Movies Like THX 1138
If you loved THX 1138's Science Fiction and Drama 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

A Scanner Darkly
An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.

1984
In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Fortress
In the future, the inmates of a private underground prison are computer-controlled with cameras, dream readers, and devices that can cause pain or death. John and his illegally pregnant wife Karen are locked inside "The Fortress" but are determined to escape before the birth of their baby.

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.

Surrogates
Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.

Equilibrium
In a dystopian future, a totalitarian regime maintains peace by subduing the populace with a drug, and displays of emotion are punishable by death. A man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system.

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.

Upgrade
A brutal mugging leaves Grey Trace paralyzed in the hospital and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure — an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body. Now able to walk, Grey finds that he also has superhuman strength and agility — skills he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life.
More Movies Like THX 1138

Sleeper
Miles Monroe, a clarinet-playing health food store proprietor, is revived out of cryostasis 200 years into a future world in order to help rebels fight an oppressive government regime.

The Machine
Already deep into a second Cold War, Britain’s Ministry of Defense seeks a game-changing weapon. Programmer Vincent McCarthy unwittingly provides an answer in The Machine, a super-strong human cyborg. When a programming bug causes the prototype to decimate his lab, McCarthy takes his obsessive efforts underground, far away from inquisitive eyes.

Demolition Man
In 1996, brash L.A. detective John Spartan and maniac killer Simon Phoenix are both sentenced to decades in a cryogenic prison as punishment for a rescue mission gone wrong. When Phoenix escapes 36 years later to wreak havoc on the future, Spartan is awakened to capture his nemesis the old-fashioned way.

Insurgent
Beatrice Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart.

Nineteen Eighty-Four
Imagine a world where absolute conformity rules, and word and thought, including loyalty to Big Brother is demanded. It's the year 1984 and such a world exists. Divided into three vast states, whose inhabitants are dominated by all powerful governments, an illegal love affair begins. Soon, worker drone Winston becomes the target of a brain-washing campaign to force him back to conformity.

Dark City
A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

Blade Runner 2049
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

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.

The Island
In 2019, Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly "Utopian" but contained facility. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully-controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to The Island — reportedly the last uncontaminated location on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie.

The Matrix Resurrections
Plagued by strange memories, Neo's life takes an unexpected turn when he finds himself back inside the Matrix.

V for Vendetta
In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.

Chappie
Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings—some good, some bad—and he will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become his own man. But there's one thing that makes Chappie different from any one else: he is a robot.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with THX 1138 (1971): Science Fiction and Drama 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 THX 1138.
See full details for THX 1138 (1971)