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The Birds poster

Movies that feel likeThe Birds (1963)

Thousands of birds flock into a seaside town and terrorize the residents in a series of deadly attacks.

If you loved The Birds, the closest films we have are What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Psycho (1960) and The Omen (1976). All three share The Birds' 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 Black Cat (1934).

🍅 95% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.6 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Alfred Hitchcockdreadunsettlingtense
9 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If The Birds hit the spot, these will too

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? poster
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
1962 · dir. Robert Aldrich
🍅 91%★ 8horror · thriller

Dread-soaked and unsettling in the same breath

A former vaudeville child star viciously torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.

Psycho poster
Psycho
1960 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 97%★ 8.5horror · thriller · mysteryNetflixPeacock

Alfred Hitchcock working the same nerve twice

The difference: Sits closer to mystery than The Birds does

When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.

The Omen poster
The Omen
1976 · dir. Richard Donner
🍅 76%★ 7.5horror · thrillerPeacock

Horror built on tension, twice over

Immediately after their miscarriage, the US diplomat Robert Thorn adopts the newborn Damien without the knowledge of his wife. Yet what he doesn’t know is that their new son is the son of the devil.

Halloween poster
Halloween
1978 · dir. John Carpenter
🍅 97%★ 7.7horror · thriller

Thriller with a pulse of dread, in both cases

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

The Black Cat poster
The Black Cat
1934 · dir. Edgar G. Ulmer
🍅 89%★ 6.9horror · thriller

Unsettling horror, and it commits to that

The difference: Made in the 1930s, in a different era of the craft

After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.

Nightwatch poster
Nightwatch
1994 · dir. Ole Bornedal
🍅 63%★ 7.1horror · thriller

Both lean on tension more than on thriller

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

Martin, a law student, takes up a job as a nightwatchman at a mortuary to fund his studies. But the mortuary harbours a dark secret, and he has to find the truth before he is implicated in a serial murder case.

Jaws 2 poster
Jaws 2
1978 · dir. Jeannot Szwarc
🍅 56%★ 5.8horror · thrillerNetflixStarz

Dread-soaked horror in both cases

Police chief Brody must protect the citizens of Amity after a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters.

Silent Night, Deadly Night poster
Silent Night, Deadly Night
1984 · dir. Charles E. Sellier Jr.
🍅 55%★ 5.8thriller · horrorPrime Video

Unsettling thriller in both cases

After a man dressed as Santa Claus brutally murders Billy Chapman's parents, little Billy then endures the cruelty of a sadistic nun at his orphanage. Years later, when adult Billy has to fill in for an absent in-store Santa, his childhood trauma brings him to the breaking point.

Thesis poster
Thesis
1996 · dir. Alejandro Amenábar
🍅 86%★ 7.4horror · thriller

A streak of tension through both

While working on a thesis about audiovisual violence, film student Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl is tortured until death. Soon she discovers that she was a former student in her university, and that the authors of the video are not very far either.

Wait Until Dark poster
Wait Until Dark
1967 · dir. Terence Young
🍅 96%★ 7.7thriller · crime · horror

The same horror instincts

The difference: Leans harder into crime than The Birds does

After a flight back home, Sam Hendrix returns with a doll he innocently acquired along the way. As it turns out, the doll is actually stuffed with heroin, and a group of criminals led by the ruthless Roat has followed Hendrix back to his place to retrieve it. When Hendrix leaves for business, the crooks make their move -- and find his blind wife, Susy, alone in the apartment. Soon, a life-threatening game begins between Susy and the thugs.

Ring poster
Ring
1998 · dir. Hideo Nakata
🍅 98%★ 7.2horror · thriller

Thriller approached the same way

A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.

Onibaba poster
Onibaba
1964 · dir. Kaneto Shindō
🍅 90%★ 7.8horrorMax

Both are horror through and through

The difference: Trades the tension of The Birds for an angle of its own

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.

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