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The Last Wave poster

Movies that feel likeThe Last Wave (1977)

A Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal people in a ritualised taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing truths about himself and premonitions.

If you loved The Last Wave, the closest films we have are They Look Like People (2016), Next of Kin (1982) and Even the Wind Is Afraid (1968). All three share The Last Wave's twisty and dread feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is The Uninvited (1944).

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If The Last Wave hit the spot, these will too

They Look Like People poster
They Look Like People
2016 · dir. Perry Blackshear
🍅 92%★ 5.8drama · horror · mystery

The same preoccupation in both: paranoia

The difference: 39 years apart, and the 2010s show

Suspecting that people are transforming into malevolent shape-shifters, Wyatt flees to New York City to seek out his estranged childhood friend Christian.

Next of Kin poster
Next of Kin
1982 · dir. Tony Williams
🍅 100%★ 6.2horror · mystery

Both keep coming back to the same thing: dreams

The difference: Takes it somewhere less contemplative than The Last Wave does

After Linda inherits a retirement home, she witnesses a series of strange events which seem connected to a dark and unspeakable evil.

Even the Wind Is Afraid poster
Even the Wind Is Afraid
1968 · dir. Carlos Enrique Taboada
★ 7.2mystery · horror · drama

Contemplative and twisty in the same breath

A group of college students, led by Claudia, decide to investigate a local tower that has figured prominently in disturbing reoccurring dreams Claudia has been having. They are suspended from school for their antics, but Claudia learns from one of the female staff members that the person in the dream is a student who killed herself years before and that the headmistress has seen her ghost.

I Walked with a Zombie poster
I Walked with a Zombie
1943 · dir. Jacques Tourneur
🍅 85%★ 7mystery · horror · drama

One thread runs through both: voodoo

The difference: Leans harder into fantasy than The Last Wave does

A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.

In the Mouth of Madness poster
In the Mouth of Madness
1995 · dir. John Carpenter
🍅 61%★ 7.1horror · mystery

Common ground: paranoia

An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.

Good Manners poster
Good Manners
2018 · dir. Juliana Rojas
🍅 96%★ 6.7fantasy · horror · mystery

Dread-soaked where it counts, unsettling underneath

Clara, a lonely nurse from the outskirts of São Paulo, is hired by mysterious and wealthy Ana as the nanny for her unborn child. The two women develop a strong bond, but soon Clara discovers a terrifying secret about the child.

Footprints on the Moon poster
Footprints on the Moon
1975 · dir. Luigi Bazzoni
★ 6.6thriller · mystery · drama

Both are built on the same subject: dreams

Alice, a young translator, finds the real world slowly merging with her recurring nightmares as she tries to solve the puzzle of her recent memory loss. A postcard leads her to the island of Garma where the locals seems to know her. Is she who she thinks she is? And what significance does her dream of an astronaut abandoned on the moon have?

Let's Scare Jessica to Death poster
Let's Scare Jessica to Death
1971 · dir. John D. Hancock
🍅 50%★ 6.4horror · mystery · drama

Drama built on paranoia, twice over

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

Newly released from a mental ward, Jessica hopes to return to life the way it was before her nervous breakdown. But when Jessica moves to a country house with her husband and a close friend, she finds a mysterious girl living in there. Jessica's terror and paranoia resurface as evil forces surround her.

The Sentinel poster
The Sentinel
1977 · dir. Michael Winner
🍅 45%★ 6.3horror · mystery · fantasyNetflix

Dreamlike mystery, and it commits to that

As a young girl, Alison Parker attempted suicide after being traumatized by her father's sexual exploits. Now an elite fashion model, she moves to a Brooklyn Heights apartment building where she encounters a number of bizarre, eccentric tenants and attempts to uncover the building's sinister secret.

Carnival of Souls poster
Carnival of Souls
1962 · dir. Herk Harvey
🍅 87%★ 7horror · mystery · fantasyPrime VideoMax

Horror with a pulse of twists, in both cases

Mary Henry ends up the sole survivor of a fatal car accident through mysterious circumstances. Trying to put the incident behind her, she moves to Utah and takes a job as a church organist. But her fresh start is interrupted by visions of a fiendish man. As the visions begin to occur more frequently, Mary finds herself drawn to the deserted carnival on the outskirts of town. The strangely alluring carnival may hold the secret to her tragic past.

Repulsion poster
Repulsion
1965 · dir. Roman Polanski
🍅 96%★ 7.5drama · thriller · horror

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.

The Uninvited poster
The Uninvited
1944 · dir. Lewis Allen
🍅 95%★ 7.2mystery · horror · fantasy

Dread-soaked mystery in both cases

A pair of siblings from London purchase a surprisingly affordable, lonely cliff-top house in Cornwall, only to discover that it actually carries a ghostly price—and soon they’re caught up in a bizarre romantic triangle from beyond the grave.

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