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The Shining poster

Movies that feel likeThe Shining (1980)

Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.

If you loved The Shining, the closest films we have are Carrie (1976), Repulsion (1965) and Hour of the Wolf (1968). All three share The Shining'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 Wait Until Dark (1967).

🍅 84% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8.4 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Stanley Kubrickdreadunsettlingtensedreamlikelonelygritty
9 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If The Shining hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: Doctor Sleep (2019)

Carrie poster
Carrie
1976 · dir. Brian De Palma
🍅 94%★ 7.4horror · thrillerPrime VideoMax

King adaptations where repression detonates into horror

The difference: Teenage telekinetic tragedy, sympathy central

Withdrawn and sensitive teenager Carrie White faces bullying from her classmates and abuse from her fanatically pious mother. When she begins to suspect that she has supernatural powers, things take a dark and violent turn.

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

A mind unraveling alone inside four walls

The difference: Claustrophobic black-and-white — one flat, one fraying psyche

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.

Hour of the Wolf poster
Hour of the Wolf
1968 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 92%★ 7.5drama · horror

Isolation curdling into madness, filmed like a nightmare

The difference: Austere Bergman art-horror — it demands patience and surrender

While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.

The Black Phone poster
The Black Phone
2022 · dir. Scott Derrickson
🍅 81%★ 6.9horror · thrillerNetflix

A child's psychic gift against a predatory evil

The difference: Kidnapping thriller, the ghosts helpful

Finney Blake, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney.

Sleep Tight poster
Sleep Tight
2011 · dir. Jaume Balagueró
🍅 91%★ 7.2thriller · horrorPrime Video

A caretaker whose quiet duties hide something monstrous

The difference: Human evil only — no ghosts, just a stalker's patience

César, an unhappy concierge, maintains a peculiar relationship with the very diverse inhabitants of the upper-class apartment building where he works in Barcelona.

Hush poster
Hush
2016 · dir. Mike Flanagan
🍅 92%★ 6.6horror · thrillerNetflixPrime Video

Isolation weaponized by a methodical killer

The difference: Lean home-invasion mechanics, no haunting

A deaf woman is stalked by a psychotic killer in her secluded home.

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

The same mix in both: dread, then unease

The difference: Takes it somewhere less dreamlike than The Shining 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.

Altered States poster
Altered States
1980 · dir. Ken Russell
🍅 85%★ 6.9horror · science fiction · thriller

Reality dissolving mid-experiment into pure hallucination

The difference: Sci-fi head-trip pacing — spectacle of the mind, not slow dread

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of human consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from Native American shamans, he explores these altered states of cognizance and finds that memory, time, and reality itself are states of mind.

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

Horror perfected through patience, framing, and dread

The difference: Suburban slasher minimalism over hotel opera

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 Legend of Hell House poster
The Legend of Hell House
1973 · dir. John Hough
🍅 72%★ 6.6horror · mystery

A haunted building slowly working on its occupants' sanity

The difference: Pulpy 70s parapsychology — creaky next to Kubrick's control

A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic, and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove or disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House.

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

One thread runs through both: alcoholism

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

A Nightmare on Elm Street poster
A Nightmare on Elm Street
1984 · dir. Wes Craven
🍅 93%★ 7.4horrorMax

Horror built on dream logic, twice over

Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...

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