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The Sadness poster

Movies that feel likeThe Sadness (2021)

A young couple is pushed to the limits of sanity as they attempt to be reunited amid the chaos of a pandemic outbreak. The streets erupt into violence and depravity, as those infected are driven to enact the most cruel and ghastly things imaginable.

If you loved The Sadness, the closest films we have are Kill List (2011), [REC]⁴ Apocalypse (2014) and Green Room (2016). All three share The Sadness' 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 Pool (2018).

🍅 88% Rotten Tomatoes★ 6.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Rob Jabbazdreadunsettlingtensegritty
10 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If The Sadness hit the spot, these will too

Kill List poster
Kill List
2011 · dir. Ben Wheatley
🍅 79%★ 6.3horror · thriller · crimeRent or buy

Dread-soaked where it counts, unsettling underneath

The difference: Leans harder into crime than The Sadness does

Nearly a year after a botched job, a hitman takes a new assignment with the promise of a big payoff for three killings. What starts off as an easy task soon unravels, sending the killer into the heart of darkness.

[REC]⁴ Apocalypse poster
[REC]⁴ Apocalypse
2014 · dir. Jaume Balagueró
🍅 65%★ 5.3thriller · horror

The same preoccupation in both: virus

The difference: Takes it somewhere less gritty than The Sadness does

Ángela Vidal, the young television reporter who entered the building with the firemen, manages to make it out alive. But what the soldiers don't know is that she carries the seed of the strange infection. She is to be taken to a provisional quarantine facility, a high-security installation where she will have to stay in isolation for several days. An old oil tanker, miles off shore and surrounded by water on all sides, has been especially equipped for the quarantine.

Green Room poster
Green Room
2016 · dir. Jeremy Saulnier
🍅 90%★ 6.9horror · crime · thrillerNetflix

Tense and gritty in the same breath

Members of a punk rock band and a tough young woman are forced to fight for survival after witnessing an act of violence at a skinhead bar.

When Evil Lurks poster
When Evil Lurks
2023 · dir. Demián Rugna
🍅 96%★ 6.9horror · thrillerRent or buy

Horror with a pulse of dread, in both cases

When brothers Pedro and Jimi discover that a demonic infection has been festering in a nearby farmhouse, they attempt to evict the victim from their land. Failing to adhere to the proper rites of exorcism, their reckless actions inadvertently trigger an epidemic of possessions across their rural community.

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

Both lean on unease 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.

The House That Jack Built poster
The House That Jack Built
2018 · dir. Lars von Trier
🍅 59%★ 6.8drama · horror · crimeRent or buy

Tense horror in both cases

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

Failed architect, engineer and vicious murderer Jack narrates the details of some of his most elaborately orchestrated crimes, each of them a towering piece of art that defines his life's work as a serial killer for twelve years.

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

Both keep coming back to the same thing: virus

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 Girl Who Killed Her Parents poster
The Girl Who Killed Her Parents
2021 · dir. Maurício Eça
★ 5.9crime · drama · thrillerPrime Video

Thriller built on grit, twice over

Based on one of the most shocking and gruesome murder cases in Brazil, the film presents Daniel Cravinhos's point of view of the events that led to the death of Marísia and Manfred von Richthofen, his girlfriend’s parents.

The Hills Have Eyes poster
The Hills Have Eyes
2006 · dir. Alexandre Aja
🍅 51%★ 6.4horror · thrillerPrime Video

One thread runs through both: rape

Based on Wes Craven's 1977 suspenseful cult classic, The Hills Have Eyes is the story of a family road trip that goes terrifyingly awry when the travelers become stranded in a government atomic zone. Miles from nowhere, the Carter family soon realizes the seemingly uninhabited wasteland is actually the breeding ground of a blood-thirsty mutant family...and they are the prey.

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

Dread-soaked horror, and it commits to that

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

Insidious: Out of the Further poster
Insidious: Out of the Further
2026 · dir. Jacob Chase
🍅 57%★ 6.2horror · thrillerRent or buy

Unsettling thriller, and it commits to that

Gemma, a young mother raising her daughter in the house she grew up in, discovers she can travel into The Further, where she possesses an ability to bring what lives there back to the real world.

Knock Knock poster
Knock Knock
2015 · dir. Eli Roth
🍅 37%★ 4.9horror · thriller · crimeMax

Both sit in the same tense register

When a devoted husband and father is left home alone for the weekend, two stranded young women unexpectedly knock on his door for help. What starts out as a kind gesture results in a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Sadness’ defining feeling.