surface of Earth. When they wake up, it turns out that not only 50 years have passed but also that they are the only living specimens of the male sex in a new, underground society composed exclusively of women.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlice (1988)
A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare - no matter how twisted or odd that way must be.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTideland (2005)
Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBigbug (2022)
Set in the world of 2045, where communities have robotic helpers, a group of suburbanites are locked in for their protection by their household robots, while a rogue, self-aware AI android revolt uprising takes place outside.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisFantastic Planet (1973)
On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Scanner Darkly (2006)
An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShe Is Conann (2023)
Traveling through the abyss, underworld dog Rainer recounts the six lives of Conann, perpetually put to death by her own future, across eras, myths and ages. From her childhood, a slave of Sanja and her barbarian horde, to her accession to the summits of cruelty at the doors of our world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & science fiction
Strawberry Mansion (2021)
In the not-too-distant future, an all-seeing surveillance state conducts “dream audits” to collect taxes on the unconscious lives of the populace. Mild-mannered government agent James Preble travels to a remote farmhouse to audit the dreams of Arabella “Bella” Isadora, an eccentric, aging artist. Entering Bella’s vast VHS archive, which contains a lifetime of dreams, Preble stumbles upon a secret that offers him a chance at love—and hope for escape.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisToto the Hero (1991)
80-year-old Thomas recounts his childhood and middle age through a series of flashbacks and dream sequences. Thomas believes he’s been taken away from a better life at birth; following a hospital fire, he vividly recalls being swapped with another new-born, and subsequently grows up in a poorer neighbouring household.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAfter Blue (Dirty Paradise) (2022)
In a faraway future, on a wild and untamed female inhabited planet called After Blue, a lonely teenager named Roxy unknowingly releases a mystical, dangerous, and sensual assassin from her prison.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both science fiction & fantasy
SnoozefestMovies like thisTwo People Exchanging Saliva (2025)
In a society where kissing is punishable by death, and people pay for things by receiving slaps to the face, Angine, an unhappy woman, shops compulsively in a department store. There, she becomes fascinated by a playful salesgirl. Despite the prohibition of kissing, the two become close, raising the suspicions of a jealous colleague.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both fantasy & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSuper Me (2021)
Sang Yu is so exhausted from trying to stay awake. Every time he closes his eyes, a demon chases and kills him in his dreams. One night Sang realizes he has a special power: he can bring treasures from his dreams into reality. Almost overnight, he becomes a rich man. But his wealth also attracts the attention of a ruthless gangster.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like The City of Lost Children and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The City of Lost Children?
The closest matches to The City of Lost Children are Brazil (1985), Delicatessen (1991) and MirrorMask (2005). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The City of Lost Children?
People who watched The City of Lost Children most often go on to Brazil (1985), Delicatessen (1991) and MirrorMask (2005).
What is the highest-rated movie like The City of Lost Children?
Brazil (1985), rated 7.7/10 by 3,897 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The City of Lost Children?
Two People Exchanging Saliva (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The City of Lost Children?
Yes: Delicatessen (1991), Alphaville (1965) and Bunker Palace Hotel (1989).
How are movies similar to The City of Lost Children chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The City of Lost Children, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.