125 films, three levels of similarity outward from The Frighteners (1996, Peter Jackson). Each is scored 1–100 against Frighteners' core plot anchors: psychic con-man hero, ghost-killer-from-beyond, fake exorcisms, marked victims, grieving love interest, threshold-of-death pursuit, horror-comedy tone.
The Frighteners is a film about a widowed small-town psychic-investigator con man named Frank Bannister who enters the plot when, after years of using ghost partners to fake hauntings he then 'exorcises'…
Similarity: The film itself.
The Sixth Sense is a film about Malcolm Crowe, an acclaimed Philadelphia child psychologist who is shot one night by a former patient he failed and then takes on a new young…
Similarity: Reluctant child medium sees murdered ghosts demanding help and a therapist confronts threshold-of-death — protagonist-sees-dead, ghosts-with-grievances, twist of crossing-over all match very closely.
Beetlejuice is a film about a recently deceased young couple, the Maitlands, who enter the plot when they die in a car accident and find themselves haunting their own New England farmhouse…
Similarity: Ghost couple hires a con-man bio-exorcist — shares fake-exorcism fraud, ghost-sees-ghost premise, haunted-house lineage, and black-comedy tone; missing serial killer and afterlife trip.
Constantine is a film about John Constantine, a hard-bitten, chain-smoking Los Angeles exorcist dying of lung cancer who is trying to buy his way out of Hell by deporting demonic 'half-breeds' back…
Similarity: Chain-smoking exorcist sees demons and the dead, brokers between worlds, and crosses into hell — strong medium-sees-supernatural and threshold-crossing match; differs in killer particulars.
Ghost is a film about Sam Wheat, a New York banker happily in love with potter Molly Jensen, who enters the plot when he is shot and killed in what appears to…
Similarity: Murdered man returns as a ghost and works through a reluctant medium to protect his grieving love — protect-the-widow, fraud-psychic-turns-real, and afterlife-romance all match strongly.
Always is a film about a hotshot aerial firefighting pilot named Pete Sandich who enters the plot when, against the warnings of his girlfriend Dorinda and best friend Al, he flies one…
Similarity: Dead pilot becomes guardian ghost guiding the living and protecting his widowed love — strong ghost-romance and afterlife-threshold kinship though no serial killer.
Blithe Spirit is a film about a smug, twice-married English novelist named Charles Condomine who enters the plot when, researching a book on the occult, he invites the eccentric local medium Madame…
Similarity: Medium summons a dead wife's ghost who haunts the husband — fraud-medium-turns-real and ghost-comedy lineage match strongly; lacks killer and afterlife pursuit.
Stir of Echoes is a film about a working-class Chicago phone lineman named Tom Witzky who enters the plot when, at a backyard party, he goads his sister-in-law Lisa into hypnotizing him…
Similarity: Hypnotized blue-collar man starts seeing a murdered ghost demanding justice — reluctant-medium-and-murder-victim-ghost match is very close; lacks comedy and fraud.
The Gift is a film about a widowed Georgia psychic and single mother named Annie Wilson who enters the plot when, reading cards for neighbors to support her three sons, she becomes…
Similarity: Small-town psychic helps police investigate a murder she sees in visions — reluctant-medium, detective-with-cops, and small-town-haunting all match.
Ghostbusters is a film about three Manhattan parapsychology professors — Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler — who enter the plot when they are kicked off the Columbia University payroll just…
Similarity: Parapsychologists run a ghost-busting business and fight a supernatural threat — fraud-adjacent-supernatural-pros and comic ghost-mechanics core kinship, but no romantic protectorate.
The Lovely Bones is a film about a 14-year-old suburban Pennsylvania girl named Susie Salmon who enters the plot when, walking home through a cornfield in 1973, she is lured into an…
Similarity: Murdered girl narrates from an in-between afterlife while her killer remains free — threshold-of-death, serial-killer, and Jackson-directed cousin to Frighteners.
Poltergeist is a film about a Southern California suburban family named the Freelings — real-estate-developer dad Steven, mom Diane, teenage Dana, son Robbie, and youngest daughter Carol Anne — who enter the…
Similarity: Suburban family besieged by malevolent ghosts with a tiny medium called in — haunted-house, ghost-mechanics, and threshold-of-death anchors land strongly.
Topper is a film about a stuffy, henpecked bank president named Cosmo Topper who enters the plot when his board's free-spirited largest shareholders, the wealthy young socialites George and Marion Kerby, die…
Similarity: Stuffy banker is haunted by a fun-loving ghost couple only he can see — protagonist-sees-ghosts and comic-haunting kinship is a direct ancestor to Frighteners' premise.
The Changeling is a film about a grieving New York composer named John Russell who enters the plot when his wife and young daughter are killed in a roadside snow-plow accident and…
Similarity: Grieving widower in a haunted house communes with a murdered child's ghost and investigates the killing — medium-investigator and haunted-house anchors match well.
What Lies Beneath is a film about a Vermont empty-nester named Claire Spencer, married to genetics professor Norman, who enters the plot when, after sending her daughter off to college, she begins…
Similarity: Wife haunted by ghost of a murdered woman exposing her husband's killing — haunted-house, ghost-demands-justice, and protect-the-grieving anchors land.
The Ghost and Mrs.
Similarity: Widow falls for a sea-captain ghost in a haunted seaside cottage — ghost-romance and haunted-house anchors hit; no killer or fraud.
The Uninvited is a film about a London music critic and amateur composer named Roderick Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela who enter the plot when, on a walking holiday on the Cornish…
Similarity: Siblings in a haunted seaside house investigate a benign-and-malevolent ghost pair — haunted-house and medium-adjacent investigation kinship.
Fallen is a film about a Philadelphia homicide detective named John Hobbes who enters the plot when he attends the gas-chamber execution of serial killer Edgar Reese, a man who in his…
Similarity: Cop hunts a body-hopping demonic serial killer from beyond death — strong supernatural-serial-killer match and detective-on-two-sides element.
What Dreams May Come is a film about a pediatrician named Chris Nielsen who enters the plot when, four years after his two children Marie and Ian are killed in a car…
Similarity: Dead man crosses into the afterlife to rescue his wife's soul — threshold-of-death and protect-the-love kinship strongly; missing medium and killer.
Truly, Madly, Deeply is a film about a London translator named Nina who is paralyzed with grief over the recent death of her cellist boyfriend Jamie, who enters the plot when, after…
Similarity: Grieving widow's dead lover returns as a ghost and protects her from solitude — ghost-romance and protect-the-grieving-love kinship.
Don't Look Now is a film about a grieving art restorer named John Baxter who enters the plot when, after his young daughter Christine drowns in the pond outside their English country…
Similarity: Grieving couple, psychic visions, and a killer in plain sight — second-sight and dread-of-death anchors land, though no comedy or afterlife pursuit.
The Amityville Horror is a film about newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz who enter the plot when, looking past the fact that a young man named Ronald DeFeo Jr.
Similarity: Family in a haunted house battles murderous spirits — haunted-house-lineage and supernatural-killer kinship without medium-detective.
Field of Dreams is a film about an Iowa corn farmer named Ray Kinsella who enters the plot when, walking his cornfield at dusk, he hears a disembodied voice whisper 'If you…
Similarity: Iowa man sees ghost ballplayers in his cornfield — small-town living-man-talks-to-the-dead kinship, sentimental rather than horror.
The Devil's Backbone is a film about a young boy named Carlos who enters the plot when, near the end of the Spanish Civil War, he is dropped off at the remote…
Similarity: Orphanage haunted by a murdered child's ghost during war — child-ghost-demanding-justice and haunted-building kinship; serious rather than comic.
The Orphanage is a film about a former orphan named Laura who enters the plot when she returns with her husband Carlos and HIV-positive adopted son Simón to the seaside orphanage where…
Similarity: Mother in haunted orphanage searches for missing son with medium and ghost-children — haunted-building and medium kinship.
The Omen is a film about an American diplomat named Robert Thorn who enters the plot when, in a Rome hospital, his wife Katherine's newborn dies and a priest persuades him to…
Similarity: Antichrist child with 666 mark and harbinger deaths — number-as-death-omen anchor lands cleanly.
City of Angels is a film about a melancholy Los Angeles angel named Seth who, with his fellow invisible-to-the-living angels in trench coats, gathers at the beach at sunrise and ushers the…
Similarity: Angel-falls-for-living-woman romance with afterlife visibility; protagonist-can-see-dead-beings kinship and threshold-of-death theme but no killer.
The Conjuring is a film about paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren who enter the plot when the Perron family — Roger, Carolyn, and their five daughters — move into a remote…
Similarity: Paranormal investigators take on a malevolent haunting; haunted-house and supernatural-killer anchors, but no comedy or fraud-medium.
The Others is a film about a devoutly Catholic, photosensitive mother named Grace Stewart who enters the plot when, in a fogbound Jersey country house just after World War II, she hires…
Similarity: Mother and children in haunted house with a twist about who's dead — haunted-house and threshold-of-death kinship.
Death Becomes Her is a film about Madeline Ashton, a vain aging actress, and Helen Sharp, her former best friend and rival, who enter the plot when their decades-long feud over the…
Similarity: Black comedy with women cheating death and undead-but-walking bodies; tonal kinship and CGI undead, but no medium-and-killer plot.
Heaven Can Wait is a film about a Los Angeles Rams backup quarterback named Joe Pendleton who enters the plot when, biking through a tunnel during his training run, he is yanked…
Similarity: Dead man returns in another body — threshold-of-death comic-romance kinship without medium or killer.
Here Comes Mr.
Similarity: Premature-death afterlife comedy with body-hopping; threshold-crossing tone and comic-supernatural register.
End of Days is a film about a suicidal, alcoholic ex-NYPD-turned-private-security-operative named Jericho Cane who enters the plot when, on the eve of the millennium, Satan possesses the body of a Wall…
Similarity: Cop battles Satan with apocalyptic numerology on victims — number/mark-as-harbinger and supernatural-killer cousins, but no medium or comedy.
Insidious is a film about a young schoolteacher father named Josh Lambert and his wife Renai who enter the plot when their son Dalton falls from a ladder in the attic of…
Similarity: Astral-projection rescue with a medium and a malevolent spirit — psychic-crosses-into-other-side anchor lands, no comedy or fraud.
Carrie is a film about a sheltered, telekinetic high-school senior named Carrie White, raised by a fanatically religious mother named Margaret, who enters the plot when she gets her first period in…
Similarity: Telekinetic teen revenge; psychic protagonist and horror tone but no ghost mechanics or fraud.
Halloweentown is a film about a 13-year-old girl named Marnie Piper who enters the plot when, on Halloween night, she eavesdrops on her witch-grandmother Aggie Cromwell arguing with her mother Gwen about…
Similarity: Witch-family in a haunted small town; supernatural-small-town tone and ghost-cohort feel, kid-comedy register.
Practical Magic is a film about Sally and Gillian Owens, two sisters from a long matriarchal line of New England witches cursed so that any man who falls in love with them…
Similarity: Sister witches battle a dead boyfriend's lingering spirit — fraud-adjacent magic-as-real and protect-the-loved-one kinship.
Stigmata is a film about a Pittsburgh hairdresser named Frankie Paige, an unbeliever and party girl, who enters the plot when her mother sends her a rosary stolen from a dead Brazilian…
Similarity: Atheist woman receives stigmata and supernatural attacks — marks-on-the-body harbinger and possession kinship.
It's a Wonderful Life is a film about a small-town Building & Loan operator named George Bailey who enters the plot when, after a lifetime of deferred dreams in Bedford Falls, his…
Similarity: Angel intervenes in a despairing man's life — threshold-of-death and afterlife-emissary kinship, sentimental rather than horror.
Meet Joe Black is a film about a billionaire media mogul named William Parrish who enters the plot when, on the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday and a board fight over the…
Similarity: Death takes human form to woo a young woman — afterlife-figure-among-living kinship, romantic register.
The Devil's Advocate is a film about a hotshot undefeated Florida defense attorney named Kevin Lomax who enters the plot when, after winning an acquittal for a child-molester client he knows is…
Similarity: Young lawyer discovers Satan running a firm; supernatural-malevolence-detective register.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a film about an ambitious agnostic defense attorney named Erin Bruner who enters the plot when she is assigned to defend Father Richard Moore, a Catholic…
Similarity: Possession trial with flashbacks; fraud-versus-real-supernatural courtroom debate kinship.
The Innocents is a film about a sheltered Victorian spinster governess named Miss Giddens who enters the plot when she is hired by an indifferent London bachelor uncle to take sole charge…
Similarity: Governess sees ghosts in a country house; haunted-house and sees-the-dead kinship, ambiguous register.
The Seventh Sign is a film about a pregnant Venice Beach woman named Abby Quinn who enters the plot when she rents her garage apartment to a mysterious drifter named David Bannon…
Similarity: Apocalyptic signs and harbingers around a pregnant woman — marks-and-omens kinship.
Death Takes a Holiday is a film about the personification of Death himself who enters the plot when, weary of being feared and curious about mortal joy, he descends on the Italian…
Similarity: Personification of Death takes a holiday; afterlife-figure-among-living kinship without ghost-mechanics.
Dogma is a film about a disillusioned, abortion-clinic-working descendant of Jesus named Bethany Sloane who enters the plot when the seraph Metatron crashes into her bedroom in flames and informs her she…
Similarity: Comic theological road trip with angels; supernatural-comedy register but no ghosts or hauntings.
Hereditary is a film about a miniaturist artist named Annie Graham and her family — husband Steve, teenage son Peter, and odd young daughter Charlie — who enter the plot when Annie's…
Similarity: Grief, séances, and a malevolent supernatural force — séance/medium-adjacent and harbingers register, but pure horror without comedy.
I Married a Witch is a film about a 17th-century New England witch named Jennifer, burned at the stake by a Puritan named Jonathan Wooley along with her sorcerer father Daniel, who…
Similarity: Witch romance comedy with supernatural fakery; tonal cousin via comic-supernatural-romance.
Rosemary's Baby is a film about a young newlywed Manhattan housewife named Rosemary Woodhouse who enters the plot when she and her struggling actor husband Guy move into the Bramford, a Gothic…
Similarity: Satanic-cult pregnancy horror; supernatural-malevolence-among-the-living register, no medium.
The X-Files: Fight the Future is a film about FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who enter the plot when, reassigned off the X-Files after a Dallas federal building bombing kills…
Similarity: FBI agents investigate paranormal cases — detective-on-two-sides kinship.
Bell, Book and Candle is a film about a chic Greenwich Village witch named Gillian Holroyd who enters the plot when, bored and lonely on Christmas Eve, she discovers that her upstairs…
Similarity: Supernatural-romance with a witch concealing powers; tonal kinship but no ghosts or killer.
Defending Your Life is a film about Daniel Miller, a timid Los Angeles advertising executive, who enters the plot when he is killed in a car accident on his birthday and wakes…
Similarity: Afterlife courtroom comedy; threshold-of-death tone but no medium or killer.
Heavenly Creatures is a film about two intense teenage girls in 1950s Christchurch, New Zealand — bookish, sickly Pauline Parker and the imaginative English newcomer Juliet Hulme — who enter the plot…
Similarity: Peter Jackson's prior film about teen-girl murder fantasy; shared director and dark New Zealand tone, but plot mechanics differ.
Hocus Pocus is a film about a skeptical teenage boy named Max Dennison, newly transplanted from Los Angeles to Salem, Massachusetts, who enters the plot when on Halloween night he takes his…
Similarity: Resurrected witches in a small town; supernatural-comedy kid film with haunting-town register.
Pan's Labyrinth is a film about a bookish 10-year-old girl named Ofelia who enters the plot when, in 1944 Francoist Spain, she travels with her pregnant mother Carmen to a remote forest…
Similarity: Dark fairytale parallel to wartime cruelty; supernatural-child-sees-other-world kinship without medium-cop plot.
The Exorcist is a film about a 12-year-old girl named Regan MacNeil, daughter of the actress Chris MacNeil living in a Georgetown rental during a film shoot, who enters the plot when…
Similarity: Demonic-possession classic; supernatural-malevolence and exorcism register but no medium-protagonist.
The Prophecy is a film about a former Catholic seminarian turned NYPD detective named Thomas Daggett who enters the plot when he investigates a bizarre corpse — an angel with no eyes…
Similarity: Angel-war thriller; supernatural-malevolence among living register.
The Witches of Eastwick is a film about three lonely, divorced or widowed friends in the small Rhode Island town of Eastwick — sculptor Alex, cellist Jane, and journalist Sukie — who…
Similarity: Small-town women conjure a devil; supernatural-comedy-in-small-town kinship.
Wings of Desire is a film about an immortal angel named Damiel who enters the plot when, observing divided 1980s West Berlin alongside his fellow angel Cassiel — listening to the inner…
Similarity: Angels watch over a city; sees-the-unseen kinship in romantic register.
Zodiac is a film about a San Francisco Chronicle editorial cartoonist named Robert Graysmith who enters the plot when, in 1969, the paper receives a coded letter from a Bay Area serial…
Similarity: Serial-killer investigation procedural — serial-killer anchor in living-world register without supernatural elements.
Bruce Almighty is a film about Bruce Nolan, a Buffalo TV news human-interest reporter who feels overlooked and resentful, who enters the plot when, after a spectacularly bad day of being passed…
Similarity: Man granted divine powers comedy; supernatural-comedy tone but no ghosts or killers.
*batteries not included is a film about an elderly couple running a small cafe in a condemned New York tenement who enter the plot when tiny living flying-saucer 'fix-it' creatures arrive to…
Similarity: Tiny alien robots help tenants; supernatural-adjacent comedy but no ghosts, psychic medium, or serial-killer afterlife mechanics.
Edward Scissorhands is a film about a gentle artificial young man named Edward with scissor blades for hands who enters the plot when Avon saleswoman Peg Boggs climbs the hill to the…
Similarity: Suburban gothic fairytale; tonal Burton-kin to Frighteners' style but no ghosts.
Hellboy is a film about a cigar-chomping, cat-loving red-skinned demon named Hellboy who was summoned to Earth as an infant by Nazi occultists in 1944, rescued by an Allied paranormal team, and…
Similarity: Demon-hero monster-hunter; supernatural-detective register only.
Men in Black is a film about a hotshot NYPD detective named James Edwards who enters the plot when, after chasing a preternaturally agile suspect who reveals himself to be an alien…
Similarity: Buddy-cop secret-agency hides aliens from public; fraud-of-the-supernatural-as-job kinship lightly.
Oh, God!
Similarity: God appears as a grocery clerk comedy; supernatural-being-among-living kinship only.
The Monster Squad is a film about a group of preteen suburban monster-movie fanatics led by Sean Crenshaw and his best friend Patrick, with little sister Phoebe, fat kid Horace, tough kid…
Similarity: Kids battle classic monsters in small town; small-town-supernatural and 80s-effects kinship.
Big Fish is a film about an estranged son named Will Bloom who enters the plot when he returns to Alabama with his pregnant wife to be at the deathbed of his…
Similarity: Magic-realist tall tales and a dying father; whimsical supernatural mood but no ghost mechanics.
Ghoulies is a film about a young occult-obsessed grad student named Jonathan Graves who enters the plot when he inherits a sprawling, dilapidated California estate from his dead satanist father Malcolm and…
Similarity: Small creature horror-comedy; tonal cousin via 80s practical effects only.
Michael is a film about a tabloid reporter named Frank Quinlan and his colleague Huey Driscoll who enter the plot when their editor sends them, along with 'angel expert' Dorothy Winters, from…
Similarity: Slovenly angel road comedy; supernatural-being-among-living register only.
The Craft is a film about a troubled new-girl transfer named Sarah Bailey who enters the plot when she arrives at a Catholic prep school in Los Angeles and is recruited by…
Similarity: Teen witch coven; supernatural-fakery-meets-real-power kinship lightly.
American Beauty is a film about a depressed suburban magazine writer named Lester Burnham who enters the plot when, in voice-over from beyond the grave, he announces he will be dead within…
Similarity: Dead narrator looks back on suburban life; tonal black comedy but no medium, ghosts, or supernatural mechanics.
Cloud Atlas is a film about six souls across centuries — including 1849 notary Adam Ewing, 1936 composer Robert Frobisher, 1973 journalist Luisa Rey, present-day publisher Timothy Cavendish, future fabricant Sonmi-451, and…
Similarity: Reincarnation tapestry across centuries; afterlife-adjacent theme but no medium or haunting.
Evan Almighty is a film about newly elected congressman Evan Baxter who enters the plot when, after praying to 'change the world,' God appears to him and commands him to build an…
Similarity: Modern Noah comedy with divine intervention; supernatural-comedy register only.
Frankenstein is a film about an obsessive young scientist named Henry Frankenstein who enters the plot when, holed up in a Bavarian watchtower laboratory with his hunchbacked assistant Fritz, he stitches together…
Similarity: Reanimated-monster classic; horror lineage but completely different plot mechanics.
Gremlins is a film about a young small-town bank teller and aspiring cartoonist named Billy Peltzer who enters the plot when his inventor father Randall buys him an exotic furry creature called…
Similarity: Small-town creature mayhem horror-comedy; tonal kinship in mischief-and-effects.
Legion is a film about a fallen archangel named Michael who enters the plot when, on the eve of the apocalypse, he cuts off his wings in a Los Angeles alley, raids…
Similarity: Apocalyptic angels-versus-humans siege; supernatural-killer register only.
Mulholland Drive is a film about an aspiring actress named Betty Elms who enters the plot when she arrives in Los Angeles and finds an amnesiac brunette hiding in her aunt's apartment…
Similarity: Surreal dream-logic noir; tonal weirdness but no ghosts.
The Time Traveler's Wife is a film about a Chicago librarian named Henry DeTamble with a genetic disorder that yanks him involuntarily backward and forward through his own life, who enters the…
Similarity: Time-displaced romance; threshold-crossing motif loosely.
The Witch is a film about a devout 1630s Puritan family exiled from a New England plantation, centered on the eldest daughter Thomasin, who enters the plot when her infant brother Samuel…
Similarity: Puritan family folk horror; tonal supernatural-dread kinship only.
Click is a film about an overworked Long Island architect named Michael Newman who enters the plot when, exhausted by demanding boss Mr.
Similarity: Magical remote comedy with a life retrospective; supernatural gimmick but no ghost mechanics.
Critters is a film about a Kansas farm family — the Browns: father Jay, mother Helen, teen daughter April, and young son Brad — who enter the plot when a band of…
Similarity: Small-town monster-creature comedy; tonal cousin to Gremlins more than Frighteners.
Glass is a film about three superhuman men — the vigilante David Dunn, the dissociative multi-personality Kevin Wendell Crumb (host of The Beast), and the brittle-boned mastermind Elijah Price aka Mr.
Similarity: Superhero-grounded thriller; unrelated to ghost plot.
Liar Liar is a film about Fletcher Reede, a fast-talking Los Angeles attorney and chronic liar, who enters the plot when his young son Max blows out a birthday candle wishing that…
Similarity: Lawyer compelled to tell the truth supernatural comedy; tonal supernatural-comedy register only.
The Wicker Man is a film about a devout Christian, virgin, mainland Scottish police sergeant named Neil Howie who enters the plot when an anonymous letter summons him to the remote Hebridean…
Similarity: Pagan-cult folk horror; unrelated mechanics.
The Witches is a film about a young boy named Luke who, after losing his parents, is being raised by his Norwegian grandmother and who enters the plot when the two of…
Similarity: Roald Dahl witches children's fantasy; supernatural-comedy kid kinship.
Blade II is a film about the half-vampire half-human 'Daywalker' vampire hunter named Blade who enters the plot when, two years after rescuing his mentor Whistler from vampire captivity in Prague, he…
Similarity: Vampire action sequel; supernatural killers but completely different mechanics and tone.
Cocoon is a film about a trio of retirement-home residents named Ben Luckett, Art Selwyn, and Joe Finley who enter the plot when they sneak into the swimming pool of a neighboring…
Similarity: Aliens rejuvenate seniors; gentle sci-fi with afterlife-evocation but no ghosts or fraud.
Hancock is a film about a homeless, alcoholic, deeply unloved Los Angeles superhero named John Hancock who enters the plot when, after botching a freeway chase and being widely loathed for the…
Similarity: Reluctant alcoholic superhero comedy; unrelated to ghosts.
Unbreakable is a film about a melancholy Philadelphia stadium security guard named David Dunn who enters the plot when he is the sole survivor — and emerges without a scratch — from…
Similarity: Grounded superhero discovery; unrelated mechanics.
Batman Begins is a film about a guilt-ridden Gotham billionaire heir named Bruce Wayne who enters the plot when, after his parents Thomas and Martha Wayne are murdered outside a theater by…
Similarity: Superhero origin with fear-toxin hallucinations; tonally dark but unrelated plot-wise.
Blue Velvet is a film about a clean-cut college student named Jeffrey Beaumont who enters the plot when, returning to his hometown of Lumberton after his father's stroke, he finds a severed…
Similarity: Surreal small-town crime nightmare; tonal weirdness but no supernatural plot.
E.T.
Similarity: Suburban child-and-alien friendship; threshold-of-death scene but otherwise unrelated.
Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a film about an aging Louisiana plantation spinster named Charlotte Hollis who enters the plot when, decades after her married lover John Mayhew was decapitated at a 1927…
Similarity: Southern Gothic psychological thriller; haunting feel only as metaphor.
Split is a film about a Philadelphia man named Kevin Wendell Crumb who suffers from dissociative identity disorder with twenty-three personalities under the care of psychologist Dr.
Similarity: Dissociative-identity thriller; unrelated mechanics.
The Shape of Water is a film about a mute janitor named Elisa Esposito working the graveyard shift at a 1962 Baltimore government research facility who enters the plot when a chained…
Similarity: Cold-War creature romance; unrelated mechanics.
Atonement is a film about a precocious 13-year-old aspiring writer named Briony Tallis at an English country estate in 1935, who enters the plot when she watches from a window as her…
Similarity: WWII literary romance with a guilt frame; no supernatural elements.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a film about an Indiana power-company lineman and family man named Roy Neary who enters the plot when, called out on a midnight blackout, he…
Similarity: Alien contact drama; unrelated supernatural register.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a film about a San Francisco public-health inspector named Matthew Bennell who enters the plot when his colleague and unrequited love-interest Elizabeth Driscoll confides that her…
Similarity: Pod-people paranoia sci-fi; unrelated mechanics.
Misery is a film about a bestselling romance novelist named Paul Sheldon who enters the plot when, after finishing the manuscript of his first 'serious' novel at a Colorado mountain lodge, he…
Similarity: Captive-writer thriller; unrelated.
Sunset Boulevard is a film about a struggling Hollywood screenwriter named Joe Gillis who enters the plot when, fleeing repo men down Sunset Boulevard, he ducks into the decaying mansion of forgotten…
Similarity: Noir with a dead narrator; faint afterlife-narrator kinship only.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a film about a man named Benjamin Button who enters the plot when he is born in 1918 New Orleans with the body of a…
Similarity: Reverse-aging romance; unrelated mechanics.
Awakenings is a film about a shy, research-oriented neurologist named Dr.
Similarity: Medical drama about catatonic patients; no supernatural content.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is a film about an aggressively optimistic suburban dad named Clark Griswold who enters the plot when, determined to host a 'good old-fashioned family Christmas' in the Chicago…
Similarity: Slapstick holiday comedy; unrelated.
Prisoners is a film about a Pennsylvania carpenter and survivalist father named Keller Dover who enters the plot when, on Thanksgiving Day, his young daughter Anna and her friend Joy Birch vanish…
Similarity: Grim missing-child investigation; unrelated.
Spider-Man is a film about a bullied Queens high-school senior science nerd named Peter Parker who enters the plot when, on a class field trip to a Columbia University genetics lab, he…
Similarity: Superhero origin; unrelated.
The Tree of Life is a film about a middle-aged Texas architect named Jack O'Brien haunted by the death of his younger brother R.L., who enters the plot when news of the…
Similarity: Cosmic family meditation; unrelated.
A Star Is Born is a film about a struggling band singer named Esther Blodgett who enters the plot when she helps a drunken matinee idol, Norman Maine, avoid embarrassment at a…
Similarity: Showbiz musical melodrama with no supernatural content whatsoever.
All About Eve is a film about an aging Broadway star named Margo Channing who enters the plot when her devoted friend, playwright's wife Karen Richards, brings a meek, worshipful young fan…
Similarity: Backstage theater drama; no supernatural elements at all.
Double Indemnity is a film about a slick Los Angeles insurance salesman named Walter Neff who enters the plot when he calls on a renewal at the Dietrichson house and is met…
Similarity: Insurance noir; entirely non-supernatural.
Independence Day is a film about a U.S.
Similarity: Alien invasion blockbuster; unrelated.
Only Angels Have Wings is a film about a hard-bitten chief pilot named Geoff Carter who runs a shoestring airmail service flying rickety planes over Andean storms out of the South American…
Similarity: Howard Hawks aviator drama; unrelated.
The Bucket List is a film about a curmudgeonly billionaire hospital owner named Edward Cole who enters the plot when, diagnosed with terminal cancer, he is forced by his own cost-cutting two-patients-per-room…
Similarity: Terminal-illness buddy comedy; unrelated.
The Last Temptation of Christ is a film about a tormented, doubt-ridden Galilean carpenter named Jesus who enters the plot when, plagued by visions and headaches and making crosses for Roman crucifixions…
Similarity: Religious epic; unrelated.
The Passion of the Christ is a film about Jesus of Nazareth who enters the plot when, after a brief Gethsemane prayer where he is tempted by an androgynous Satan, he is…
Similarity: Religious dramatization; unrelated.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Similarity: Hag-horror melodrama; unrelated.
Boyhood is a film about a Texas boy named Mason Evans Jr.
Similarity: Naturalistic coming-of-age across years; nothing supernatural.
Enchanted April is a film about a drab, devout London housewife named Lottie Wilkins, married to the stingy solicitor Mellersh, who enters the plot when, during a rainy spring of 1922, she…
Similarity: Italian-villa ensemble romance; entirely non-supernatural.
Forrest Gump is a film about a slow-witted but kind-hearted Alabama man named Forrest Gump who enters the plot when, sitting on a Savannah bus-stop bench in the 1980s, he begins recounting…
Similarity: Historical picaresque with no supernatural element.
Mommie Dearest is a film about the adopted daughter of Joan Crawford, Christina Crawford, who enters the plot when, as a toddler, she is brought into the glamorous, obsessive household of the…
Similarity: Hollywood biopic melodrama; unrelated.
Now, Voyager is a film about a dowdy, repressed Boston Brahmin spinster named Charlotte Vale who enters the plot when, crushed under the tyranny of her aristocratic mother Mrs.
Similarity: Classical Bette Davis melodrama; unrelated.
Singin' in the Rain is a film about a 1927 silent-film matinee idol named Don Lockwood, his wisecracking sidekick Cosmo Brown, and his shrill-voiced screen partner Lina Lamont, who enter the plot…
Similarity: Musical comedy classic; unrelated.
Summertime is a film about a middle-aged American spinster secretary from Akron, Ohio named Jane Hudson who enters the plot when she arrives alone in Venice on the long-saved vacation of a…
Similarity: Venice romantic drama; unrelated.
The Bad and the Beautiful is a film about a ruthless, charismatic Hollywood producer named Jonathan Shields who enters the plot when, broke and disgraced in Paris, he phones his old studio…
Similarity: Hollywood-insider drama; unrelated.
Top Gun is a film about a hotshot Navy F-14 pilot named Lieutenant Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell who enters the plot when, after his squadron commander cracks up, he and his RIO Nick…
Similarity: Fighter-pilot drama; unrelated.