10 Movies And Shows To Watch After You Finish Squid Game
So, you've finished watching Netflix's "Squid Game" and now you need more. While season two might be on the way sometime soon, we've compiled a list of some of the best dystopian death game movies and tv shows for you to watch in the meantime.
Hwang Dong-hyuk's Korean survival series "Squid Game" is a runaway hit for Netflix, and it's not hard to see why. The real world is looking a little dystopian lately, but fiction that takes dystopian scenarios to horrifying, murderous conclusions always has a way of making us feel a little bit better about reality. After all, we don't have game shows where people kill one another for a cash prize ... yet.
There are quite a few TV shows and movies about game show-esque battles to the death, but we've gathered ten that are shocking, smart, and extremely entertaining.
Battle Royale
You really can't talk about movies with battles to the death without including the totally gonzo "Battle Royale." It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and it helped introduce a lot of people in the early aughts to extreme Japanese cinema. "Battle Royale" was based on the novel of the same name by Koushun Takami. (It was also adapted into a popular manga series in Japan.) The movie takes place in an unspecified near future, where the totalitarian regime in Japan has enacted the "BR Act." The act allows them to select one junior high class per year to send to a remote island. On that island, they give each student a random weapon and a collar that explodes at the press of a button.
The students must avoid "danger zones" that change regularly or their collars will explode. They are told to kill one another because only one surviving student will be allowed to leave the island. The kids' weapons range from binoculars to machetes and machine guns, so it's not exactly a fair contest.
"Battle Royale" is incredibly violent, often funny, and full of gasp-out-loud moments of blood-geyser gore. Japanese icon Takeshi Kitano stars as their former teacher who runs the year's game, and "Kill Bill" star Chiaki Kuriyama plays a track star trying to survive.
Where to Watch it: Streaming for free on Tubi with ads, available to rent on Amazon/Google Play for $1.99
Alice in Borderland
The Japanese series "Alice in Borderland" has everything you love about "Squid Game": incredible violence, class commentary, and a stylish dystopian future. Where "Squid Game" is a brightly colored, initially clean-looking future hell, the futuristic Tokyo of "Alice in Borderland" is much grungier. /Film's Hoai-Tran Bui described "Alice in Borderland" as "if 'Battle Royale' and 'Saw' had a sick, twisted baby that puts its characters through a series of manipulative, tortuous games — usually with a high body and splatter count."
The series was based on the manga of the same name by Haro Aso and follows three unfocused, drifting young people in Tokyo. After they pull a prank in the middle of Shibuya crossing and run from the cops, they find themselves transported to a completely empty Tokyo. It looks apocalyptic, but as night falls, lights come on in the various empty-looking buildings. Our heroes enter one and are forced to participate in a life-or-death game with other stranded Tokyo residents. They must not only figure out how to survive, but also what happened to all of Tokyo.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Netflix
The Belko Experiment
Before he was blowing our minds with "The Suicide Squad," James Gunn wrote a mean little script about an experiment conducted on an office building to see if they would all kill one another under orders. "Wolf Creek" director Greg Lean took Gunn's already brutal story and upped the ante, making every hit, shot, and splatter count. This might be Gunn's darkest flick, but it still bears his trademark humor, and "The Belko Experiment" is a deliciously dark horror with some pitch-black comedy to keep it from being oppressively unpleasant.
"The Belko Experiment" follows the workers in a huge office building somewhere in South America. Most of the employees were flown in and are working on visas, so few have ties to the outside world nearby. It makes them the perfect people for an extreme experiment when the windows and doors of the building seal up and they're instructed to start killing one another — or else. The cast includes John C. McGinley, Sean Gunn, David Dastmalchian, and Michael Rooker. Honestly, it's worth seeing just for Rooker and Dastmalchian's scenes alone.
Where to Watch it: Available to rent on AppleTV+ and Google Play for $3.99
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
"The Hunger Games" is sort of a young-adult American version of "Battle Royale." Based on the book series by Suzanne Collins, the franchise follows the story of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), who survives fighting in her world's ridiculous death games but goes on to start a revolution. In the first film, Katniss volunteers to fight in the games after her sister is selected in the yearly raffle. Only one person is allowed to win and survive, but Katniss ends up saving her friend/romantic interest Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) as well. In the second film, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," Katniss and Peeta must return to the gaming battlefield once more for a special edition that pits former winners against one another.
Everything in "Catching Fire" is a step up from the first film, and it stands on its own as a thrilling dystopian adventure. Hutcherson and Lawrence do good work, but Jena Malone steals every scene she's in as the ax-wielding Johanna Mason.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Hulu
Snowpiercer
Before directing the Oscar-winning social satire "Parasite," Bong Joon Ho directed "Snowpiercer," the dystopian social satire about a train holding the last survivors of humanity in a frozen future apocalypse. If "Snowpiercer" sounds familiar, that's because it was made into a TBS television series that's going into its fourth season.
The movie stars Chris Evans as Curtis Everett, one of the people living in the lower-class tail section of the train. The richer you are, the closer you live to the front of the train. Curtis and his fellow passengers decide to rebel, trying to make their way to the front of the train to get some justice from the folks in charge (played by Ed Harris and Tilda Swinton). "Snowpiercer" is a class commentary that's occasionally a little too on-the-nose, but it's a modern Korean classic for a reason.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Netflix
The Platform
Speaking of allegory that's a little heavy-handed, but still awesome, there's the 2019 Spanish science-fiction social horror movie "The Platform." Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia created a singular vision of a dystopian future with an unusual system of punishment known as the Pit. The Pit is a vertically-stacked prison, with a single platform that starts at the top and moves toward the bottom each day. The day's food is on that platform, and if you try to keep any food after the platform passes, you will be severely punished.
To keep things somewhat egalitarian, a person's floor level is chosen at random and changed once a month. If you're lucky, you end up near the top and can enjoy bountiful fresh food. If you're less lucky, you're probably going to end up eating your cellmate down at the bottom somewhere. "The Platform" is harrowing, with a whole lot to say about consumerism, capitalism, and human nature.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Netflix
Cube
Survival games as horror devices are a fairly common trope. There's the "Saw" franchise, "Channel Zero: No-End House," "Escape Room," and more. The movie that started it all, though, was 1997's "Cube." Directed and co-written by Vincenzo Natali, "Cube" follows five strangers as they make their way through various cube-shaped rooms. The rooms make up a kind of maze, and some of the rooms are filled with puzzles and traps. It's a stylish, violent, and terrifying thriller that inspired many of the survival horror game movies that came after. "Cube" is something to behold, and it's even more impressive when you consider its $350,000 budget.
The Canadian cult classic even got a Japanese remake, debuting in theaters in Japan on October 22, 2021.
Where to Watch it: Available to rent on AppleTV/Amazon/YouTube for $3.99
High-Rise
Much like "Snowpiercer," "High-Rise" is about a structure where class levels are structurally organized. In "Snowpiercer," the rich lived at the front of the train. In "High-Rise," they live on the upper levels of the titular high-rise apartment building. Tom Hiddleston stars in Ben Wheatley's adaptation of the J.G. Ballard novel, about an apartment building that descends into chaos during an internal class uprising. The families towards the bottom struggle to afford to live in the luxury complex, while those at the top grow fat and lazy.
"High-Rise" is a gorgeous dystopian drama, with brilliant performances from Hiddleston and Jeremy Irons, who plays the man who designed and runs the building. Wheatley plays around with a fun '70s style (probably inspired by the book's 1975 publication) while asking a lot of questions about society. While some of the titles on this list give more definitive opinions on societal issues, "High-Rise" is more interested in just breaking it down.
Where to Watch it: Available for rent on Google Play/AppleTV for $2.99
The Running Man
"The Running Man" is a 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie based on a novel by Stephen King.
Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards, a police helicopter pilot who is framed for massacring civilians during a food riot. Set in the near-future (at the time) of 2017, the U.S. has become a totalitarian police state that pacifies its citizens by broadcasting "The Running Man," a game show where prisoners fight for their lives. Instead of fighting one another a la "Battle Royale" or "The Hunger Games," our runners are fighting against armed mercenaries called "stalkers" who grow increasingly difficult in a manner similar to video game bosses.
"The Running Man" is very silly and very '80s, but it also features tight-fitting costumes, a killer game show, and some wild visuals. Besides, you'll want to check it out before Edgar Wright's remake gets released
Where to Watch it: Streaming on HBO Max
Tag
This is where I wanted to recommend the Takashi Miike film "As the Gods Will," but it's unavailable to rent or stream. Some Miike fans have even accused "Squid Game" of plagiarizing the 2014 horror movie about a game to the death, though it appears to be a case of creative confluence.
One Japanese filmmaker who ratchets things up in the same wild way as Miike is Sion Sono, whose 2015 film "Tag" is a deliciously weird horror story about how games and our lives can become deeply intertwined. The movie is ostensibly about a deadly game of tag, but there's much, much more to it than that. The less you know, the better. Just expect loads of blood, a plot that feels nonsensical until it isn't, and some absolutely killer rock music.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Tubi and NightFlight