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Movies that feel like Spellbound (1945)

If you loved Spellbound, the closest films we have are Young and Innocent (1937), Suspicion (1941) and Notorious (1946). All three share Spellbound's tense and twisty feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 8 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel and others, checked against today's data.

When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.

🍅 86% Rotten Tomatoes7.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Alfred Hitchcocktensetwistyromantictendercerebraldreamlike

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If Spellbound hit the spot, these will too

Young and Innocent poster
Young and Innocent
1937 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 100%6.8thriller · romance · mystery

Alfred Hitchcock directing both, with the same fingerprints on each

The difference: None of the ideas Spellbound is built on

When a young writer is falsely accused of murdering a famous actress, he escapes custody and joins forces with the daughter of a police constable to prove his innocence.

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Suspicion poster
Suspicion
1941 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 97%7.2mystery · romance · thriller

Alfred Hitchcock working the same nerve twice

A sheltered heiress falls for a charming playboy and elopes with him, but soon discovers his gambling vice and mounting debts. As his lies deepen and those around them meet mysterious ends, she begins to suspect that her husband’s affection may conceal a deadly motive—and that she could be his next victim.

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Notorious poster
Notorious
1946 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 96%7.9romance · mystery · thriller

Tense where it counts, twisty underneath

In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian, a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.

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To Catch a Thief poster
To Catch a Thief
1955 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 95%7.4mystery · romance · thriller

Romantic and tender in the same breath

When a string of jewel robberies hits the French Riviera, suspicion falls on retired thief John “The Cat” Robie. To clear his name, he sets out to trap the copycat himself—entangling a wealthy widow and her beguiling daughter in a seductive game of pursuit, deception, and desire.

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Marnie poster
Marnie
1964 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 78%7.1thriller · mystery · romance

Thriller built on tension, twice over

Marnie is a beautiful but emotionally withdrawn thief, stealing from employers before disappearing under new identities. When her new boss, Mark Rutland, discovers her secret, his fascination turns to obsession, and he blackmails her into marriage, convinced he can cure her. But as he probes deeper into Marnie’s fractured mind, long-buried fears and compulsions begin to surface.

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Saboteur poster
Saboteur
1942 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 81%7.1thriller · mystery

The same preoccupation in both: black and white

Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane flees across the United States after he is wrongly accused of starting the fire that killed his best friend.

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The Man Who Knew Too Much poster
The Man Who Knew Too Much
1934 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 88%6.7thriller · mystery

One thread runs through both: black and white

While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.

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Rebecca poster
Rebecca
1940 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 98%8.1mystery · romance · thriller

Both lean on twists more than on mystery

Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier. The young wife must come to grips with the terrible secret of her handsome, cold husband, Max De Winter. She must also deal with the jealous, obsessed Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who will not accept her as the mistress of the house.

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The Lady Vanishes poster
The Lady Vanishes
1938 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 98%7.7mystery · thriller

Tense romance in both cases

On a train headed for England a group of travelers is delayed by an avalanche. Holed up in a hotel in a fictional European country, young Iris befriends elderly Miss Froy. When the train resumes, Iris suffers a bout of unconsciousness and wakes to find the old woman has disappeared. The other passengers ominously deny Miss Froy ever existed, so Iris begins to investigate with another traveler and, as the pair sleuth, romantic sparks fly.

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Foreign Correspondent poster
Foreign Correspondent
1940 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 95%7.4thriller · mystery · action

Twisty thriller, and it commits to that

The difference: Leans harder into action than Spellbound does

American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an assassination and stumbles on a spy ring, he seeks help from a beautiful politician’s daughter and an urbane English journalist to uncover the truth.

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The Time Machine poster
The Time Machine
1960 · dir. George Pal
🍅 77%7.5thriller · adventure · fantasy

The same mix in both: ideas, then dream logic

The difference: Sits closer to adventure than Spellbound does

A Victorian Englishman travels to the far future and finds that humanity has divided into two hostile species.

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Vertigo poster
Vertigo
1958 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 94%8.2mystery · romance · thriller

Mystery with a pulse of romance, in both cases

A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

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