20 Thrilling Movies Like A Quiet Place You Need To See Now

"A Quiet Place" made a huge splash when it arrived in theaters in 2018, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and receiving almost universal critical acclaim (it sits at a very comfortable 96% on Rotten Tomatoes). Even the king of horror himself, Stephen King, praised the film's script and visual storytelling.

The film's success led to a sequel, which was equally as critically and commercially successful, amassing almost $300 million in worldwide box office returns in the middle of a pandemic. And we're now looking forward to "A Quiet Place Part III."

But what made "A Quiet Place" such a success? Besides the novelty of being a horror movie directed by Jim from "The Office," "A Quiet Place” is a thrilling ride from start to finish, and one that grounds its thrills in the emotional bonds of family. So here we'd like to take a look at some movies that deliver on similar thrills, whether they are drawn from monsters, the apocalypse, family dynamics, or combinations of them all. Below is a list of 20 thrilling movies like "A Quiet Place" you need to see now.

"Sinister" follows true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), who moves into a new home with his wife and two children to investigate and write about the deaths of a family who lived in the home before. Like "A Quiet Place," the film mostly takes place in a single location and centers on a family of four, with one daughter and one son. But unlike "A Quiet Place," which draws much of its emotion and tension from the relationships between the family members, "Sinister" focuses almost solely on Ellison and his research.

Early on, Ellison discovers tapes that contain elaborate family snuff films in the attic of the home that share unnerving common threads: a strange symbol, an ominous and mysterious figure in the background, and a child who went missing from each family. The rest of the movie then follows Ellison as he attempts to discover exactly what happened to these families and stop it from happening to his own.

Like "A Quiet Place," "Sinister" has a pretty simple premise that it uses to stage some of the most thrilling sequences set to film in the last decade. Director Scott Derrickson (who also directed "Doctor Strange") makes scenes of Hawke walking around in the dark some of the most palpably tense scenes in any horror movie, and the snuff films are incredibly disturbing setpieces. But it's the focus on children, and the lengths parents will go to protect them, that makes "Sinister" land on this list of movies like "A Quiet Place" you need to see.

It's wild to think about the fact that director John Carpenter's "The Thing" flopped at the box office when it came out in 1982, as it's now considered an absolute classic, if not the best science fiction horror movie of all time. And it holds that classic status for good reason: the movie is a small-scale horror movie that delivers on constant thrills from both tension and gross-out body horror scenes.

"The Thing" focuses on the men of a research station in Antarctica who are infiltrated by, well, a thing. A thing that can perfectly imitate any living organism, including humans, making it impossible to know who to trust. It's an interesting inversion of the dynamic in "A Quiet Place" where the threat comes from outside and the people inside love and comfort one another. The setting in Antarctica means that the men in "The Thing" are stuck indoors together and isolated. Especially after one of them breaks all technology that might let them communicate with the outside world so that the thing cannot infect a larger, if not global population.

"The Thing" is filled with iconic scenes, from the testing of blood to confirm who is human and who is the thing to the absolute gore-fests of the thing's transformations, and is necessary viewing for any fans of science fiction horror movies like "A Quiet Place."

"28 Days Later" follows Jim (Cillian Murphy, who also co-stars in "A Quiet Place Part II"), who wakes up from a coma 28 days after the outbreak of a virus to find the world very different from when he last saw it. The bustling city of London has been reduced to a ghost town, with streets littered with trash and poster boards full of missing person notices. It's a startling image of the collapse of society that's very different from the more natural setting we see in "A Quiet Place," but the sense of emptiness and the dread that comes with the end of civilization is in both.

And so are the threats. In "A Quiet Place," the threats are of course the aliens, but in "28 Days Later" the threats are the people who have been infected with the "rage virus." The virus essentially turns people into mindless creatures who attack and attempt to bite any humans they encounter. And just like the aliens in "A Quiet Place," the infected can hear you. Some of the most thrilling sequences in "28 Days Later" center on sound and the infected hordes' ability to hear Jim and the other survivors he meets up with later in the film. While there's still debate about how technically the infected aren't zombies because they are living humans as opposed to undead zombies, we consider "28 Days Later" one of the best zombie movies of all time and a movie that fans of "A Quiet Place" need to see.

"Arrival" is a bit of a standout on this list (not for its quality; all the movies on the list are great, otherwise they wouldn't be included). It's not at all a horror movie, and only somewhat of a thriller. Unlike most of the pure genre movies we're recommending here, "Arrival" is more of a science fiction drama. "Arrival" follows linguist Louise (Amy Adams) who is enlisted by the US Army to attempt to communicate with aliens who have arrived on Earth.

The aliens have landed in 12 ships around the globe, one of which is in Montana, where Louise and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) work to understand their language and technology. While the interactions with the aliens in "Arrival" are overwhelmingly calm, quiet, and almost meditative, it develops tension and delivers thrills throughout from the relationships between the humans at the base on Montana and the relationships between governments. Not all of the army members at the base believe that the aliens have good intentions. When other countries begin to shut down their communications with Louise's team, the movie comes to an exciting climax.

But what makes "Arrival" most special and most interesting for fans of "A Quiet Place" is the emotional heart of the movie. The emotional core of "Arrival" is based on the relationship between Louise and her daughter, who suffers from an incurable fatal illness. "Arrival" asks some of the same questions that "A Quiet Place" does in relation to parents, children, and a world that might only offer death.

"The Mist," like "A Quiet Place," is primarily a movie about the lengths parents are willing to go to for their children. And while "The Mist" doesn't involve an extraterrestrial invasion, it does involve scary creatures attacking people.

"The Mist" begins with a major storm that causes damage to the Drayton's home. The next day, father David (Thomas Jane) and son Billy (Nathan Gamble) go into town with their neighbor to get supplies. On their way to the grocery store, military convoys from a local base go in the opposite direction. Shortly after they arrive at the grocery store, sirens go off and a man runs into the grocery store yelling that there is something in the mist as we see a giant cloud quickly overtake the town.

From here the movie overwhelmingly takes place within the confines of the grocery store, but director Frank Darabont's dynamic camera choices make the single location visually dynamic. As the film unfolds, different people in the store have different ideas about what they need to do and how they can best survive the situation. Conflicts of course arise, but the greater threat is outside in the mist, as throughout the movie a variety of fantastical creatures descend on the store and the people inside.

Fans of "A Quiet Place" will find a thematic similarity here in the focus on the relationship between David and Billy, but will also find similar thrills as the people of the town fend off incredibly designed creatures.

Rarely are "family films" actually "fun for the whole family," but stop-motion horror movie "Coraline" is truly fun for the whole family, or fun for anyone at any age level for that matter. Based on the book by Neil Gaiman and directed by "The Nightmare Before Christmas" director Henry Selick, "Coraline" follows the titular Coraline, a tween who feels neglected by her parents, as she discovers a portal to a new world.

In that new world, Coraline finds alternate versions of her parents, called the "Other Mother" and "Other Father," who are more devoted to Coraline and making her happy. But these new parents aren't entirely as they appear, and neither is this new world.

"Coraline" is a genuinely scary movie for viewers of any age because of the creepy concept, but it isn't full of gore, nudity, or harsh language, so it's watchable for pretty much anyone. As a movie about family, and how families can have their problems but are ultimately important, it might even be a great option for parents who are fans of "A Quiet Place" to watch with their kids.

We think "Children of Men" is one of the best science fiction movies of all time, so of course we think fans of "A Quiet Place" need to see it. The film is an incredible filmmaking achievement from director Alfonso Cuarón and a thematically rich story about finding hope at the end of the world. Not only that, but it's also one of the most exciting science fiction movies, as the filmmaking is in service of wild chase scenes and massive action sequences.

The film takes place in 2027 in a world where humanity has been infertile for 18 years. It follows Theo (Clive Owen), a former activist, who is pulled back into political resistance by his ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore). She puts Theo in touch with a young woman who is pregnant, a literal miracle in the world of "Children of Men," and tasks him with getting her safely out of the United Kingdom, now a police state.

Beyond the thrilling sequences in both movies, the focus on the importance of children in "Children of Men" and "A Quiet Place" links them thematically in a way that's likely to be appealing to fans of "A Quiet Place."

"Annihilation" is the second film (after the also-great "Ex Machina") from director Alex Garland, who also wrote "28 Days Later." Garland clearly has a talent for bringing thrilling science fiction stories to the big screen. "Annihilation," based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer, is no exception.

The story follows a group of women, each with a different set of skills, as they enter "the shimmer," a mysterious area that seems to affect the genetic and cellular makeup of all living things within its bounds. The shimmer appeared a few years ago after a meteor fell to Earth and the government has been sending in different teams to attempt to analyze and understand exactly what it is, what it is doing, and why.

The film seamlessly moves between science fiction subgenres of adventure, horror, and action as the group of women encounter creatures that are similar to the animals and plants we are all familiar with, but not quite right. Like "A Quiet Place," "Annihilation" does a fantastic job of bringing the audience into a new and threatening world that we want to know more about even if learning more means danger for our protagonists.

When "Bird Box" arrived on Netflix in December of 2018, just eight months after "A Quiet Place" hit theaters, many were quick to compare the two, with some even calling "Bird Box" a "ripoff" of "A Quiet Place." But that's not true or fair to "A Quiet Place" or "Bird Box," which is actually based on a book of the same name by author Josh Malerman that came out in 2014.

The two movies definitely have similarities. The aliens who invade Earth in "A Quiet Place" are blind but have hypersensitive hearing, which means that our heroes cannot speak as they normally would. The mysterious entities in "Bird Box" drive people who see them to suicide, which means that our heroes cannot see as they normally would. But to strip down these stories to only those simple premises does a disservice to them both. While they also both center on families navigating the aftermath of a horrifying event, "A Quiet Place" is specifically focused only on the Abbott family, while "Bird Box" explores a larger group dynamic.

Beyond the ways in which the stories significantly differ, the horror of the movies could not be more different. The aliens of "A Quiet Place" are tangible physical threats, but the entities in "Bird Box" are spectral and never harm anyone, instead driving people to harm themselves. Both are scary, but they're certainly not the same.

Like a lot of other movies about thieves, "Don't Breathe" is about "one last job," but the twist here is that the thieves are all young and their methods are closer to simply breaking and entering than anything we see in the "Ocean's" movies. But it's not the crime aspect of "Don't Breathe" that lands it on this list of movies fans of "A Quiet Place" need to see; it's the fact that, like "A Quiet Place," "Don't Breathe" is a horror movie focused almost entirely on sound.

The job goes wrong, of course. The blind man the thieves thought would be an easy target turns out to be an extremely capable fighter and defender of his home. Because the man is blind, he can only use sound to locate the thieves as they attempt to steal from him and safely escape from the home. This leads to some of the most thrilling moments in the film as the thieves stand as still as possible so as not to make a sound. There's also a sequence that melds the emphasis on sound of "A Quiet Place" and the inability to see of "Bird Box" when the blind man cuts the power to the home so that the thieves cannot see either. 

"Don't Breathe" also does a great job of shifting audience allegiances throughout. At the start, we may side with the blind man who is being robbed, but as more is revealed over the course of the movie, we can't support his actions.

Unlike the more ethereal threat in "Bird Box," the baddies in "Underwater" have a lot in common with the monstrous aliens in "A Quiet Place." But unlike the monsters that came from outer space in "A Quiet Place," the monsters in "Underwater" came from, well, underwater. They're only one of many things the characters in the movie have to be scared of.

"Underwater" opens with an explosive (or rather, implosive) sequence as an earthquake rocks the foundation of a drilling and research facility at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, causing cracks in the walls and implosions due to pressure. The first portion of the movie plays out very similarly to the first portion of "The Descent," where the horror comes purely from the environment. But in its second half, as the characters begin to realize that there's something in the depths with them, the movie begins to resemble "A Quiet Place."

Like the creatures in "A Quiet Place," the monsters in "Underwater" are fantastically designed for simultaneously maximizing cool and terrifying viewers. And there's even a scene where our heroes have to attempt to navigate through a group of sleeping creatures, bringing to mind the close-corners horror scenes in "A Quiet Place." "Underwater" also just has a great ensemble cast, led by Kristen Stewart and Vincent Cassel, whom you immediately care about and root for, similar to the family in "A Quiet Place."

The first "Cloverfield" movie could certainly fit on a list of thrilling movies like "A Quiet Place" as well, but if we're looking for the best "Cloverfield" movie to match the post-apocalyptic thrills of "A Quiet Place," it has to be "10 Cloverfield Lane." Like "A Quiet Place," "10 Cloverfield Lane" focuses on a small group of people in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. Or does it?

The movie starts with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) getting into a major car accident and waking up in a bunker with a man named Howard (John Goodman) who insists that there has been an attack and he saved her by bringing her into the bunker. There's a mystery throughout the film of whether Howard is telling the truth or is simply interested in keeping Michelle and Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who says he came to the bunker voluntarily, under his thumb.

Like "The Thing," "10 Cloverfield Lane" focuses on an isolated group of people who are not sure they can trust each other. There may or may not be threats to their well-being outside the bunker, but inside isn't a sure thing either. First-time director Dan Trachtenberg does an amazing job of drawing out the tension. The situation explodes in thrilling and horrifying sequences throughout the film in a way that fans of "A Quiet Place" are sure to love.

Leigh Whannell has been an important figure in horror movies since 2004 when he co-wrote (with director and fellow genre wunderkind James Wan) and starred in "Saw." With "The Invisible Man" in 2020, he established himself as one of the best and most exciting directors working in the genre as well. "The Invisible Man" (2020) is ostensibly a remake of the 1933 Universal horror classic of the same name, but beyond both stories including a man who is invisible, they couldn't be more different. The 1933 film is about a scientist who creates a potion that makes him invisible and drives him mad, but the 2020 movie is about much more.

The 2020 movie follows Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) as she escapes from an abusive relationship with a tech genius and moves in with a family friend who also happens to be a police officer. Shortly after her escape, there are reports that the man she escaped from committed suicide, but Cecilia is skeptical. Soon things start to go bump in the night and Cecilia gets the uncomfortable feeling that she is being watched.

As the movie progresses, it delivers some of the most chilling horror scenes and adrenaline-pumping action scenes of the last few years. Moss is fantastic as always and does an amazing job centering the movie on Cecilia's experience. Any fan of "A Quiet Place" is sure to find a lot to love here.

"It Comes at Night" may be the movie that's most similar to "A Quiet Place" at a glance (which is why it's on this list), as both stories focus on families navigating a post-apocalyptic world. But there are some major differences between these post-apocalyptic, family-centered movies. While the end of civilization as we know it comes in the form of an alien invasion in "A Quiet Place," in "It Comes at Night," the collapse follows the spread of disease. It's not a disease like the rage virus in "28 Days Later," either; it doesn't turn the infected into violent creatures, it just slowly and painfully kills them, and of course it's highly contagious.

The plot of "It Comes at Night" begins when a second family comes out of the woods surrounding their home to ask Paul (Joel Edgerton), Sarah (Carmen Ejogo), and their son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) for help. Sarah says they should welcome the new family into their home, but Paul is skeptical of newcomers, both because they may be carrying the disease and because he's simply not sure who can be trusted.

"It Comes at Night" thus falls into interesting territory. It's similar to "A Quiet Place" in that the members of the two families have their loved ones with them at the end of the world. But it's also similar to "The Thing" and "10 Cloverfield Lane," as the two families are never sure whether the other is a supportive or threatening force in their lives.

"30 Days of Night" is an interesting movie. It's not exactly about how humans survive after the fall of civilization. The events only take place in the small Alaskan town of Barrow, but it feels like a movie about the total collapse of civilization for that town. The movie's brilliant premise — that vampires attack the town as it experiences 30 days of darkness — is drawn from the comic of the same name by Ben Templesmith and Steve Niles (who also co-wrote the screenplay for the movie).

"30 Days of Night" is arguably the most similar movie to "A Quiet Place" on this list, as it follows a group of people who have to reimagine how they live after an invasion by hostile creatures. In "30 Days of Night," those people are more than just a family, and the creatures are vampires and not aliens, but the survival problems and threats are very similar in the two films.

"30 Days of Night" also boasts some of the scariest vampire designs since "Nosferatu." They aren't just immortal people who need to feed on blood; they're almost more like highly intelligent zombies who look barely human and are only interested in massacring and feeding on the entire population of Barrow.

Before Mike Flanagan became the golden child of Netflix, creating TV hits like "Midnight Mass" and major movies like "Gerald's Game" for the streaming giant, he and his wife Kate Siegel (who very adorably is in almost everything he makes) made "Hush" for the platform. "Hush" is an incredibly small-scale horror movie that has an obvious appeal for fans of "A Quiet Place": our protagonist cannot speak or hear.

The film centers on deaf-mute author Maddie (Siegel) as a masked killer (John Gallagher Jr., who is truly the MVP of this list as he appears in "Underwater" as well as "10 Cloverfield Lane") attacks and sadistically taunts her from outside her remote home in the woods. It's a simple premise, but one that the creative team of Flanagan and Siegel are able to mine for maximum thrills and horror as other people come and go (no spoilers on how) throughout the film and Maddie tries a variety of ways to call for help or get to safety without much success.

Like "A Quiet Place," "Hush" is often a very quiet movie, allowing tension to build to almost painful crescendos. 

"The Empty Man" is a strange movie. It begins with a 22-minute cold open that takes place in 1995 and could function as a short. We see a group of four hikers in Bhutan encounter some sort of malevolent force after one of them falls into a cavern and comes face to face with a strange skeletal idol. It then picks up in the present as former detective James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) investigates the disappearance of a friend's daughter.

It takes almost the entirety of the film to connect the stories, but it's an amazing journey worth taking as James' discoveries throughout the movie expand from a game reminiscent of Bloody Mary to a cult, and finally, maybe even a tear in the fabric of reality. It's a somewhat divisive movie with split audience and critic Rotten Tomatoes scores, but we think it's great and one of the best horror movies available on HBO Max right now.

And it's perfect for fans of "A Quiet Place" who want to explore something that serves up genre thrills mixed with a more grounded procedural element and some far less grounded philosophy.

We've already mentioned "The Descent" on this list because it's one of the greatest horror movies of all time. Any comparison to it is a great compliment. As noted in the "Underwater" entry, the horror in the first half of "The Descent" comes entirely from the environment: unknown cave systems that are tight and full of sharp rocks. That horror could fill an entire movie, but then the movie ratchets things up a notch.

Around the halfway point of the movie, the group of spelunkers exploring the caves learn that they aren't alone down there. There are humanoid creatures who have adapted to living in the caves who want to make the spelunkers their next meal. It's at this point that the comparison to "A Quiet Place" comes in: the creatures navigate and hunt by sound because they live in the total darkness of the subterranean caves.

So like the characters in "A Quiet Place," the characters in "The Descent" have to attempt to escape from bloodthirsty creatures with extremely sensitive hearing, and make sure not to get stuck or seriously injure themselves while attempting to move through the caves.

"Green Room" is one of the most thrilling movies ever made. Like "A Quiet Place" it has a simple and terrifying premise, but a very different one: a punk band has to escape a green room surrounded by Neo-Nazis who want them dead. "Green Room" uses this setup to deliver some of the most tense sequences and brutally violent moments we've ever seen.

But beyond the incredible thrills the movie offers, we think it belongs on this list of movies that fans of "A Quiet Place" need to see for the way that it uses sound. As a movie about musicians at a music venue, there is a focus on the music that the characters make, but it's in the suspense sequences that "Green Room" and "A Quiet Place" use a very specific sound in similar ways. At one point, the Neo-Nazis bring in fight dogs to attack the band in the green room. While none of the band members (or really anyone) can take these animals in a fight, they can get them to run away by creating screeching, painful feedback using the venue's sound system.

"Train to Busan" has a great four-word elevator pitch: zombies on a train. That setup already sounds super fun and exciting, which the movie is, but what makes "Train to Busan" more than just a good time is its emotional core. Like "A Quiet Place," the central relationship in "Train to Busan" is familial, between father Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) and daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an). We see Seok-woo go to great lengths to keep his daughter safe as the train is overrun with hordes of zombies and people begin to turn on another in their desperation. There's also a secondary pair of protagonists who emphasize the movie's focus on the importance of family: Yoon Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seok, who is fantastic here and just made his Hollywood debut in "Eternals") and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi).

The fully bounded (albeit constantly in motion) setting of "Train to Busan" amps up the tension. Our heroes can't simply run away from the zombies and are stuck in a confined space with them. Director Yeon Sang-ho moves the camera within the space to make the train simultaneously feel inescapable and epic.