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Movies that feel likeSoylent Green (1973)

In the year 2022, overcrowding, pollution, and resource depletion have reduced society’s leaders to finding food for the teeming masses. The answer is Soylent Green.

If you loved Soylent Green, the closest films we have are Dark City (1998), Blow Out (1981) and Twelve Monkeys (1995). All three share Soylent Green's twisty and paranoid feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Cutter's Way (1981).

🍅 73% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Richard Fleischercerebralgrittytwistybleakparanoid
6 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · MGM Plus

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If Soylent Green hit the spot, these will too

Dark City poster
Dark City
1998 · dir. Alex Proyas
★ 7.5mystery · science fiction

Both are working the same pair: paranoia, dystopia

The difference: Takes it somewhere less gritty than Soylent Green does

A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

Blow Out poster
Blow Out
1981 · dir. Brian De Palma
🍅 88%★ 7.4crime · mystery · thrillerPrime Video

One thread runs through both: paranoia

The difference: Trades the ideas of Soylent Green for an angle of its own

While recording sound effects for a slasher flick, Jack Terry stumbles upon a real-life horror: a car careening off a bridge and into a river. Jack jumps into the water and fishes out Sally from the car, but the other passenger is already dead — a governor intending to run for president. As Jack does some investigating of his tapes, and starts a perilous romance with Sally, he enters a tangled web of conspiracy that might leave him dead.

Twelve Monkeys poster
Twelve Monkeys
1995 · dir. Terry Gilliam
🍅 88%★ 8science fiction · thriller · mystery

The same preoccupation in both: dystopia

The difference: Sits closer to thriller than Soylent Green does

In the year 2035, convict James Cole reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to discover the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population and forced the survivors into underground communities. But when Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990 instead of 1996, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital. There he meets psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly and the son of a famous virus expert who may hold the key to the Army of the 12 Monkeys; thought to be responsible for unleashing the killer disease.

Chinatown poster
Chinatown
1974 · dir. Roman Polanski
🍅 98%★ 8.1crime · mystery · thriller

Gritty and twisty in the same breath

The difference: Critics rated this one higher still

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.

The Conversation poster
The Conversation
1974 · dir. Francis Ford Coppola
🍅 94%★ 7.7crime · drama · mystery

Paranoid crime, and it commits to that

A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.

Three Days of the Condor poster
Three Days of the Condor
1975 · dir. Sydney Pollack
🍅 88%★ 7.4thriller · mystery

Mystery built on twists, twice over

When bookish CIA researcher Joe Turner finds all his co-workers dead, he, together with a woman he has kidnapped, must work together to outwit those responsible until he determines who he can really trust.

What Happened to Monday poster
What Happened to Monday
2017 · dir. Tommy Wirkola
🍅 62%★ 6.8science fiction · thriller · mysteryNetflix

Both keep coming back to the same thing: overpopulation

The difference: 44 years apart, and the 2010s show

In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, a set of identical septuplets must avoid being put to a long sleep by the government and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of one of their own.

Cutter's Way poster
Cutter's Way
1981 · dir. Ivan Passer
🍅 92%★ 6.8drama · mystery · thriller

Science fiction with a pulse of grit, in both cases

Alex Cutter is a boozy, belligerent and deeply cynical Vietnam veteran whose encounter with a landmine during the war has left him minus an eye, a leg and an arm. When his drifter playboy friend Richard Bone is falsely accused of murder, Cutter sets out for revenge in his own inimitable style.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes poster
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
1970 · dir. Ted Post
🍅 37%★ 6adventure · science fiction · mystery

Both land ideas and bleakness at once

The sole survivor of an interplanetary rescue mission lands on the planet of the apes, and uncovers a horrible secret beneath the surface.

Rollerball poster
Rollerball
1975 · dir. Norman Jewison
🍅 55%★ 6.5science fiction · drama

Both lean on ideas more than on science fiction

In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game.

Fahrenheit 451 poster
Fahrenheit 451
1966 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 82%★ 7.2drama · science fiction

Bleak crime in both cases

In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…

THX 1138 poster
THX 1138
1971 · dir. George Lucas
🍅 72%★ 6.6science fiction · drama

Cerebral mystery, and it commits to that

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

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The best-reviewed films that share Soylent Green’s defining feeling.