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A Clockwork Orange poster

Movies that feel likeA Clockwork Orange (1971)

In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?

If you loved A Clockwork Orange, the closest films we have are The Element of Crime (1984), Westworld (1973) and The Butterfly Effect (2004). All three share A Clockwork Orange's cerebral and gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Liquid Sky (1982).

🍅 86% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8.2 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Stanley Kubrickcerebralgritty
10 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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If A Clockwork Orange hit the spot, these will too

The Element of Crime poster
The Element of Crime
1984 · dir. Lars von Trier
🍅 83%★ 6.7crime · drama · science fiction

A sickly, stylized underworld where method corrupts the man using it

The difference: Von Trier's murky debut — hypnotic but often impenetrable

Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of criminology. Fisher begins to use Osbourne's technique, which involves empathizing with serial killers; however, as the detective becomes increasingly engrossed in this method, things take a disturbing turn.

Westworld poster
Westworld
1973 · dir. Michael Crichton
🍅 83%★ 6.9adventure · science fiction · western

Technology built to indulge dark appetites, until control slips

The difference: A theme-park thriller — ideas serve the chase, not the satire

Delos is a futuristic amusement park that features themed worlds populated by human-like androids. After two patrons have a run-in with a menacing gunslinger in West World, the androids at Delos all begin to malfunction, causing havoc throughout the park.

The Butterfly Effect poster
The Butterfly Effect
2004 · dir. Eric Bress
🍅 34%★ 7.6science fiction · thriller

Both land ideas and grit at once

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

A young man struggles to access sublimated childhood memories. He finds a technique that allows him to travel back into the past, to occupy his childhood body and change history. However, he soon finds that every change he makes has unexpected consequences.

Reservoir Dogs poster
Reservoir Dogs
1992 · dir. Quentin Tarantino
🍅 90%★ 8.3crime · thrillerPrime Video

Stylized cruelty set to bouncy music, daring you to enjoy it

The difference: Confined and talky, a crime unravelling — no dystopian ideas in play

A botched robbery indicates a police informant, and the pressure mounts in the aftermath at a warehouse. Crime begets violence as the survivors -- veteran Mr. White, newcomer Mr. Orange, psychopathic parolee Mr. Blonde, bickering weasel Mr. Pink and Nice Guy Eddie -- unravel.

Liquid Sky poster
Liquid Sky
1982 · dir. Slava Tsukerman
🍅 93%★ 6science fiction · thriller · drama

Cerebral science fiction in both cases

The difference: Leans harder into thriller than A Clockwork Orange does

An alien creature invades New York's punk subculture in its search for an opiate released by the brain during an orgasm.

Duck, You Sucker poster
Duck, You Sucker
1971 · dir. Sergio Leone
🍅 92%★ 7.5westernPrime Video

Violence, class and revolution treated with the same cynicism

The difference: A spaghetti western — dusty action beats replace social satire

At the beginning of the 1913 Mexican Revolution, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners -- who are freed by the blast -- Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.

Demolition Man poster
Demolition Man
1993 · dir. Marco Brambilla
🍅 67%★ 6.7crime · action · science fiction

A sanitized future that treats human wildness as a defect to be cured

The difference: Broad comic-book satire that plays for laughs, not moral discomfort

In 1996, brash L.A. detective John Spartan and maniac killer Simon Phoenix are both sentenced to decades in a cryogenic prison as punishment for a rescue mission gone wrong. When Phoenix escapes 36 years later to wreak havoc on the future, Spartan is awakened to capture his nemesis the old-fashioned way.

The Face of Another poster
The Face of Another
1966 · dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara
🍅 86%★ 7.8drama · science fiction

A procedure that alters a man and dissolves who he was

The difference: Hushed and philosophical — unease without shock or violence

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.

Stalker poster
Stalker
1979 · dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
🍅 100%★ 8science fiction · dramaMax

Crime built on ideas, twice over

The difference: Takes it somewhere less gritty than A Clockwork Orange does

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep-seated desires are granted.

The Killing poster
The Killing
1956 · dir. Stanley Kubrick
🍅 96%★ 7.9crime · thriller · dramaPrime Video

Kubrick's cold eye already dissecting crime and human weakness

The difference: A tight noir heist — no dystopia, no provocation, pure plot

Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.

A Fistful of Dollars poster
A Fistful of Dollars
1964 · dir. Sergio Leone
🍅 98%★ 7.9westernRent or buy

An amoral lead you follow anyway, in a world with no clean side

The difference: Sun-baked and laconic, with no argument about the state to make

The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.

For a Few Dollars More poster
For a Few Dollars More
1965 · dir. Sergio Leone
🍅 92%★ 8.2western

Cool, unhurried style wrapped around genuinely nasty men

The difference: Straightforward revenge, none of it aimed at unsettling you

Two bounty hunters both pursue the brutal and sadistic bandit, El Indio, who has a large bounty on his head.

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The best-reviewed films that share A Clockwork Orange’s defining feeling.