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King Kong poster

Movies that feel likeKing Kong (1933)

Adventurous filmmaker Carl Denham sets out to produce a motion picture unlike anything the world has seen before. Alongside his leading lady Ann Darrow and his first mate Jack Driscoll, they arrive on an island and discover a legendary creature said to be neither beast nor man. Denham captures the monster to be displayed on Broadway as King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.

If you loved King Kong, the closest films we have are Faust (1926), The Phantom Carriage (1921) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). All three share King Kong's dreamlike and dread feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is White Zombie (1932).

🍅 97% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.9 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Merian C. Cooperepicdreamlikedreadunsettling
11 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Peacock Premium

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If King Kong hit the spot, these will too

Faust poster
Faust
1926 · dir. F. W. Murnau
🍅 91%★ 8.1fantasy · drama · horror

The same mix in both: dream logic, then dread

The difference: Takes it somewhere less epic than King Kong does

Murnau’s epic adaptation of Goethe’s tragedy stands with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis among the supreme achievements of German silent cinema. Gösta Ekman plays the alchemist who, his faith shaken in a time of plague, is offered the gift of healing and eternal youth… in exchange for his soul.

The Phantom Carriage poster
The Phantom Carriage
1921 · dir. Victor Sjöström
🍅 100%★ 8drama · fantasy · horror

Unsettling fantasy, and it commits to that

The difference: Trades the scale of King Kong for an angle of its own

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.

The Incredible Shrinking Man poster
The Incredible Shrinking Man
1957 · dir. Jack Arnold
🍅 83%★ 7.6science fiction · adventure · horror

One thread runs through both: black and white

The difference: Sits closer to science fiction than King Kong does

A dangerous combination of radiation and insecticide causes the unfortunate Scott Carey to shrink, slowly but surely, until he is only a few inches tall. His home becomes a wilderness where he must survive everything from spiders living in the cellar to his beloved cat.

The Picture of Dorian Gray poster
The Picture of Dorian Gray
1945 · dir. Albert Lewin
🍅 94%★ 7.5drama · horror · fantasy

Horror built on dream logic, twice over

A handsome young man trades his soul so that his portrait ages while he stays eternally young.

Un Chien Andalou poster
Un Chien Andalou
1929 · dir. Luis Buñuel
🍅 100%★ 7.6fantasy · thriller · horror

Adventure with a pulse of dread, in both cases

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

Vampyr poster
Vampyr
1932 · dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
🍅 98%★ 7.4horror · fantasy · mysteryMax

Both keep coming back to the same thing: black and white

Allan Gray, a young man fascinated by the supernatural, goes to a small village where he feels a sinister force descending upon him. There, Allan meets an old man who asks him to protect his two daughters, for one of them has been bitten by a vampire.

Dead of Night poster
Dead of Night
1945 · dir. Charles Crichton
🍅 96%★ 7.5horror · thriller

Both lean on unease more than on horror

An architect, visiting an English country house, realizes the other guests are familiar from his recurring nightmare. When they share their tales of the supernatural, he is filled with a growing dread.

White Zombie poster
White Zombie
1932 · dir. Victor Halperin
🍅 77%★ 6.2horrorPrime Video

Common ground: pre-code

A wealthy landowner living in Haiti convinces a sorcerer to lure the woman he has fallen for away from her fiancé. The madman later betrays their agreement by keeping the woman for himself…as a zombie.

Dracula poster
Dracula
1931 · dir. Tod Browning
🍅 96%★ 7.3horrorPrime VideoPeacock

Both are built on the same subject: monster

A British estate agent travels to Transylvania to meet with the mysterious Count Dracula, who is interested in leasing a London castle. After Dracula enslaves and drives the agent to insanity, the pair return to London together, where Dracula, a secret bloodsucker, begins preying on socialites.

Tumbbad poster
Tumbbad
2018 · dir. Rahi Anil Barve
🍅 87%★ 8.2fantasy · horrorPrime Video

Dreamlike fantasy in both cases

The difference: 85 years apart, and the 2010s show

India, 1918. On the outskirts of Tumbbad, a cursed village where it always rains, Vinayak, along with his mother and his brother, care of a mysterious old woman who keeps the secret of an ancestral treasure that Vinayak gets obsessed with.

The Most Dangerous Game poster
The Most Dangerous Game
1932 · dir. Irving Pichel
🍅 100%★ 7.1thriller · adventure · horrorPrime VideoMax

The same preoccupation in both: pre-code

When legendary hunter Bob Rainsford is shipwrecked on the perilous reefs surrounding a mysterious island, he finds himself the guest of the reclusive and eccentric Count Zaroff. While he is very gracious at first, Zaroff eventually forces Rainsford and two other shipwreck survivors, brother and sister Eve and Martin Towbridge, to participate in a sadistic game of cat and mouse in which they are the prey and he is the hunter.

Häxan poster
Häxan
1922 · dir. Benjamin Christensen
🍅 93%★ 7.6documentary · horror · historyMax

Adventure built on scale, twice over

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

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