
Movies that feel likeThe Devil's Backbone (2001)
If you loved The Devil's Backbone, the closest films we have are Frankenstein (2025), November (2017) and The Orphanage (2007). All three share The Devil's Backbone's contemplative and dread feel, which is what we rank on before quality.
Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Poison for the Fairies (1986).
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If The Devil's Backbone hit the spot, these will too

Guillermo del Toro directing both, with the same fingerprints on each
The difference: Trades the tension of The Devil's Backbone for an angle of its own

Both land dream logic and stillness at once
The difference: Sits closer to romance than The Devil's Backbone does

Both are working the same pair: orphanage, gothic horror

Common ground: gothic horror
The difference: Made in the 1960s, in a different era of the craft

Both are built on the same subject: ghost

Dread-soaked where it counts, unsettling underneath
The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

Both are Guillermo del Toro's work, and they rhyme
The difference: Leans harder into action than The Devil's Backbone does

Fantasy with a pulse of dream logic, in both cases

Both lean on tension more than on horror

The same preoccupation in both: ghost

Dread-soaked thriller in both cases

In the mood for more dreamlike?
all dreamlike movies →The best-reviewed films that share The Devil's Backbone’s defining feeling.









