Movies like Max and the Freaks (2022)
The best movies like Max and the Freaks (2022) are Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990), Soul (2020) and Waking Life (2001). If Max and the Freaks hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedInception (2010)8.4/10 from 40,709 votes
- NewestVertiginous (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchReflection in a Dead Diamond (2025)Also in French
Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990)
After her boyfriend ends their relationship, the dreamself of a heartbroken woman floats through the air over an industrial wasteland singing ballads of love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSoul (2020)
Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisWaking Life (2001)
Waking Life is about a young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. The film follows its protagonist as he initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Dark Tower (2017)
A boy haunted by visions of a parallel world aids its disillusioned guardian in preventing the destruction of the nexus of universes known as the Dark Tower.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisStill Breathing (1997)
Two lost souls: she a con-artist in L.A.; he a puppeteer in San Antonio have the same dream linking each with the other. He travels to L.A. to find this woman he has become obsessed with. She resists, afraid of his kooky ideas until she travels with him to San Antonio and meets his wise grandmother. Story of two disparate people linked by "fate" gets increasingly interesting as it rolls along.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInception (2010)
Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReflection in a Dead Diamond (2025)
When the mysterious woman in the room next door disappears, a debonair 70-year-old ex-spy living in a luxury hotel on the Côte d'Azur is confronted by the demons and darlings of a lurid past in which moviemaking, memories and madness collide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVertiginous (2026)
Jacques goes to his friend Bruno's house to tell him some big news: the entire human race is living in a simulation...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInterstate 60 (2002)
An aspiring painter meets various characters and learns valuable lessons while traveling across America.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLulu on the Bridge (1998)
A famous jazz saxophonist's life is forever changed after he is accidentally shot. After discovering a mysterious package, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful aspiring actress, but their happiness is cut short by a series of strange, dreamlike events.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGandahar (1987)
On the planet Gandahar where peace reigns and poverty is unknown, this utopian lifestyle is upset by reports of people at the outlying frontiers being turned to stone. Sylvain is sent to investigate this mysterious threat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Invisible (2007)
After an attack leaves him in limbo -- invisible to the living and also near death -- a teenager discovers the only person who might be able help him is his attacker.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFrom Beyond (1986)
The Resonator, a powerful machine that can control the sixth sense, has killed its creator and sent his associate into an insane asylum. When a psychiatrist becomes determined to continue the experiment, she unwittingly opens the door to a hostile parallel universe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)
Walter Mitty, a daydreaming writer with an overprotective mother, likes to imagine that he is a hero who experiences fantastic adventures. His dream becomes reality when he accidentally meets a mysterious woman who hands him a little black book. According to her, it contains the locations of the Dutch crown jewels hidden since World War II. Soon, Mitty finds himself in the middle of a confusing conspiracy, where he has difficulty differentiating between fact and fiction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParis Blues (1961)
During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDead Again (1991)
In 1949, composer Roman Strauss is executed for the murder of his wife. In 1990s Los Angeles, a detective comes across a mute amnesiac woman who is somehow linked to the Strauss murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI DREAM OF THE END OF POST-COLONAILISM IN THE PARK 5 min. (2026)
Relaxing in the park, haunted by the tower, city, and modern world, hallucinated by the internet.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Coming SoonMovies like thisFUCK TV (2019)
After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
How a River Is Born (2025)
Ayla wakes up in a mountainous landscape, surrounded only by vegetation and a river. Driven by curiosity and a desire to get to know the place, she goes on a journey of discovery and diving. As she discovers where she is, she also discovers herself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Triumph and Ruins (1997)
History as immersion and dispersion in the fragments of the past, a visionary journey accompanied by the voice of Patty Pravo. Presented at the Taormina Festival '97.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Art Blakey: The Jazz Messenger (1988)
A portrait of inspirational jazz drummer and teacher Art Blakey with Dizzy Gillespie, many pupils including Wayne Shorter, the Marsalis brothers, and a surprising new generation of musicians and dancers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Vertigem Branca (2012)
What remains for me is to promote my own ruin. Aware of inevitable loneliness, the incarnation of cruelty.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Trilok Gurtu Trio at Nord Sea Jazz Festival (2004)
The musical traditions of the eastern and western worlds are bridged through the improvisations of Bombay, India-born percussionist/vocalist Trilok Gurtu. Gurtu’s mastery of post-bop jazz has not gone unnoticed. Downbeat magazine named him “best percussionist” in three critic and popularity polls and proclaimed, “musically, the world is his stage”. Jazz magazine, Straight No Chaser took a similar view, writing, “this music has a transcendental quality and removes any obstacles that lie between western and eastern improvised music.” Gurtu’s eclectic approach has enabled him to collaborate with most of the world’s greatest musicians. Tracklist 01. Jhuleal 02. Peace of five elements 03. Africa con India 04. Pasana’s Love 05. Dance with my lover 06. God rhythm
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Joe Zawinul & WDR Big Band - Leverkusener Jazztage (2005)
Zawinul is onstage with the WDR Big Band from Germany and a special international rhythm section. The music is a tribute to the pioneering 1970s fusion collective Weather Report, originally with Wayne Shorter on sax, Zawinul on keys, and later Jaco Pastorius on bass (among other personnel). Zawinul and the WDR play "Brown Street" and "Carnavalito." Arranger Vince Mendoza re-imagines this colorful, small-group music for Europe's longest-lived jazz orchestra. And they can play!
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Al Jarreau at AVO Session Basel (2004)
Tracklist: 1. Route 66 2. Medley: - Save Me - My Old Friend - Trouble In Paradise 3. Distracted 4. Wait For The Magic 5. Mornin' 6. Take Five 7. Lost And Found 8. Midnight Sun 9. Medley: - Step By Step - Breakin' Away - I Will Be Here For You (Nitakungodea Milele) 10. Boogie Down
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Max and the Freaks?
The closest matches to Max and the Freaks are Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990), Soul (2020) and Waking Life (2001). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Max and the Freaks?
Start with Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990), the closest match to Max and the Freaks.
What is the highest-rated movie like Max and the Freaks?
Inception (2010), rated 8.4/10 by 40,709 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Max and the Freaks?
Vertiginous (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Max and the Freaks?
Yes: Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025), Vertiginous (2026) and The Science of Sleep (2006).
How are movies similar to Max and the Freaks chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Max and the Freaks, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.