Movies Like The Lathe of Heaven
If you loved The Lathe of Heaven's Science Fiction and Fantasy 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
Battlestar Galactica: Razor
The history and adventures of the Battlestar Pegasus, from shortly before the Cylon invasion to shortly after Lee Adama is made commander. The story is told through the eyes of and largely focuses on one particular member of Pegasus's crew, Kendra Shaw.
Doctor Who: Deep Breath
The newly-regenerated Doctor arrives in Victorian London, and Clara Oswald struggles to embrace the man he has become. All the while, they reunite with the Paternoster Gang to investigate a series of combustions that have been occurring all around the city.
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.
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?
Scanners
After a man with extraordinary, and frighteningly destructive, telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers. Some of the other “scanners” have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them.
Doctor Who: The Snowmen
The Doctor has retired to 1892 London. Despite the protests of his allies, he is determined to keep out of mankind's affairs. However, a governess named Clara has stumbled upon a plot which only the Doctor can unravel, involving the death of her predecessor in ice and the sinister Dr. Simeon, who controls monsters made of sentient snow. And there is another mystery afoot: Clara is the spitting image of Oswin Oswald, whom the Doctor saw die in the Dalek asylum...
The Signal
A horror film told in three parts, from three perspectives, in which a mysterious transmission that turns people into killers invades every cell phone, radio, and television.
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.
More Movies Like The Lathe of Heaven
Special
A lonely metermaid has a psychotic reaction to his medication and becomes convinced he's a superhero. A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.
Death Machine
Chaank Armaments is experimenting with the ultimate fighting machine which is part human - part machine. So far, the Hardman project has been unreliable and has killed a number of innocent people. The genius behind this project is Jack who lives in a world of models, toys and magazines. When he is fired by Cale for killing a few corporate officers, he unleashes the ultimate killing machine called the 'Warbeast' against Cale and those who would help her.
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.
Next
Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.
Ben 10: Alien Swarm
Ben and a mysterious girl from his past must prevent an alien threat from destroying the world.
From Beyond
The Resonator, a powerful machine that can control the sixth sense, has killed its creator and sent his associate into an insane asylum. When a psychiatrist becomes determined to continue the experiment, she unwittingly opens the door to a hostile parallel universe.
War Machine
On one last grueling mission during Army Ranger training, a combat engineer must lead his unit in a fight against a giant otherworldly killing machine.
Mr. K
Mr. K, a traveling magician, finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of his hotel. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.
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.
Turbo Kid
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, an orphaned teen must battle a ruthless warlord to save the girl of his dreams.
Doctor Who: Last Christmas
The Doctor and Clara face their Last Christmas. Trapped on an Arctic base, under attack from terrifying creatures, who are you going to call? Santa Claus!
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with The Lathe of Heaven (1980): Science Fiction and Fantasy 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 The Lathe of Heaven.
See full details for The Lathe of Heaven (1980)