12 Best Movies Like The Gorge

A gorge somewhere in the western hemisphere houses something that could change biological life forever if it ever got out. The only thing to do to prevent this from happening is to have two guards stationed in towers on each side of it, ensuring that what’s inside doesn’t escape. “The Gorge” follows Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), trained snipers who are the best of the best at what they do, as they take the job — but they don’t know what’s in store for them, especially after they end up in the chasm themselves.

Directed by Scott Derrickson, 2025’s “The Gorge” has a bit of something for everyone. There’s science fiction in the existence of the creatures in the gorge and what has created them. There’s action as Levi and Drasa fight for their lives, even wrenching a Jeep up the side of the pit as they try to outrun what lives inside. There’s even romance as Levi and Drasa get to know each other from their respective posts. While critics didn’t think “The Gorge” was one of the best monster movies of all time, awarding it a middle-ground 62% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences were kinder, giving it 75%.

Because “The Gorge” isn’t just one kind of feature, there are plenty of other great options to watch just like it. From sci-fi classics to modern mythology, these are the best films to see next after you’ve explored “The Gorge.”

Easily one of the best Stephen King adaptations, 2007’s “The Mist” follows a group of citizens barricaded in a grocery store after a strange fog settles over their town. What’s in the mist is more frightening than anyone could imagine, and there’s more than one thing hiding in it — just when the people believe they’ve figured out how to defeat the monsters, another type appears. As a father tries to save his son from it all, “The Mist” has arguably one of the bleakest movie endings of all time.

If you weren’t thinking about “The Mist” while watching “The Gorge,” it might be because you haven’t seen it yet. As soon as Levi and Drasa are in the bottom of the gorge, they’re enveloped by a thick fog, and it’s difficult to see what, or who, is ahead of them. They go through the same feelings as the people in the grocery store, even if they manage a better outcome. Also, in “The Gorge,” audiences find out how the “Hollow Men” came to be — part of what makes “The Mist” so eerie is that, while we learn who is responsible for the arrival of the mist, we don’t find out where exactly the creatures come from.

What happens when an asteroid hits Earth and causes anything cold-blooded to grow into huge monsters, “Eight Legged Freaks”-style? That’s what 2020’s “Love and Monsters” explores. As the oversized amphibians and reptiles kill most of humankind, Joel (Dylan O’Brien) is separated from his girlfriend Aimee (Jessica Henwick) and fights his way across the country for seven years to find her. From giant frogs and centipedes to different colonies of people, Joel experiences it all in his quest to reunite with her.

While “The Gorge” received mixed reviews because of all the different genres it was trying to encompass, “Love and Monsters” is what to watch if you wanted more romance in the former. The entire premise is about a guy fighting mutated creatures to get back to his girlfriend, even though it takes him years to do so. It’s as if Drasa and Levi had been separated inside the gorge for the entire time. Both movies feature monsters, love, and a happy ending, but “Love and Monsters” just wraps it in a more comedic, light-hearted package.

“The Great Wall” follows Europeans searching for gunpowder in China during the early 1000s, only to come under attack from a strange tentacled monster. Though they fend it off, it isn’t without massive casualities. As the survivors arrive at the Great Wall, they’re captured by the group meant to protect people from these creatures, which are from another planet. The two join the fight to prevent the beings from coming over the wall, which happens once every 60 years — but is a week early this time.

For those wanting a more historical piece to watch next, 2016’s “The Great Wall” is the way to go, especially if the idea of the “Hollow Men” from “The Gorge” being historical soldiers piqued your interest. Much like “The Gorge,” there is a concentrated effort to prevent the monsters from moving in a certain direction, with varying degrees of success. “The Great Wall” also has a strong cast, with Matt Damon as Irish mercenary William Garin and Pedro Pascal as Spanish mercenary Pero Tovar — both of whom survive the opening attack — and Willem Dafoe as an English teacher who has been in China for nearly three decades. 

In 2013’s “Oblivion,” all of humankind has migrated to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, in the aftermath of an alien attack from decades earlier. Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are the last two people left on the planet, making sure that the power source for the final ship carrying human life works correctly before heading to Titan themselves. While they become romantically involved in the process, their job requires that all memories of their pasts are erased — but that doesn’t stop Jack from having flashbacks to his life before, which makes him realize that he has someone else waiting for him. 

Both “The Gorge” and “Oblivion” feature a pair of people bonding as they do something they alone are tasked with. While they are rooted in different scenarios, the same feelings of isolation exist because the situations are so similar and ultimately lead to romance. “Oblivion” emphasizes the romance plot to a greater degree, especially as Jack learns more about his memories, making it the perfect watch for fans of “The Gorge” who wanted that aspect of Levi and Drasa’s relationship highlighted more.

Are the legends of trolls hiding in the mountains of Norway true? That’s what you’ll find out when you watch 2022’s “Troll.” Nora (Ine Marie Wilmann) learned all about the legends as a child, and now as an adult, she’s helping understand why several people died after a company drills into a mountain. While it appears to be a simple eruption from natural causes, there’s a deeper meaning to what happened and who is hiding in the mountains.

“Troll” is what to watch next for “The Gorge” fans looking for an international movie. Like the latter, it has something people think can’t exist within an isolated geological feature, since Levi and Drasa are surprised that 1940s soldiers are somehow still alive in the gorge. While the Apple TV+ film is rooted in scientific discovery and not the existence of a mythological creature, it’s a similar feeling when the main characters in both realize that what they’re seeing is real. “Troll” ends up as more or less a standard monster movie, but it leaves room for a sequel, which is coming to Netflix in December 2025.

“Spectral” is a Netflix film following Mark Clyne (James Badge Dale), a researcher for the United States Department of Defense, as he heads to Moldova, which is currently in the middle of a civil war, to look into some strange deaths and incidents happening around the military base. He’s created goggles that can see across the electromagnetic spectrum, which the military have been using, and they are picking up something we can’t see with the naked eye: invisible beings that are attacking people. 

This Netflix movie is what to see if you watched “The Gorge” and wanted more emphasis on the monsters and less of the romantic subplot. Like “The Gorge,” the human-like monsters of “Spectral” are rooted in experiments gone wrong, but in a completely different and mind-bending way, since the latter is based on research about the nervous system instead of a virus. However, they both share that eerie feeling of not knowing what’s lurking around the corner. The attackers are truly invisible in “Spectral,” whereas they just come from out of the fog in “The Gorge.” 

One of the best science fiction films ever made, 1979’s “Alien” follows the crew of a deep space mining ship as they come across an abandoned alien vessel. While they think the ship has been sending out an automated signal for help, they realize much too late that it’s actually a warning designed to keep them from approaching at all. Before the crew even realizes what’s happening, they’ve got a deadly alien creature on board their craft, killing them one by one — and it turns out that this may be exactly what the ship’s corporate owners intended all along.

“Alien” is the monster movie to watch if you want to see one of the biggest influences on “The Gorge” and films like it. It’s easily a classic of the genre, and the Xenomorph is a menace that will not leave your mind anytime soon. “Alien” shows what can go wrong in trying not to destroy but harvest creatures like this, and how even the best laid plans are good for nothing against a beast that’s engineered only to survive. 

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the one crew member needed to run a fuel facility on the moon, but his mission comes into question when he realizes that everything he thought he knew about his life and his job is a lie. After an accident occurs, there are suddenly two Sams, causing both of them to wonder if they are clones and which one is the “real” Sam — and if their memories of their wife and child back home are even real memories.

The entire premise of 2009’s “Moon” is built on the idea of isolation, which is the core of “The Gorge.” Sam, Drasa, and Levi are stationed where in theory they have no contact with anyone, though they each soon have a second person to keep them company. Levi and Drasa’s decisions are ultimately driven by their relationship, but Sam finds out he’s alone by design. “Moon” has an interesting basis in science — like “The Gorge” to some degree — but is ultimately a movie about one man’s lonely journey to find out if he’s even truly alive.

“Annihilation” follows a group of scientists going into the Shimmer, a zone that was created after a meteor crashed on Earth three years earlier. Its influence on the surrounding area is steadily growing, and as it does, everything inside it mutates. Though many individuals have gone into the zone, only one person has made it out, and they can’t speak to what’s inside because they are in the hospital. As the new group heads into the area, they soon realize that whatever is inside the Shimmer impacts them too, as their fingerprints change and they encounter doppelgangers of themselves.

For fans of “The Gorge” that want to watch something with a similar concept, but with more emphasis on the horror of what’s happening, 2018’s “Annihilation” is a far eerier take on the same basic idea. There’s strange biological oddities hidden in a space made separate from humanity, and there’s even something that looks human-like. There’s a kind of horrible beauty to everything, but it’s all deceptive and dangerous. Because it’s firmly a horror movie, there’s a bit more gore and no one is safe, but “Annihilation” is an ideal watch if you wished “The Gorge” spent more time inside the actual gorge, exploring what was lurking in the fog.

What if the United States and Mexico were battling to keep creatures that arrived on a space probe inside a quarantine zone? 2010’s “Monsters” explores that through the eyes of Andrew (Scoot McNairy), a photojournalist asked to retrieve his employer’s daughter, Samantha (Whitney Able), from Central America before the borders are sealed off. Their journey is interrupted, however, forcing them to have to travel through the quarantine zone and try and survive the monsters with very few usable skills in their arsenal. The two must pass through dangerous areas, are tricked by scammers, and, of course, must stay ahead of the mysterious aliens.

Conceived by future “Jurassic World Rebirth” director Gareth Edwards, “Monsters” has everything there is to love about “The Gorge”: unnatural creatures, a love story, and an ending that initially feels incredibly bittersweet. While the latter gets an addendum to that ending, “Monsters” does not, leaving audiences to wonder if the pair’s efforts in the zone were in vain. Both movies’ calamities are ultimately humanity’s fault: the probe in “Monsters” is sent to space to determine if aliens exist, only to bring one back, while the scientists in “The Gorge” don’t try to contain the deadly leak that creates the mutations after an earthquake lets it loose.

In 2021’s “The Tomorrow War,” Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) is a biology teacher and former member of the military whose life is interrupted by the arrival of people from the future. He’s taken forward in time by members of the armed forces as part of a draft for a war yet to come. Aliens called Whitespikes have made it to Earth and killed nearly all of humankind, and the only way to fight them off is to bring people from the past into the future to help with the battle.

While the vast pit in “The Gorge” feels like a place out of time, “The Tomorrow War” actually has the characters travel through time to try and save Earth. Though they are going forward in time rather than backward, it still has the same effect and impact on the plot. Like “The Gorge,” things aren’t actually what they seem, and Dan discovers there’s a bit more to the history of the alien invasion than what they’re told. Dan and Levi are alike in that both are former military men who are called up when it’s convenient, not necessarily because of their skill set, and are essentially on a mission that will kill them — and the person asking them to do it knows that.

Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is trying to find a vaccine for the Krippin Virus, a cancer-cure-turned-lethal-pathogen, in 2007’s “I Am Legend.” While it kills most of humankind, some, like himself, are immune, while others turn into vampiric mutants instead of succumbing to it. Living and working in a fortified townhome in New York City, Neville succeeds in finding a cure — but is too late to help those who have already turned and is there anyone else left alive?

Based on a classic novel by Richard Matheson (which was filmed twice before), “I Am Legend” is about isolation. Like “The Gorge,” it’s a film about being alone and what that can drive a person to do, especially when the potential fate of the world rests on one’s shoulders. Unlike the romantic, optimistic ending of “The Gorge,” however, the ending of “I Am Legend” is filled with both sadness and hope — which only comes from achieving a goal but paying the ultimate price.