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The First Purge poster

Movies that feel likeThe First Purge (2018)

To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community. But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the others, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.

If you loved The First Purge, the closest films we have are Blood Red Sky (2021), Ziam (2025) and Bird Box (2018). All three share The First Purge's 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 Pool (2018).

🍅 55% Rotten Tomatoes★ 5.2 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Gerard McMurraykineticdreadunsettlingtensebleak
11 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If The First Purge hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: The Purge (2013) · The Purge: Anarchy (2014) · The Purge: Election Year (2016) · The Forever Purge (2021)

Blood Red Sky poster
Blood Red Sky
2021 · dir. Peter Thorwarth
🍅 81%★ 6.1horror · thriller · actionNetflix

Both keep coming back to the same thing: murder

The difference: Critics rated this one higher still

A woman with a mysterious illness is forced into action when a group of terrorists attempt to hijack a transatlantic overnight flight. In order to protect her son she will have to reveal a dark secret, and unleash the inner monster she has fought to hide.

Ziam poster
Ziam
2025 · dir. Kulp Kaljareuk
🍅 77%★ 4.9horror · thriller · actionNetflix

Both land momentum and dread at once

The difference: Easier on the bleakness than The First Purge

In a fight for survival against a horrifying army of zombies, a former Muay Thai fighter must use skill, speed and grit to save his girlfriend.

Bird Box poster
Bird Box
2018 · dir. Susanne Bier
🍅 64%★ 6.6horror · thriller · dramaNetflix

Common ground: survival horror

The difference: Takes it somewhere less kinetic than The First Purge does

Five years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide, a survivor and her two children make a desperate bid to reach safety.

The Pool poster
The Pool
2018 · dir. Ping Lumpraploeng
🍅 96%★ 5.2thriller · horror

Unsettling and tense in the same breath

Left alone to clean up a 6-meter-deep deserted pool, Day falls asleep on an inflatable raft. When he wakes, the water level has sunk so low that he can't climb out on his own. Stuck in the pool, Day screams for help, but the only thing that hears him is a creature from a nearby crocodile farm.

[REC]⁴ Apocalypse poster
[REC]⁴ Apocalypse
2014 · dir. Jaume Balagueró
🍅 65%★ 5.3thriller · horror

Horror built on dread, twice over

Ángela Vidal, the young television reporter who entered the building with the firemen, manages to make it out alive. But what the soldiers don't know is that she carries the seed of the strange infection. She is to be taken to a provisional quarantine facility, a high-security installation where she will have to stay in isolation for several days. An old oil tanker, miles off shore and surrounded by water on all sides, has been especially equipped for the quarantine.

Creep poster
Creep
2014 · dir. Patrick Brice
🍅 91%★ 6.3horror · thrillerNetflixPrime Video

Both are built on the same subject: murder

Looking for work, Aaron comes across a cryptic online ad: "$1,000 for the day. Filming service. Discretion is appreciated." Low on cash and full of naiveté, he decides to go for it. He drives to a cabin in a remote mountain town where he meets Josef, his cinematic subject for the day. Josef is sincere and the project seems heartfelt, so Aaron begins to film. But as the day goes on, it becomes clear that Josef is not who he says, and his intentions are not at all pure.

Peninsula poster
Peninsula
2020 · dir. Yeon Sang-ho
🍅 55%★ 5.5horror · action · thrillerPrime VideoPeacock

The same preoccupation in both: dystopia

The difference: Leans harder into adventure than The First Purge does

A soldier and his team battle hordes of post-apocalyptic zombies in the wastelands of the Korean Peninsula.

Unhinged poster
Unhinged
2020 · dir. Derrick Borte
🍅 49%★ 6action · thriller · horrorPrime Video

Kinetic action, and it commits to that

Rachel is a divorced single mother whose bad day gets even worse. She's running late to drop her son off at school when she honks her horn impatiently at a fellow driver during rush-hour traffic. After an exchange of words, she soon realizes that the mysterious man is following her and her young son in his truck. A case of road rage quickly escalates, at horrifyingly psychotic proportions, into full-blown terror as Rachel discovers the psychopath's sinister plan for revenge. He is single-mindedly determined to teach her a deadly lesson.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City poster
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
2021 · dir. Johannes Roberts
🍅 30%★ 5.2action · horror · science fictionHuluStarz

One thread runs through both: dystopia

The difference: Sits closer to science fiction than The First Purge does

Once the booming home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation, Raccoon City is now a dying Midwestern town. The company’s exodus left the city a wasteland…with great evil brewing below the surface. When that evil is unleashed, the townspeople are forever…changed…and a small group of survivors must work together to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter poster
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
2016 · dir. Paul W. S. Anderson
🍅 39%★ 5.5action · horror · science fictionNetflixHulu

Thriller with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

Picking up immediately after the events in Resident Evil: Retribution, Alice is the only survivor of what was meant to be humanity's final stand against the undead. Now, she must return to where the nightmare began - The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.

Priest poster
Priest
2011 · dir. Scott Stewart
🍅 16%★ 5.7action · fantasy · horrorStarz

Both lean on unease more than on action

In an alternate world, humanity and vampires have warred for centuries. After the last Vampire War, the veteran Warrior Priest lives in obscurity with other humans inside one of the Church's walled cities. When the Priest's niece is kidnapped by vampires, the Priest breaks his vows to hunt them down. He is accompanied by the niece's boyfriend, who is a wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess.

Insidious: The Last Key poster
Insidious: The Last Key
2018 · dir. Adam Robitel
🍅 34%★ 5.7horror · thrillerMax

Tense horror in both cases

Parapsychologist Elise Rainier and her team travel to Five Keys, NM, to investigate a man’s claim of a haunting. Terror soon strikes when Rainier realizes that the house he lives in was her family’s old home.

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