feelsalike.comSign in
Cliffhanger poster

Movies that feel likeCliffhanger (1993)

A year after losing his friend in a tragic 4,000-foot fall, former ranger Gabe Walker and his partner, Hal, are called to return to the same peak to rescue a group of stranded climbers, only to learn the climbers are actually thieving hijackers who are looking for boxes full of money.

If you loved Cliffhanger, the closest films we have are Die Hard 2 (1990), GoldenEye (1995) and Plane (2023). All three share Cliffhanger's kinetic and tense feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Runaway Train (1985).

🍅 67% Rotten Tomatoes★ 6.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Renny Harlinkineticepictenseplayful
10 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Hulu

Can't choose? Answer three questions and get one movie for tonight.

Not on subscription streaming right now. Rent or buy below.

See it on the Mood Map

When is Cliffhanger streaming? →

If Cliffhanger hit the spot, these will too

Die Hard 2 poster
Die Hard 2
1990 · dir. Renny Harlin
🍅 68%★ 7.2action · thrillerHulu

Renny Harlin working the same nerve twice

The difference: Takes it somewhere less epic than Cliffhanger does

One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Christmas Eve, as he waits for his wife's plane to land at Washington Dulles International Airport, terrorists take over the air traffic control system in a plot to free a South American army general and drug smuggler being flown into the US to face drug charges. It's now up to McClane to take on the terrorists, while coping with an inept airport police chief, an uncooperative anti-terrorist squad, and the life of his wife and everyone else trapped in planes circling overhead.

GoldenEye poster
GoldenEye
1995 · dir. Martin Campbell
🍅 81%★ 7.2adventure · action · thrillerPrime Video

Kinetic where it counts, epic underneath

When a powerful secret defense system is stolen, James Bond is assigned to stop a Russian crime syndicate from using it.

Plane poster
Plane
2023 · dir. Jean-François Richet
🍅 79%★ 6.5action · adventure · thrillerRent or buy

One thread runs through both: airplane

The difference: Made in the 2020s, in a different era of the craft

After a heroic job of successfully landing his storm-damaged aircraft in a war zone, a fearless pilot finds himself between the agendas of multiple militias planning to take the plane and its passengers hostage.

The Rock poster
The Rock
1996 · dir. Michael Bay
🍅 76%★ 7.4action · adventure · thrillerPeacock

Action built on tension, twice over

When vengeful General Francis X. Hummel seizes control of Alcatraz Island and threatens to launch missiles loaded with deadly chemical weapons into San Francisco, only a young FBI chemical weapons expert and notorious Federal prisoner have the skills to penetrate the impregnable island fortress and take him down.

Ashfall poster
Ashfall
2019 · dir. Kim Byung-seo
🍅 70%★ 6.2action · adventure · thrillerPrime Video

Kinetic adventure, and it commits to that

A group of unlikely heroes from across the Korean peninsula try to save the day after a volcano erupts on the mythical and majestic Baekdu Mountain.

The Wolf's Call poster
The Wolf's Call
2019 · dir. Antonin Baudry
★ 6.9thriller · action · adventurePrime Video

Thriller with a pulse of scale, in both cases

Shown from the perspective of a young submariner with unusually sensitive hearing and uncannily precise sound recognition. The fate of many often depends on his ability, and one time, whilst highly stressed, he makes a incorrect call which put his entire crew in mortal danger. Trying to regain the confidence of his comrades, he conducts an unauthorised investigation of an apparent plot which, it turns out, risks escalating into a nuclear apocalypse. Suddenly working under pressure with the fleet admiral, they must do whatever is necessary, even the unthinkable, to prevent a nuclear war, since a confirmed nuclear strike order cannot be countermanded.

The Perfect Storm poster
The Perfect Storm
2000 · dir. Wolfgang Petersen
★ 6.5drama · adventure · action

Both lean on tension more than on action

The difference: Leans harder into drama than Cliffhanger does

In October 1991, a confluence of weather conditions combined to form a killer storm in the North Atlantic. Caught in the storm was the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail.

The Three Musketeers poster
The Three Musketeers
2011 · dir. Paul W. S. Anderson
🍅 27%★ 5.7adventure · action · thrillerPrime Video

Kinetic adventure in both cases

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

The hot-headed young D'Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.

The Grey poster
The Grey
2012 · dir. Joe Carnahan
🍅 80%★ 6.7action · adventure · thrillerNetflix

Different title, same corner of the shelf

After their plane crashes in Alaska, six oil workers are led by a skilled huntsman to survival, but a pack of merciless wolves haunts their every step.

Runaway Train poster
Runaway Train
1985 · dir. Andrei Konchalovsky
🍅 84%★ 7.2action · thriller · drama

Tense action in both cases

A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.

Who Am I? poster
Who Am I?
1998 · dir. Jackie Chan
🍅 70%★ 6.8adventure · action · comedy

Common ground: airplane

A group of covert CIA operatives trailing a potential new energy source are double-crossed by corrupt agent Morgan, who causes a helicopter crash in remote South Africa. The sole survivor, suffering severe amnesia, is nursed to recovery by a kindly native tribe who call him "Whoami" after the question he keeps asking. With the help of a mysterious reporter Christine, Whoami pieces together his past and tracks the turncoat agent and his criminal cohorts.

Mission: Impossible II poster
Mission: Impossible II
2000 · dir. John Woo
★ 6.1adventure · action · thrillerParamount+

Adventure approached the same way

With computer genius Luther Stickell at his side and a beautiful thief on his mind, agent Ethan Hunt races across Australia and Spain to stop a former IMF agent from unleashing a genetically engineered biological weapon called Chimera. This mission, should Hunt choose to accept it, plunges him into the center of an international crisis of terrifying magnitude.

In the mood for more kinetic?

all kinetic movies →

The best-reviewed films that share Cliffhanger’s defining feeling.