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Movies like Being John Malkovich

Key Features:
Existentialism, Identity, Surrealism, Celebrity, Portal, Body possession, Metafiction, Dark comedy, Romance, Obsession, Absurdity, Cerebral
Tone:
whimsical, satirical, deadpan, stylized
Target Audience:
Indie film lovers, Cerebral film enthusiasts, Surreal comedy fans, Art house cinema
Emotional Arc:
Curiosity → Obsession

Being John Malkovich

1999-10-29
Being John Malkovich Poster - Find Similar Movies

One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.

Genres
Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Cast
John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich, Catherine Keener, Orson Bean, Mary Kay Place, W. Earl Brown, Carlos Jacott, Willie Garson, Byrne Piven
Crew
Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman
Rating
7.411(4611 votes)
Being John MalkovichBeing John Malkovich
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Synecdoche, New York
7.545

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.



The Double
6.5

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.



Spiderhead
5.8

A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he's testing for a pharmaceutical genius.



Infinity Chamber
6.3

A man trapped in an automated prison must outsmart a computer in order to escape and try and find his way back to the outside world that may already be wiped out.



Colour Me Kubrick
5.7

The true story of a man who posed as director Stanley Kubrick during the production of Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut, despite knowing very little about his work and looking nothing like him.



The Machinist
7.5

Trevor, an insomniac lathe operator, experiences unusual occurrences at work and home. A strange man follows him everywhere, but no one else seems to notice him.



eXistenZ
eXistenZ(1999)
6.793

A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.



Identity
Identity(2003)
7.174

Complete strangers stranded at a remote desert motel during a raging storm soon find themselves the target of a deranged murderer. As their numbers thin out, the travelers begin to turn on each other, as each tries to figure out who the killer is.



10 Cloverfield Lane

After a catastrophic car crash, a young woman wakes up in a survivalist's underground bunker, where he claims to have saved her from an apocalyptic attack that has left the outside world uninhabitable.



The Couch Trip
5.447

The escaped mental patient and delinquent John W. Burns Jr. replaces Dr. Maitlin on a radio show, saying he's the psychiatrist Lawrence Baird.



Dreamscape
6.1

In order to diagnose the psychic traumas suffered by his patients, Dr. Paul Novotny gets young Alex Gardner to enter their dreams.



Cold Souls
5.974

Paul is agonising over his interpretation of 'Uncle Vanya' and, paralysed by anxiety, stumbles upon a solution via a New Yorker article about a high-tech company promising to alleviate suffering by extracting souls. He enlists their services—only to discover that his soul is the shape and size of a chickpea.



The Beaver
6.4

Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.



Glass
Glass(2019)
6.7

In a series of escalating encounters, former security guard David Dunn uses his supernatural abilities to track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man who has twenty-four personalities. Meanwhile, the shadowy presence of Elijah Price emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.



Special
Special(2006)
6.318

A lonely metermaid has a psychotic reaction to his medication and becomes convinced he's a superhero. A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.



Colossal
Colossal(2017)
6.281

A woman discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which she's suffering.



Tusk
Tusk(2014)
5.514

When his best friend and podcast co-host goes missing in the backwoods of Canada, a young guy joins forces with his friend's girlfriend to search for him.



Megamind
Megamind(2010)
7.013

After Megamind, a highly intelligent alien supervillain, defeats his long-time nemesis Metro Man, Megamind creates a new hero to fight, but must act to save the city when his "creation" becomes an even worse villain than he was.



Delirious
Delirious(1991)
5.621

A soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character in his own show.



Enemy
Enemy(2014)
6.854

A mild-mannered college professor discovers a look-alike actor and delves into the other man's private affairs.



Jonathan
Jonathan(2018)
5.871

Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.



The Big Empty
6.1

Struggling actor John Person agrees to drive a blue suitcase from Los Angeles to the small town of Baker, Calif., and hand it over to a mysterious cowboy in return for having his credit card debt of $27,000 paid off. Upon his arrival, John can't find the cowboy but receives an ominously head-shaped package he's supposed to hang onto. While waiting, John gets close to Ruthie, whose psychotic boyfriend, Randy, keeps threatening to kill him.



A Different Man
6.9

Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.



Mulholland Drive
7.804

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.



The Truman Show
8.1

An insurance salesman begins to suspect that his whole life is actually some sort of reality TV show.



The Shape of Things
6.129

Quiet, unassuming Adam is changing in a major way, thanks to his new girlfriend, art student Evelyn. Adam's friends are a little freaked by the transformation.



Multiplicity
5.8

Construction worker Doug Kinney finds that the pressures of his working life, combined with his duties to his wife Laura and daughter Jennifer leaves him with little time for himself. However, he is approached by geneticist Dr. Owen Leeds, who offers Doug a rather unusual solution to his problems: cloning.



Bliss
Bliss(2021)
5.498

A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel’s wild conspiracy.



Derek DelGaudio's In & of Itself

Storyteller and Conceptual Magician Derek DelGaudio attempts to understand the illusory nature of identity and answer the deceptively simple question 'Who am I?'



Dummy
Dummy(2002)
5.9

An ex-office worker becomes a ventriloquist, leading to a date with his unemployment counselor; but his quirky family and a gauche female friend may thwart his new career and love life.



The Lobster
7.036

In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into animals and sent off into The Woods.



Persona
Persona(1966)
8.1

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.



Possessor
Possessor(2020)
6.395

Tasya Vos, an elite corporate assassin, uses brain-implant technology to take control of other people’s bodies to terminate high profile targets. As she sinks deeper into her latest assignment, Vos becomes trapped inside a mind that threatens to obliterate her.



Shrink
Shrink(2009)
6.186

Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.



In the Mouth of Madness

An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.



The Scribbler
5.1

Suki is a young woman confronting her destructive mental illness using "The Siamese Burn," an experimental machine designed to eliminate multiple personalities. The closer Suki comes to being "cured," she's haunted by a thought... what if the last unwanted identity turns out to be her?



Schizopolis
6.1

A man works for the unpleasant guru of a Scientology-like movement.



Fool's Paradise
4.634

A down-on-his-luck publicist discovers a recently released mental health patient who looks just like a misbehaving movie star. The publicist subs him into a film, creating a new star. But fame and fortune are not all they are cracked up to be.



The Substance
7.1

A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.



The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, Nick Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan. Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones.



Hollow Man
6

Cocky researcher Sebastian Caine is working on a project to make living creatures invisible. Determined to achieve the ultimate breakthrough, Caine pushes his team to move to the next phase — using himself as the subject. The test is a success, but when the process can't be reversed and Caine seems doomed to future without flesh, he starts to turn increasingly dangerous.



Real
Real(2013)
6.2

Neurosurgeon Koichi uses an experimental technique to enter the brain of his beloved Atsumi, who is in a coma after attempting suicide. In his quest, Koichi drifts steadily further into the sweltering marshes of the spirit. It is soon no longer clear what is real and what is not.



The Mandela Effect
6.4

A man becomes obsessed with facts and events that have been collectively misremembered by thousands of people. Believing the phenomena to be the symptom of something larger, his obsession eventually leads him to question reality itself.



Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

A scientist creating perfumes inherits his great grandfather Dr. Jekyll's formula and decides to use modern technology to improve it. He ends up as an ambitious, ruthless woman. She tries to prevent returning into the spineless man.



Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

World-famous detective Benoit Blanc heads to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery surrounding a tech billionaire and his eclectic crew of friends.



Alice in Wonderland

On a golden afternoon, wildly curious young Alice tumbles into the burrow and enters the merry, madcap world of Wonderland full of whimsical escapades.



Stonehearst Asylum
6.9

An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.



It's Pat
It's Pat(1994)
3.1

Pat Riley, an obnoxious busybody of indeterminable sex, meets and falls in love with Chris, a sensitive, caring person also of indeterminable sex. Their relationship suffers because Pat's a lout, and cannot decide on a direction for their life. Meanwhile, Pat's neighbor Kyle falls further and further into obsession with Pat, fascinated by their indeterminate sexuality.



Hurlyburly
5.476

A group of actors and their casting agents try to find a direction in their lives whilst coming to terms with their personal problems and relationship conflicts.



The Kovak Box
5.8

David Norton is used to being in control. As a best-selling author, he decides the fate of his characters, their lives and their deaths. But what happens when his fictional world becomes all too real?



Being There
7.6

A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.



Barton Fink
7.456

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.



Fight Club
8.438

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.



Takeshis'
Takeshis'(2005)
6.089

Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.



A Scanner Darkly
6.8

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.



Zoom
Zoom(2016)
5.8

A multi-dimensional interface between a comic book artist, a novelist, and a film director. Each lives in a separate reality but authors a story about one of the others.



The Shape of Water
7.2

An other-worldly story, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962, where a mute janitor working at a lab falls in love with an amphibious man being held captive there and devises a plan to help him escape.



Extract
Extract(2009)
5.825

The owner of a factory that produces flavor extracts, Joel Reynold seems to have it all, but really doesn't. What's missing is sexual attention from his wife, Suzie. Joel hatches a convoluted plan to get Suzie to cheat on him, thereby clearing the way for Joel to have an affair with Cindy, an employee. But what Joel doesn't know is that Cindy is a sociopathic con artist, and a freak workplace accident clears the way for her to ruin Joel forever.



Nimic
Nimic(2020)
6.6

A professional cellist has an encounter with a stranger on the subway which has unexpected and far-reaching ramifications on his life.



Spider-Man
7.316

After being bitten by a genetically altered spider at Oscorp, nerdy but endearing high school student Peter Parker is endowed with amazing powers to become the superhero known as Spider-Man.



Living in Oblivion
7.2

Low-budget independent filmmaker Nick Reve tries to keep everything together as his production is plagued with an insecure actress, a megalomaniac star, a pretentious beret-wearing director of photography, and lousy catering.



The Sex Trip
5.1

After a shallow womanizer refuses a mysterious homeless woman's request for a kiss, he wakes up the next morning to discover he's been changed into a woman.



The Cell
The Cell(2000)
6.3

A psychotherapist journeys inside a comatose serial killer in the hopes of saving his latest victim.



Spider
Spider(2002)
6.646

A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.



Morbius
Morbius(2022)
5.934

Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder, and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Michael Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. What at first appears to be a radical success soon reveals itself to be a remedy potentially worse than the disease.



Cube 2: Hypercube
5.488

Eight strangers awaken with no memory, in a puzzling cube-shaped room where the laws of physics do not always apply.



Infinity Pool
6.1

While staying at an isolated island resort, James and Em are enjoying a perfect vacation of pristine beaches, exceptional staff, and soaking up the sun. But guided by the seductive and mysterious Gabi, they venture outside the resort grounds and find themselves in a culture filled with violence, hedonism, and untold horror. A tragic accident leaves them facing a zero tolerance policy for crime: either you'll be executed, or, if you’re rich enough to afford it, you can watch yourself die instead.



The Cable Guy
6

When recently single Steven moves into his new apartment, cable guy Chip comes to hook him up—and doesn't let go. Initially, Chip is just overzealous in his desire to be Steven's pal, but when Steven tries to end the 'friendship', Chip shows his dark side. He begins stalking Steven, who's left to fend for himself because no one else can believe Chip's capable of such behaviour.



Stranger Than Fiction
7.279

Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.



S1m0ne
S1m0ne(2002)
6

The career of a disillusioned producer, who is desperate for a hit, is endangered when his star walks off the film set. Forced to think fast, the producer decides to digitally create an actress "Simone" to sub for the star — the first totally believable synthetic actress.



The Big Lebowski
7.841

Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker who only wants to bowl and drink White Russians, is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wheelchair-bound millionaire, and finds himself dragged into a strange series of events involving nihilists, adult film producers, ferrets, errant toes, and large sums of money.



Nowhere
Nowhere(1997)
6.8

In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they'll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien abductions that occur as one surreal day unfolds.



Labyrinth
Labyrinth(1986)
7.3

When Sarah is forced to babysit her half-brother Toby, she inadvertently summons the Goblin King who whisks Toby away to his castle at the center of a labyrinth. Sarah enters into a bargain with the Goblin King where she is given just thirteen hours to solve the labyrinth and rescue Toby, or else lose him forever.



Homunculus
6.039

A homeless man meets a medical school student who pays him to volunteer for a surgical procedure known as trepanation, drilling a hole in his skull, which ends up giving him the ability to communicate with the dark side of people’s subconscious minds.



Igor
Igor(2008)
5.949

A cliché hunchbacked evil scientist's assistant aspires to become a scientist himself, much to the displeasure of the rest of the evil science community.



Darkman
Darkman(1990)
6.4

Dr. Peyton Westlake is on the verge of realizing a major breakthrough in synthetic skin when his laboratory is destroyed by gangsters. Having been burned beyond recognition and forever altered by an experimental medical procedure, Westlake becomes known as Darkman, assuming alternate identities in his quest for revenge and a new life with a former love.



Nancy
Nancy(2018)
5.845

Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief.



Head
Head(1968)
6.2

In this surrealistic and free-form follow-up to the Monkees' television show, the band frolic their way through a series of musical set pieces and vignettes containing humor and anti-establishment social commentary.



Surrogates
6.1

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.



Being Charlie
6.1

Charlie is a troublesome 18-year-old who breaks out of a youth drug treatment clinic, but when he returns home to Los Angeles, he's given an intervention by his parents and forced to go to an adult rehab. There, he meets a beautiful but troubled girl, Eva, and is forced to battle with drugs, elusive love and divided parents.



Bad Words
Bad Words(2013)
6.393

Forty-year-old misanthrope, Guy Trilby, enters the National Golden Quill Spelling Bee through a loophole in the rules.



Joker: Folie à Deux

While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.



Adaptation.
7.346

Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean's book, become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others'.



The Man with Two Brains

A brain surgeon marries a femme fatale, causing his life to turn upside down. Things go more awry when he falls in love with a talking brain.



High Fidelity
7.119

After his long-time girlfriend dumps him, a thirty-year-old record store owner seeks to understand why he is unlucky in love while recounting his "top five breakups of all time".



Monster Portal
5.6

A young woman inherits her estranged father's estate after his mysterious death. Once she and her friends arrive at the mansion, they discover that the home is on an old cemetery, which has the power of opening a portal to another realm, which contains the creatures foretold to the world by writer H.P. Lovecraft.



Alice in Wonderland
6.636

Alice, now 19 years old, returns to the whimsical world she first entered as a child and embarks on a journey to discover her true destiny.



Bo Burnham: Inside

Stuck in COVID-19 lockdown, US comedian and musician Bo Burnham attempts to stay sane and happy by writing, shooting and performing a one-man comedy special.



Lucy
Lucy(2014)
6.5

A woman, accidentally caught in a dark deal, turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic.



Dillinger Is Dead
7.1

A man decides to cook for himself and finds a revolver (which may have belonged to John Dillinger) hidden in his kitchen.



Mainstream
6.341

A young woman thinks she’s found a path to internet stardom when she starts making YouTube videos with a charismatic stranger – until the dark side of viral celebrity threatens to ruin them both.



Martin
Martin(1978)
6.8

A young man, convinced he's a vampire, goes to live with his elderly and hostile cousin in a small Pennsylvanian town, where he tries to suppress his bloodlust.



Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.



Bruiser
Bruiser(2000)
5.453

After years of being browbeaten and walked on, a man wakes one day wearing an expressionless mask, fitted with a personality that enables him to take revenge.



Opus
Opus(2025)
5.698

A young writer is invited to the remote compound of a legendary pop star who mysteriously disappeared thirty years ago. Surrounded by the star's cult of sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she finds herself in the middle of his twisted plan.



The Big Picture
5.8

Hollywood beckons for recent film school grad Nick Chapman, who is out to capitalize on the momentum from his national award-winning student film. Studio executive Allen Habel seduces Nick with a dream deal to make his first feature, but once production gets rolling, corporate reality begins to intervene: Nick is unable to control a series of compromises to his high-minded vision, and it's all he can do to maintain his integrity in the midst of filmmaking chaos.



John and the Hole
5.3

While exploring the neighboring woods, 13-year-old John discovers an unfinished bunker — a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents and older sister and drags their unconscious bodies into the bunker, where he holds them captive. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally do what he wants.



Anti Matter
5.734

Oxford PhD student Ana finds herself unable to build new memories, following an experiment to generate and travel through a wormhole. The story follows her increasingly desperate efforts to understand what happened, and to find out who—or what—is behind the rising horror in her life.



The Passenger
7.2

David Locke is a world-weary American journalist who has been sent to cover a conflict in northern Africa, but he makes little progress with the story. When he discovers the body of a stranger who looks similar to him, Locke assumes the dead man's identity. However, he soon finds out that the man was an arms dealer, leading Locke into dangerous situations. Aided by a beautiful woman, Locke attempts to avoid both the police and criminals out to get him.

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