Movies like Sanctuary in the Night (1973)
The best movies like Sanctuary in the Night (1973) are Star of David: Beauty Hunting (1979), Angel Guts: Red Classroom (1979) and Tokyo Decadence (1992). If Sanctuary in the Night hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDinner in America (2022)7.8/10 from 252 votes
- NewestLa Dolce Villa (2025)Released 2025
- In JapaneseStar of David: Beauty Hunting (1979)Also in Japanese
Star of David: Beauty Hunting (1979)
The life of Tatsuya, a young man of proper yet mysterious descent, whose outward respectability hides his urges for rape and torture.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngel Guts: Red Classroom (1979)
A porn magazine editor stumbles upon an amateur gang rape film and, struck by the girl's acting, decides to find her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTokyo Decadence (1992)
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisImprint (2006)
An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAntiporno (2017)
Kyôko, a traumatized young Japanese girl, finds herself struggling with her self-confidence in her adult life. Growing up in a family without her mother and her sister, she constantly questions the rationale of sex and the notion of liberty in modern Japanese society.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Realm of the Senses (1976)
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlower & Snake: Zero (2014)
Misaki Amemiya is an assistant inspector for the Metropolitan Police Department's Community Safety Bureau who becomes ensnared in a trap while investigating a mysterious illegal video website called "Babylon". Soon, she's bound and tortured along with Shizuko and an oversexed housewife named Ruri.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Thousand and One Nights (1969)
Aldin, a vagabond water vendor, embarks of a series of fantastical and tragic misadventures through the Middle East in search of love, fortune, and power.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPorno (2019)
When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGo, Go Second Time Virgin (1969)
Go, Go, Second Time Virgin is the story of two damned and abused teenagers who meet and fall in mutant love on a Tokyo rooftop. Their only hope is to cement their love with an escape into oblivion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDinner in America (2022)
An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with a local band go on an unexpected and epic journey together through the decaying suburbs of the American Midwest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShort Peace (2013)
A traveler is confronted by spirits in an abandoned shrine; a story of honor and firefighting in ancient Japan; a white bear defends the royal family from a monstrous red demon; ragtag soldiers battle a robotic force in futuristic Japan.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBatman Ninja (2018)
Batman, along with many of his allies and adversaries, finds himself transported to feudal Japan by Gorilla Grodd's time displacement machine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisSakuran (2006)
Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Dolce Villa (2025)
When his daughter decides to buy a crumbling Tuscan villa, Eric rushes to Italy to talk her out of it — and instead finds beauty, romance and new purpose.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMind Game (2004)
Nishi is a loser who has a crush on his childhood girlfriend. After an encounter with the Japanese mafia, he journeys to heaven and back, and ends up trapped in an even more unlikely place.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDon Jon (2013)
A New Jersey guy dedicated to his family, friends, and church, develops unrealistic expectations from watching porn and works to find happiness and intimacy with his potential true love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDead Leaves (2004)
Pandy and Retro awaken naked on Earth with no recollection of their past. They embark on a crime spree in search of food and clothing, but are captured by authorities and sent to the infamous lunar penitentiary named Dead Leaves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIntentions of Murder (1964)
The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDoraemon the Movie: Nobita's Little Star Wars 2021 (2022)
During summer vacation Nobita picks up a small rocket containing Papi, a palm-sized alien president escaping rebels on his home planet Pirika.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNo Man's Land (1991)
Parisian Rita Kato follows a letter from her friend Masao Sato to Tokyo, but discovers that a new tenant is already living at the sender's address, the slacker Takeshi, called Golgo after the contract killer protagonist from Takao Saitō's long-lived manga series Golgo 13. Apathetically, the two squats on each other for a few days until Rita sets off again and is bagged on the way back by the petty criminal Kiyomi in a stolen car. In the Tokyo swampland, the two meet Golgo again...
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Amazon Garden: Uniform Lesbians (1992)
A lesbian teacher (Kanako Kishi) comes to Tokyo in search of her student (Ichiko Kamata), who has dropped out of high school and started living with a bomb-making terrorist (Takeshi Ito).
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Monk Farted (1993)
The story is about Nagatoshi, a handsome and sexy monk played by Kazuhiro Sano, who is struggling for the widow he loves. Foreshadowing the prophecy of the Great Kanto Earthquake, the film is a highly entertaining theatrical spectacle that depicts the human condition of a downtown area undergoing development and the efforts of men and women who rebel against it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Angel in September (1994)
One day, Hitomi observes her classmate Eriko stealing lipstick in a drugstore and follows her home. The two young women get to know and love each other. While the withdrawn Hitomi believes herself and Eriko to be reincarnations of angel warriors who once fought demon armies, her emancipated and apathetic friend wanders through life between sex contacts with older men and fear of falling into a boring bourgeois existence. The different futures of the two soon lead to tensions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
End of the World (1995)
A fugitive man and woman (Kawase, Kawana) come to an island to retrieve their son (Iwasaki), who the woman has given to a foster family, but the son's foster parents are policemen (Ito)... The suspense surrounding the retrieval of the son is made unusual by the location shooting on the vast and desolate Miyakejima Island and leads to an allegorical drama about the essential desires of human beings. This was Kawase Yota's first appearance in a Zeze film, and he has since become a regular actor. The title of the film at the time of its first release was Sukebe Tenkomori.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
No Good Men (1995)
No Good Men follows Kumiko, a young and attractive woman that works at a travel agency, and moonlights as an insatiable, sex-hungry mistress.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Twin Blades of the Ninja (2007)
For Yamame and Suzume, two beautiful young ninjas-in-training, the prospects of a long life are shortened dramatically when they choose the wrong Samurai to relieve of his wallet. Suddenly the buxom pair find themselves caught up in a deadly game with both the life of a princess and their own at stake! But despite the overwhelming odds that face them, Yamame and Suzu have at least one trick no one's expecting inside their ninja arsenal... and they're willing to bare ALL their weapons in order to survive!
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Wart (1996)
A man becomes obsessed with delusions due to his obsession with a woman he lost, and loses sight of reality. A girl he meets in a rundown entertainment district gently accepts the man's delusions. The only time the two, who seek each other as if to erase the boundary between self and other, feel reality is when they indulge in a dangerous game involving a time bomb... The audiovisual effects, calculated down to the smallest detail, such as the rain and humidity, the deliberate use of red in the color scheme, and the pop song the woman hums, contribute to the continuation of the conceptual story.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Chikan densha: Oshiri o futte onedari (1988)
A section chief is unable to get it up with his wife, and even worse, is dying. He then learns BDSM, soon joined by a male and female employee (who is a "true masochist").
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Extracurricular Activity: Rape! (1989)
Three bad high school students who are preparing for the graduation ceremony are caught up in a battle with Yakuza after encountering a Korean in Japan and Yuki Yappa who has been married to him. A youth adventure drama with a powerful depiction of "Japan" and "Asia" that emerges from various nationalities.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Like Sanctuary in the Night and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Sanctuary in the Night?
The closest matches to Sanctuary in the Night are Star of David: Beauty Hunting (1979), Angel Guts: Red Classroom (1979) and Tokyo Decadence (1992). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Sanctuary in the Night?
Start with Star of David: Beauty Hunting (1979), the closest match to Sanctuary in the Night.
What is the highest-rated movie like Sanctuary in the Night?
Dinner in America (2022), rated 7.8/10 by 252 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Sanctuary in the Night?
La Dolce Villa (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Sanctuary in the Night?
Yes: Star of David: Beauty Hunting (1979), Angel Guts: Red Classroom (1979) and Tokyo Decadence (1992).
How are movies similar to Sanctuary in the Night chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Sanctuary in the Night, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.