Movies Like Shortwave
If you loved Shortwave's Thriller 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 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.
Boss Level
A former special forces agent is trapped in a time loop and relives his death over and over again. To escape the terrible situation, he must track down those responsible and stop them.
Latency
When professional gamer Hana, who suffers from acute agoraphobia, receives new equipment that enhances her game, she begins to wonder if it is reading her mind – or controlling it.
Anniversary
When Ellen and Paul’s son Josh introduces his new girlfriend at their 25th anniversary party, no one suspects that it is the beginning of the end for this happy family. The new girlfriend is Liz, Ellen’s former student, who left the university, some years before, after Ellen called her out in class for her radical ideology.
Prodigy
Jimmy is a committed child psychologist who uses his own playbook, but when he is brought in to work with Ellie, he is completely unprepared for his subject—a 9-year-old psychopathic genius with nothing to lose. As he begins to understand the extent of her capabilities and the fate that has been planned for her, he struggles to overcome her defenses before it is too late for them both.
Hunting Season
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
Parallel
Grief-stricken after the loss of her child, Vanessa takes refuge at a lake house only to be met with an aberration of herself from a parallel universe and realizes the multiverse gates hold the key to releasing her grief or trapping her forever.
More Movies Like Shortwave
The Cut
A retired boxer intends to return to the ring for one last shot at the title, but first he must make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas with an unscrupulous trainer, he embarks on an intensive and illegal weight-cutting program.
Attraction
A writer/radio advice show host fails to heed his own advice as he stalks his ex-girlfriend and then becomes involved with an actress friend of hers.
Off the Grid
After a morally-bankrupt company tries to weaponize a brilliant scientist's revolutionary technology, he goes off the grid to safeguard humanity. When the company sends a strike force to find him, they make their biggest mistake of all – they weaponize the man they are trying to catch.
The Good Neighbor
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
Containment
Neighbors in a block wake one morning to find they have been sealed inside their apartments. Can they work together to find out why? Or will they destroy each other in their fight to escape?
The Hummingbird Project
A pair of high-frequency traders go up against their old boss in an effort to make millions in a fiber-optic cable deal.
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.
Rogue Agent
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
On the Line
A provocative and edgy radio host must play a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a mysterious caller who's kidnapped his family and is threatening to blow up the whole station.
Replicant
Scientists create a genetic clone of a serial killer in order to help catch the killer, teaming up with two cops.
The Infernal Machine
Reclusive and controversial author Bruce Cogburn is drawn out of hiding by an obsessive fan, forcing the novelist to confront a past that he thought he could escape, and to account for events set in motion by his bestseller decades earlier. Cogburn's search for who is behind the manipulation and mental torment he encounters leads to an emotional roller-coaster ride full of fear and danger, where things are not always as clear as they seem to be, and where past deeds can have dire consequences.
57 Seconds
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.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Shortwave (2016): Thriller 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 Shortwave.
See full details for Shortwave (2016)