feelsalike.comSign in
The Phantom Carriage poster

Movies that feel likeThe Phantom Carriage (1921)

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.

If you loved The Phantom Carriage, the closest films we have are Faust (1926), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and Kwaidan (1965). All three share The Phantom Carriage's contemplative and dreamlike feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Poison for the Fairies (1986).

🍅 100% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Victor Sjöströmcontemplativedreamlikedreadunsettling
10 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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

See it on the Mood Map

When is The Phantom Carriage streaming? →

If The Phantom Carriage hit the spot, these will too

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

The same two preoccupations: death, and silent film

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

Contemplative and dreamlike in the same breath

The difference: Made in the 1940s, in a different era of the craft

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

Kwaidan poster
Kwaidan
1965 · dir. Masaki Kobayashi
🍅 91%★ 7.9horror · fantasy · dramaMax

Dread-soaked where it counts, unsettling underneath

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

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

The same preoccupation in both: phantom

The difference: Easier on the stillness than The Phantom Carriage

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

November poster
November
2017 · dir. Rainer Sarnet
🍅 93%★ 7.1drama · fantasy · romance

Drama with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

The difference: Leans harder into romance than The Phantom Carriage does

In a poor Estonian village, a group of peasants use magic and folk remedies to survive the winter, and a young woman tries to get a young man to love her.

Viy poster
Viy
1967 · dir. Georgi Kropachyov
🍅 88%★ 7.1drama · fantasy · horror

Dreamlike fantasy in both cases

A seminary student on monastery holiday kills an old witch in a remote village. The hag then transforms into a beautiful young woman whose dying wish is for him to watch over her wake for three nights. With terrors occurring and his faith waning, he reads prayers on the overnight watch and tries to survive the supernatural encounters.

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

Dread-soaked horror, and it commits to that

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.

Poison for the Fairies poster
Poison for the Fairies
1986 · dir. Carlos Enrique Taboada
★ 7.2fantasy · horror

Fantasy built on unease, twice over

In 1965 Mexico City, Flavia, a wealthy yet lonely schoolgirl, befriends Veronica, a young orphan girl who has a fascination with witchcraft. Veronica convinces Flavia that she is a real witch and forces her to be her assistant. The children's games gradually become more serious and Veronica demands more from Flavia.

Tigers Are Not Afraid poster
Tigers Are Not Afraid
2017 · dir. Issa López
🍅 97%★ 6.9fantasy · horrorRent or buy

Both lean on dream logic more than on horror

When her mother suddenly disappears with no one to care for her, young Estrella ends up on the street and joins a gang of children, triggering a dangerous and tragic chain of events.

I Walked with a Zombie poster
I Walked with a Zombie
1943 · dir. Jacques Tourneur
🍅 85%★ 7mystery · horror · drama

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.

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

Both keep coming back to the same thing: death

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

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

Horror built on dread, twice over

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.

In the mood for more contemplative?

all contemplative movies →

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