Best movies like Shortwave
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A modern and unrelentingly tense psychological thriller based on a theory of the origins of shortwave radio frequencies, Shortwave is an unnerving reminder that some stones are best left unturned.
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: realistic
Best tv shows and movies like Shortwave (2016):
Similar in 75%
The Hollow One (2015)
Plot Summary:
Rachel and Anna return home two years after their mother’s death, and find the town abandoned with their house left in disgusting disarray. When Rachel begins hallucinating about their dead mother and some ancient artifact, terrifying clues begin falling into place surrounding their family’s past.
IMDB Rating: 3.8
IMDB Votes: 415
Genere: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: enigmatic, bleak, disturbing, scary
Similar in 76%
H. (2014)
Plot Summary:
H. is a modern interpretation of a classic Greek tragedy in which two women, each named Helen, live out their mirrored lives of one another in the town of Troy, NY. The first Helen is in her 60s, lives with her husband Roy, and takes care of a small, extremely lifelike baby doll called a “Reborn Doll,” which she cares for as a living baby. The second Helen is in her 30s, has a successful art career with her partner Alex, and is four months pregnant. One night, something falls out of the sky and explodes over the town. In the aftermath of this event, bizarre and unexplainable things begin to happen. Many people in the town go missing—Helen’s husband being one of them—and unnatural cloud formations begin appearing in the sky. Meanwhile, the two Helens find themselves, and their lives spinning out of control.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 547
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA, Argentina
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: suspense, realistic, lovecraft
Similar in 82%
57 Seconds (2023)
Plot Summary:
When a tech blogger lands an interview with a tech guru and stops an attack on him, he finds a mysterious ring that takes him back 57 seconds into the past.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Night Owl (1993)
Plot Summary:
New York: Every night the mysterious "Night Owl" goes on the air with her moody radio show. She seems to have an inexplicable influence on some men; several of Julie's friends commit suicide while listening to her voice. She fears for her husband Harry, who becomes more and more distant from her. Written by Tom Zoerner.
IMDB Rating: 4.1
IMDB Votes: 149
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: gothic horror, psychological, mind bending, serious, suspenseful, scary, tense, realistic, psychotronic
Similar in 90%
The Power (1968)
Plot Summary:
One by one members of a special project team are being killed by telekinesis - the ability to move things with the power of the mind alone. The race is on to determine which of the remaining team members is the murderer and to stop them.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: psychotronic, retro, suspense, slasher, tech noir, serious, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 88%
Starquest II (1996)
Plot Summary:
Sci-fi thriller directed by Fred Gallo.
IMDB Rating: 2.5
IMDB Votes: 338
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 77%
Deadly Breed (1989)
Plot Summary:
The flames of racism burn hot as a murderous band of skinheads wreak havoc on the Los Angeles landscape and only one man can put an end to their explosive evil. Stars Blake Bahner, William Smith, Addison Randall.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 114
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, exciting, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 82%
The Speed of Thought (2011)
Plot Summary:
Joshua Lazarus (Nick Stahl) is a telepath who has been raised in a NSA foster home. Lazarus helps the government by using his abilities. He is told by the agency that the telepathy is a side effect of Widmann's Disease, and that he will become insane in time and eventually die from the illness. However, Lazarus meets a woman with similar powers (Taryn Manning) who does not have any sign of the disease, launching Lazarus to confront the lies he has been told.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, realistic, thought provoking, cerebral
Similar in 90%
Feedback (2002)
Plot Summary:
Feedback is a techno-thriller that takes place a few years from now. Set in a bleak and desolate world, this is the story of three friends caught up in a streak of bad luck.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 282
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Quito 2023 (2013)
Plot Summary:
Is the year 2023. Quito has been walled by Leonardo Ponce, a military dictator that took control of the city in the early 2010's. A group of revolutionaries led by Marcos and Santiago are on the verge of giving a coup d'état. Just hours before the strike, Santiago steps forward and starts asking tough questions that led everybody to rethink why are they really doing this. Meanwhile at Ponce's palace, he is trying to decipher what is going on at the city wall. There's unusual movement and one of the revolutionaries is captured. Ponce tries to get as much information as he can from him. Confined to just 2 locations, Quito 2023 shows the human side of the revolution, the internal conflicts of their leaders and the hopelessness of a region that cannot be governed.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 67
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: Ecuador
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 84%
BrainWaves (1982)
Plot Summary:
After a traffic accident Kaylie is in coma for months. Her doctors want to try a new procedure on her: to regain her consciousness, they stimulate her brain with neural patterns of a woman who just died. It works, and Kaylie seems to be OK again. However in her dreams, she lives the last day of her savor - and realizes that she's been killed! Together with her husband she tries to find out what happened.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 519
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 82%
Blind Date (1984)
Plot Summary:
A man goes blind when remembering his lost girlfriend, but the doctors can't find anything wrong with his eyes. They fit him with an experimental device which allows him to see with the aid of a computer interface and brain electrodes. Meanwhile, a taxi driver is taking young women up to their apartments, giving them gas, and performing a little fatal amateur surgery on them. Their paths inevitably converge, and the blind man must try to stop the psychopath.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: UK, Greece
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: slasher, psychological, suspenseful, scary, rough, mind bending, serious, realistic, independent film, thought provoking
Similar in 84%
The Grind (2009)
Plot Summary:
Luke, is a grifter who owes a significant debt to the Mexican mob. Set in the gritty underbelly of Gardena, CA Luke has to come up with one final scheme to pay back his debt or his life is at risk. Supported by his two only friends, Courtney and Josh, they come together to devise a plan that with a little blind luck just might get Luke out of the hole.
IMDB Rating: 3.7
IMDB Votes: 369
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: serious, rough, realistic, suspenseful, tense, neo noir
Similar in 77%
Friend of the Family 3 (1996)
Plot Summary:
Jeff meets up with a woman named Angela with whom he raised hell in high school when he attends his class reunion. She has become obsessed with 'the rush' of being spontaneous and wants someone to play with while she tries new erotic experiences. This 'rush' soon becomes deadly as her need for a thrill becomes more and more intense.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 162
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: independent film, erotic, rough, sexy, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sexual
Similar in 82%
Malibu Eyes (2004)
Plot Summary:
A stylish, cat-and-mouse suspense story about a young woman's sexual awakening and self-discovery. Alone on vacation in Crescent Bay, unexpectedly abandoned by both her boyfriend and her parents, HANNAH (Courtney Cole) gets caught up in a web of sexual intrigue and danger, eventually exposing what lies beneath the politics of this quiet, picturesque beach community.
IMDB Rating: 3.6
IMDB Votes: 58
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: sexy, serious, realistic, erotic, sexual
Similar in 89%
Subliminal Seduction (1996)
Plot Summary:
Darrin Danver is married to Deb. He is a videogames programmer and works for Z-Games when he receives an offer for a job from CTC. He accepts the offer and moves with his wife Deb near Las Vegas. There he discovers that he is paid a lot only to develop the videogame Radical Rat Trap, which is to follow Amazing Mouse Maze. But the great family of CTC uses Videogames Cd-Rom and subliminal messages to try to control minds, his and his wife's.
IMDB Rating: 3.9
IMDB Votes: 284
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Naked Souls (1996)
Plot Summary:
Edward is busy trying to unlock the secrets of reading and recording people's thoughts. He is very involved with his work leaving little room for girlfriend Britt. Longstreet comes along and offers Edward a place to do his research and have unlimited funding. There are, however, ulterior motives as Edward is also somehow unlocking the secrets of eternal life.
IMDB Rating: 3.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: erotic, bleak, serious, tense, suspense, sexy, independent film, suspenseful, slasher, hot
Similar in 75%
Seconds (1966)
Plot Summary:
A secret organisation offers wealthy people a second chance at life. The customer picks out someone they want to be and the organisation surgically alters the customer to look like the intended person, stages the customer's death, gets rid of the intended person and the customer takes on a new life.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: surreal, philosophical, tense, black and white, cerebral, grim, cult classic, psychedelic, psychological thriller, psychological
Similar in 81%
Black Road (2016)
Plot Summary:
In 2029, a cyborg drifter risks his life to protect a woman from her demented ex. Set in a lawless coastal town after Oregon secedes from the Union.
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 609
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing, cyber, futuristic
Similar in 85%
Wifelike (2022)
Plot Summary:
A grieving detective in the near-future hunts down criminals who trade artificial humans on the black market. In the fight to end AI exploitation, an underground resistance attempts to infiltrate him by sabotaging the programming of the artificial human assigned as his companion to behave like his late wife. She begins to question her reality as memories of a past life begin to surface in a world where nothing is as it seems.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, suspense, futuristic
Similar in 87%
Black Death (1992)
Plot Summary:
On her way home in a plane to New York, the teenage Sarah gets very ill. She realizes too late that it's more than a cold and with her parents still on vacation, she breaks down in the middle of the street and dies shortly after in a hospital -- by the plague, as the terrified coroners find out. While trying to keep this from the public to avoid a panic, epidemic commissioner Dr. Nora Hart has to investigate Sarah's identity and find everyone who had contact with her. If she misses a single person, the plague could kill half the city in a few days!.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 270
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: Canada, France, USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, apocalyptic
Similar in 79%
Lifeform (1996)
Plot Summary:
When the Viking space capsule suddenly returns to Earth from its long ago trip to Mars, it brings with it an intelligent visitor that is part "Alien" and part "ET". Encased in armor, it extends a human like form from its shell to examine its surroundings and shows an interest in humans including a soft caress of a female scientist prior to the Army killing it. This only enrages its sibling.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 720
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, scary, rough, serious, suspenseful
Similar in 89%
Epoch (2001)
Plot Summary:
Disaster strikes as a specialised team of investigators struggle to find out the truth about a strange monolith which sends out an intercontinental signal.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, exciting, captivating, apocalyptic, fast, disaster movie
Similar in 77%
The Manhattan Project (1986)
Plot Summary:
Named after the World War II-era program, the plot revolves around a gifted high school student who decides to construct a nuclear bomb for a national science fair. The film's underlying theme involves the Cold War of the 1980s when government secrecy and mutually assured destruction were key political and military issues.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: tense, suspenseful, suspense, feel good, action adventure, serious, realistic, surprise ending, psychotronic, independent film
Similar in 86%
Liquid Sky (1982)
Plot Summary:
Invisible aliens in a tiny flying saucer come to Earth looking for heroin. They land on top of a New York apartment inhabited by a drug dealer and her female, androgynous, bisexual nymphomaniac lover, a fashion model. The aliens soon find the human pheromones created in the brain during orgasm preferable to heroin, and the model's casual sex partners begin to disappear.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, surreal, sexy, disturbing, stylized, cult classic, mindfuck, sexual, psychological, mind bending
Similar in 78%
Bombshell (1997)
Plot Summary:
Characters in a bio technological firm utilize nanotechnology (miniature, smart robots) to control others for their own good.
IMDB Rating: 3.9
IMDB Votes: 270
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, psychological, exciting, bleak, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 86%
The Wave (2019)
Plot Summary:
A man on the verge of a promotion takes a mysterious hallucinogenic drug that begins to tear down his reality and expose his life for what it really is.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychedelic, surreal, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, inspirational, thought provoking, slasher, action thriller
Similar in 75%
Infinity Chamber (2016)
Plot Summary:
A man trapped in an automated prison must outsmart a computer in order to escape and try and find his way back to the outside world that may already be wiped out.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: suspense, psychological thriller, captivating, tense, touching, disturbing, psychological, retro, psychedelic, surreal
Similar in 79%
Invasion of the Pod People (2007)
Plot Summary:
After a meteor shower in California, Melissa feels that her co-workers and her boss Samantha that work in the agency owned by Vickland are acting differently after receiving a weird plant. She shares her fears with her colleague Billie and with Detective Alexander that are the only persons that she can trust.
IMDB Rating: 2.5
IMDB Votes: 805
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: mockbuster, suspense, apocalyptic, natural horror, suspenseful, semi serious, sexual, detective, sexy
Similar in 82%
They Are Among Us (2004)
Plot Summary:
The film concerns a sleepy town that is populated mostly by aliens who have been pretending to be humans for a lengthy period of time in order to eventually strip the planet of resources they need to live.
IMDB Rating: 3.9
IMDB Votes: 558
Genere: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: suspense, scary, serious, suspenseful, exciting