Movies Like Hard to Be a God
If you loved Hard to Be a God's Drama and Science Fiction storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien who has come to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. Aided by lawyer Oliver Farnsworth, Thomas uses his knowledge of advanced technology to create profitable inventions. While developing a method to transport water, Thomas meets Mary-Lou, a quiet hotel clerk, and begins to fall in love with her. Just as he is ready to leave Earth, Thomas is intercepted by the U.S. government, and his entire plan is threatened.
The Host
A parasitic alien soul is injected into the body of Melanie Stryder. Instead of carrying out her race's mission of taking over the Earth, "Wanda" (as she comes to be called) forms a bond with her host and sets out to aid other free humans.
1984
In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.
Petrov's Flu
A day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in Russia. While suffering from the flu, Petrov is carried by his friend Igor on a long walk, drifting in and out of fantasy and reality.
Zardoz
In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
The Zero Theorem
A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.
The Giver
In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
More Movies Like Hard to Be a God
Divergent
In a world divided into factions based on personality types, Tris learns that she's been classified as Divergent and won't fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it's too late.
The Running Man
By 2017, the global economy has collapsed and U.S. society has become a totalitarian police state, censoring all cultural activity. The government pacifies the populace by broadcasting a number of game shows in which convicted criminals fight for their lives, including the gladiator-style The Running Man, hosted by the ruthless Damon Killian, where “runners” attempt to evade “stalkers” and certain death for a chance to be pardoned and set free.
Spectral
A special-ops team is dispatched to fight supernatural beings that have taken over a European city.
Soylent Green
In the year 2022, overcrowding, pollution, and resource depletion have reduced society’s leaders to finding food for the teeming masses. The answer is Soylent Green.
The 6th Day
A world of the very near future in which cattle, fish, and even the family pet can be cloned. But cloning humans is illegal - that is until family man Adam Gibson comes home from work one day to find a clone has replaced him. Taken from his family and plunged into a sinister world he doesn't understand, Gibson must not only save himself from the assassins who must destroy him to protect their secret, but uncover who and what is behind the horrible things happening to him.
Jonathan
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
Looper
In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.
2073
Inspired by Chris Marker's iconic 1962 featurette La Jetée; the year is 2073—a not-so-distant dystopian future—and the setting is New San Francisco, the scorched-earth tech-dominant police state where democracy and personal freedom have been well and truly obliterated.
Replicant
Scientists create a genetic clone of a serial killer in order to help catch the killer, teaming up with two cops.
Riddick
Betrayed by his own kind and left for dead on a desolate planet, Riddick fights for survival against alien predators and becomes more powerful and dangerous than ever before. Soon bounty hunters from throughout the galaxy descend on Riddick only to find themselves pawns in his greater scheme for revenge. With his enemies right where he wants them, Riddick unleashes a vicious attack of vengeance before returning to his home planet of Furya to save it from destruction.
Stormageddon
What happens when you ask the most powerful computer program, run by the most powerful computers, to follow, listen and predict human behavior? The program learns, becomes sentient and begins to behave like a human. When a master computer program, Echelon, takes over America's entire online system, our country is threatened to be brought to its knees. Hacking into DARPA, Echelon gains the ability to manipulate the weather, create earthquakes, and cause a level of destruction unlike anything the country could ever imagine. But how do you stop a computer program when it has control over any and every defense you have?
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Hard to Be a God (2014): Drama and Science Fiction themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of Hard to Be a God.
See full details for Hard to Be a God (2014)