If you love Netflix smash hit Squid Game, you will love this compilation of movies like Squid Game. A group of contestants in Squid Game play several games for a sizable cash prize.
But there’s a catch. You pass away if you lose one of the games. It’s vicious, gory, and a ton of twisted fun.
It is mainly focused on a competition with a big prize that many people are willing to give their lives to win. Four hundred fifty-six participants go up to the plate to compete in various kid-friendly games with a lethal edge.
The winnings total a staggering ₩45.6 billion. In conclusion, the program provides a relatable and humbling look at human nature.
The death game genre, however, is not brand-new. If you enjoyed Squid Game, there are many other shows to watch that can satisfy your craving.
There are numerous other films from different countries in addition to the more well-known ones, like the Saw and Hunger Games franchises.
Read on for our analysis of more films and television programs like Squid Game.
1. Exam (2009)
- Cast: John Lloyd, Gemma Chan, Adar Beck, Pollyanna McIntosh, Luke Mably, Jimi Mistry, Nathalie Cox, Chukwudi Iwuji, Colin Salmon, Chris Carey
- Director: Stuart Hazeldine
Eight candidates in the 2009 movie Exam must take an employment assessment exam in a different version of Britain. Or so they believed.
When these applicants are imprisoned in a room for an 80-minute test with no questions on the test sheet, the narrative thickens considerably.
There are three guidelines: The applicants cannot leave the room, talk to the invigilator or the armed guard at the door, or damage their paper. They will lose their chance to win if they do. There was a question, so proceed with caution.
2. Escape Room (2019)
- Cast: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Nik Dodani, Jay Ellis, and Yorick van Wageningen
- Director: Adam Robitel
The success of The Hunger Games shows that PG-13-rated death game movies are possible. Escape Room, however, takes a step further and creates a film about a deadly game that merits its PG-13 rating while firmly remaining in the horror category.
Maybe I’m biased because I love kid-friendly horror, but Escape Room does an excellent job of pulling it off. It is one of the movies like Squid Game.
Unknown boxes arrive in the mail for six strangers. They are puzzle boxes. When the puzzles are finished, the winners discover an invitation to participate in an escape room challenge for a chance to win $10,000.
Like the players in Squid Game, they are unaware that failure could result in their demise. Escape Room is a good option if you’re still looking for a good movie with good performers and an entertaining theme.
3. Battle Royale (2000)
- Cast: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Tarō Yamamoto, and Takeshi Kitano
- Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Next on our list of movies like Squid Game is Battle Royale. This gruesome Japanese film, which was one of the first of its kind and predated The Hunger Games by twelve years and surpassed it in its portrayal of purely violent action, was based on the 1999 novel by Koushun Takami.
The film, set in Japan’s not-too-distant future, centers on a group of high school students coerced into participating in the country’s annual Battle Royale, where they must battle to the death.
The “BR ACT,” passed by the government to reduce adolescent delinquency in the wake of a national recession, led to the Battle Royale.
This is unquestionably a must-watch; it is an incredibly horrifying, over-the-top rollercoaster of action and violence.
4. Cube (1997)
- Cast: Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller, Julian Richings, Wayne Robson, and Maurice Dean Wint
- Director: Vincenzo Natali
No list of the greatest death games would be complete without Cube, a Canadian cult classic. Vincenzo Natali’s career was begun by Cube, which also gave rise to a prequel, sequel, and TV series.
Vincenzo Natali later worked on Hannibal, Orphan Black, The Strain, Wayward Pines, Westworld, American Gods, The Stand, and other shows.
In the movie, a bunch of strangers come to a bizarre cube-shaped room and start to wake up. The group can stray into neighboring cubes, but each has trapped.
Together, they try to leave this Kafkaesque setting and determine their purpose for being there. Cube is undoubtedly a predecessor to that series, while not being quite as graphic as Saw or its sequels.
5. As The Gods Will (2014)
- Cast: Sota Fukushi, Hirona Yamazaki, Shota Sometani
- Director: Takashi Miike
As the Gods Will is also one of the movies like Squid Game. Takashi Miike is the director of this Japanese horror film, an adaptation of the same-named manga series.
The film centers on a young, video game-obsessed teenager who, one day at school, is forced to participate in a game of “Statues,” also known as “Red Light, Green Light,” for which the penalty is death.
There are still more remarkable parallels to Squid Game in this supernatural horror, including memorable death games and characters whose age and circumstances will make the audience feel even more compassion for them.
This film is ideal for fans trying to fill the itch left by Squid Game since it combines some of the genuinely terrifying supernatural terror with the hold-your-breath moments from Squid Games.
6. Death Parade (2015)
- Director: Yuzuru Tachikawa
Death Parade adopts a little different tack than other anime death game shows like Squid Game. When the games start, the participants are already dead. Thus, there is no competition for survival.
The gatekeepers for lost souls in the afterlife are a group of bartenders. When someone passes away, they are taken to one of several bars where they play games to see if they will be reincarnated or consigned to an eternal state of nothingness.
7. The Purge (2013)
- Cast: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Adelaide Kane, and Max Burkholder
- Director: James DeMonaco
Next on our list of movies like Squid Game is The Purge. The Purge takes players on a claustrophobic, panic-inducing journey into the world of those who choose to play such gruesome games rather than being forced to.
Also, the people they choose to be the victims of such heinous games, in contrast to the numerous sequels it has spawned since its release in 2013.
The Purge, a film set in the not-too-distant future, centers on a family trying to survive the yearly Purge, a night when murder and other serious crimes are permitted. The believable people in The Purge, Ethan Hawke, and Lena Headey’s outstanding performances make for a horrifying experience.
8. 13 Tzameti (2005)
- Director: Géla Babluani
13 Tzameti, a grim and realistic twist on death games, was a festival favorite when it debuted in 2005. A young, unemployed Georgian immigrant living in France named Sébastien struggles to make ends meet for his family.
When a client of his passes away, Sébastien poses as him to accept a job he overheard the client’s widow discussing.
Surprisingly, the task is merely to take part in an illegal game of Russian roulette, where the stakes increase with each round. But there is a substantial financial award that might assist Sébastien escape poverty.
The 2010 English-language American remake of 13 Tzameti by director Géla Babluani misses most of the gritty, enigmatic appeal of the original.
9. Alice in Borderland (2020)
- Director: Shinsuke Sato
Alice in Borderland is also one of the movies like Squid Game. Netflix appears to have noticed a trend and is increasingly funding death game shows like Squid Game.
Before Squid Game, the streamer saw considerable success with the Japanese sci-fi thriller Alice, in Borderland, another similar Asian series.
A group of characters in Alice in Borderland finds themselves in what seems to be an abandoned version of Tokyo.
They engage in several games there. Every player has a visa, and if they win a match, they can extend their visas.
They pass away as soon as their permits expire. Alice in Borderland, adapted from the same-named manga by Haro Aso, proved popular enough for Netflix to purchase a second season.
10. Nerve (2016)
- Cast: Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, and Juliette Lewis
- Director: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
In the technological thriller Nerve from 2016, Dave Franco and Emma Roberts play two “players” in a brand-new online game akin to truth or dare, and other people can join as fellow players or pay to be “watchers.”
What begins as specific challenges, like kissing a total stranger, quickly becomes a nightmare interpretation of the terrifying potential of social networking and doesn’t let up as it takes viewers on an exhilarating journey to the thrilling conclusion.
This film is the Squid Game of the social media generation, even though it differs from Squid Game in its almost cyber-punk atmosphere.
11. Intacto (2001)
- Cast: Leonardo Sbaraglia, Eusebio Poncela, Mónica López, Antonio Dechent, and Max von Sydow
- Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Next on our list of movies like Squid Game is Intacto. While the 2001 Spanish film Intacto isn’t quite a death game movie, it comes close, featuring high-stakes gamblers competing in progressively risky events.
But it all happens in a magical realist universe. The film views good fortune as a resource that can be transferred from one person to another.
A shady casino owner takes luck from other people by spotting those with an excess and dispatching his goon to steal it for him.
The casino owner takes his henchman’s good fortune when the two men disagree. The latter develops a compulsive desire to defeat his old guru and searches for more good luck to defeat him in a game he’s never lost: Russian roulette.
A brilliant and entertaining interpretation of competition and chance games is found in Intacto. It, well, ups the stakes and is entertaining to watch.
12. Circle (2015)
- Cast: Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, as well as John Boyega, Karen Gillan, Ellar Coltrane, Patton Oswalt, Glenne Headly, and Bill Paxton.
- Director: James Ponsoldt
The American film Circle is a science fiction, psychological suspense, and horror that begins intensely.
When fifty strangers awaken, they discover themselves arranged in a circle in a pitch-black chamber, with just the tiny red bulbs that each of them is standing on providing any illumination.
Every two minutes, someone is killed regardless of whether or not they move. This film, which 1957’s 12 Angry Men influenced, plays on our innate will to survive while demonstrating that adopting the “eat-or-be-eaten” mentality isn’t always the most significant response to a horrifying ordeal.
13. The Tournament (2009)
- Cast: Robert Carlyle, Kelly Hu, and Ving Rhames
- Director: Scott Mann
Last on our list of movies like Squid Game is The Tournament. The cast of this British film includes Robert Carlyle, Kelly Hu, and Ving Rhames.
The basic idea is that “The Tournament”—a last-man-standing contest to the death—takes place every seven to ten years. The affluent invented “The Tournament” as entertainment they could watch and wager on.
Given that “The Tournament” is so violent and hazardous, the $10 million reward and the fact that volunteers must be the world’s most complex, craziest, and most nasty individuals.
With excellent performances from Kelly Hu and Ving Rhames, this action-packed, non-stop action thriller is a blast to watch and touches on society and its billionaires’ definition of “fun.” Tough competitors also make for pleasant viewing.
These are our recommendations for the top films and television shows similar to Squid Game that will keep you occupied till the second season of the wildly popular Netflix blockbuster.
