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The Purge: Election Year poster

Movies that feel likeThe Purge: Election Year (2016)

Two years after choosing not to kill the man who killed his son, former police sergeant Leo Barnes has become head of security for Senator Charlene Roan, the front runner in the next Presidential election due to her vow to eliminate the Purge. On the night of what should be the final Purge, a betrayal from within the government forces Barnes and Roan out onto the street where they must fight to survive the night.

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

🍅 55% Rotten Tomatoes★ 6 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. James DeMonacokineticdreadunsettlingtensebleak
11 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Hulu

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If The Purge: Election Year hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: The Purge (2013) · The Purge: Anarchy (2014) · The First Purge (2018) · The Forever Purge (2021)

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

Both land momentum and dread at once

The difference: Reviewed even better

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.

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

Both are built on the same subject: survival horror

The difference: Easier on the momentum than The Purge: Election Year

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.

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

Unsettling and tense in the same breath

The difference: Trades the bleakness of The Purge: Election Year for an angle of its own

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.

Halloween poster
Halloween
2018 · dir. David Gordon Green
🍅 79%★ 6.5horror · thrillerPeacock

Dread-soaked horror in both cases

Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

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

Thriller built on unease, 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.

Train to Busan poster
Train to Busan
2016 · dir. Yeon Sang-ho
🍅 95%★ 7.6action · horror · thrillerPeacock

The same preoccupation in both: survival horror

The difference: Sits closer to adventure than The Purge: Election Year does

When a zombie virus pushes Korea into a state of emergency, those trapped on an express train to Busan must fight for their own survival.

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

One thread runs through both: dystopia

The difference: Leans harder into science fiction than The Purge: Election Year does

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

Common ground: dystopia

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.

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

Action with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

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.

Saw VI poster
Saw VI
2009 · dir. Kevin Greutert
🍅 39%★ 6.1horror · thriller

Both lean on tension more than on horror

Special Agent Strahm is dead, and Detective Hoffman has emerged as the unchallenged successor to Jigsaw's legacy. However, when the FBI draws closer to Hoffman, he is forced to set a game into motion, and Jigsaw's grand scheme is finally understood.

Insidious: Chapter 3 poster
Insidious: Chapter 3
2015 · dir. Leigh Whannell
🍅 56%★ 6.1horror · thriller

Thriller with a pulse of dread, in both cases

A prequel set before the haunting of the Lambert family that reveals how gifted psychic Elise Rainier reluctantly agrees to use her ability to contact the dead in order to help a teenage girl who has been targeted by a dangerous supernatural entity.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Purge: Election Year’s defining feeling.