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The Black Cat poster

Movies that feel likeThe Black Cat (1934)

After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.

If you loved The Black Cat, the closest films we have are White Zombie (1932), The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and Dead of Night (1945). All three share The Black Cat's dread and unsettling feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is The Old Dark House (1932).

🍅 89% Rotten Tomatoes★ 6.9 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Edgar G. Ulmerdreadunsettlingtense
11 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If The Black Cat hit the spot, these will too

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

The same two preoccupations: black and white, and newlywed

The difference: Trades the tension of The Black Cat for an angle of its own

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.

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

The difference: Sits closer to adventure than The Black Cat does

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.

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

Common ground: black and white

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.

Nightwatch poster
Nightwatch
1994 · dir. Ole Bornedal
🍅 63%★ 7.1horror · thriller

Dread-soaked where it counts, unsettling underneath

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

Martin, a law student, takes up a job as a nightwatchman at a mortuary to fund his studies. But the mortuary harbours a dark secret, and he has to find the truth before he is implicated in a serial murder case.

The Old Dark House poster
The Old Dark House
1932 · dir. James Whale
🍅 97%★ 7drama · horror · thriller

One thread runs through both: pre-code

The difference: Leans harder into drama than The Black Cat does

In a remote region of Wales, five travelers beset by a relentless storm find shelter in an old mansion.

The Phantom of the Opera poster
The Phantom of the Opera
1925 · dir. Rupert Julian
🍅 90%★ 7.5horror

Horror built on dread, twice over

The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

Death Whisperer poster
Death Whisperer
2023 · dir. Taweewat Wantha
★ 5.9horror · thrillerNetflix

Tense thriller, and it commits to that

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

When a remote village is plagued by a deadly curse, one brother must fight to save his family from a terrifying supernatural threat.

What We Become poster
What We Become
2015 · dir. Bo Mikkelsen
★ 5.5horror · thriller

Horror with a pulse of unease, in both cases

A family of four is quarantined in their home as a virulent strand of the flu spreads into town and they are forced to the extreme to escape alive.

The Pool poster
The Pool
2018 · dir. Ping Lumpraploeng
🍅 96%★ 5.2thriller · horror

Both lean on tension more than on thriller

Left alone to clean up a 6-meter-deep deserted pool, Day falls asleep on an inflatable raft. When he wakes, the water level has sunk so low that he can't climb out on his own. Stuck in the pool, Day screams for help, but the only thing that hears him is a creature from a nearby crocodile farm.

Silent Night, Deadly Night poster
Silent Night, Deadly Night
1984 · dir. Charles E. Sellier Jr.
🍅 55%★ 5.8thriller · horrorPrime Video

Dread-soaked horror in both cases

After a man dressed as Santa Claus brutally murders Billy Chapman's parents, little Billy then endures the cruelty of a sadistic nun at his orphanage. Years later, when adult Billy has to fill in for an absent in-store Santa, his childhood trauma brings him to the breaking point.

The Mummy poster
The Mummy
1932 · dir. Karl Freund
🍅 90%★ 6.9horrorPeacock

Unsettling thriller, and it commits to that

An ancient Egyptian priest named Imhotep is revived when a British archaeological expedition finds his mummy and one of the researchers accidentally reads an ancient life-giving spell. Imhotep escapes from the field site and searches for the reincarnation of the soul of his lover.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? poster
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
1962 · dir. Robert Aldrich
🍅 91%★ 8horror · thriller

Both work the same tension

A former vaudeville child star viciously torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.

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