SanctuaryMovies like Sanctuary
- Key Features:
- Power dynamics, Dominance and submission, Psychological thriller, Seduction, Control, Relationship drama, Claustrophobic, Wealth and privilege, Manipulation, Blackmail
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Fans of psychological thrillers, Those interested in power dynamics, Viewers seeking intense drama, Adults
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Tension → Confrontation
Sanctuary

Confined to a claustrophobic hotel room, the heir to a hotel empire and the dominatrix who has primed him for success become locked in a battle of wits and wills as he tries to end his relationship with her.
Sanctuary
Two fugitives land in hot water when they take a hostage who poses a threat to their well-being.

A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.

A man bumps into an old crush and becomes obsessed. After several failed attempts at winning her over, he kidnaps her and holds her captive underneath the animal shelter where he works.

The daughter of a wealthy real estate mogul falls in love with a younger man, and she is introduced to the world of BDSM. With her newly awakened sexual prowess, she is finally able to take control of her life.

After kissing his wife and baby goodbye for a seemingly normal business trip, Reed checks himself into a hotel room to accomplish something he’s always dreamed of: the perfect murder. As his sinister plans unfold, he soon realizes he might be in over his head with a mysteriously unhinged call girl named Jackie.

A couple's ailing marriage is put to the test when they are held hostage in an isolated vacation rental by an unseen Voice that commands their every move and threatens harm if they don’t obey.

A young single mother is held captive along with her two children by a violent ex and must plot their escape before it’s too late.

A woman's carefully constructed life is upended when an unwelcome shadow from her past returns, forcing her to confront the monster she's evaded for two decades.

After the death of his father, a 16-year-old boy struggles with anger and instability, distancing himself from his mother. His search for escape leads him to a lonely dominatrix living nearby, a woman accustomed to giving and controlling pain. Drawn to her world, he seeks both solace and love, while she finds herself pulled into a bond that neither expected but both need.

A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

Nicoline, a criminal psychologist, begins work at a prison where one of her new cases, Idris — an apparently reformed sex offender — is preparing for release after five years of confinement. Despite her professional misgivings, she becomes infatuated with her charismatic, manipulative patient.

A woman snaps and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog as her checked-out, philandering husband attempts to keep the family together.

The gruesome death of a prostitute brings suspicion on one of her clients, James Wayland, a brilliant, self-destructive and epileptic heir to a textile fortune. So detectives Braxton and Kennesaw take Wayland in for questioning, thinking they can break the man. But despite his troubles, Wayland is a master of manipulation, and during the interrogation, he begins to turn the tables on the investigators, forcing them to reveal their own sinister sides.

A married couple suspect that the 'smart apartments' in their high tech residence are being used by its owner for sinister reasons.

When Irene takes a position at a hotel deep in the woods of the Austrian Alps, she soon discovers the girl she replaced vanished without a trace.

When Sarah lucks into a sweet one-bedroom at Asilo Del Mar Apartments in Los Angeles, she thinks she's hit the jackpot. It's got plenty of space, friendly tenants, group BBQs and even a cute neighbour next door. All is not what it seems: loud noises start keeping her awake at night; her cat is missing; everyone seems to be a little too helpful and friendly, except for the weirdo, Lester. Soon, Sarah learns she didn't choose this apartment — it chose her.

A severely injured man and woman awake in an abandoned sanitarium only to discover that a sadistic caretaker holds the keys to their freedom and the horrific answers as to their true identity.

Jackson and Helen are in love and about to have their first child when they move in with Jackson's mother, Martha, in order to take care of the family estate. But all is not well in this household. Martha is jealous of her son's affection for Helen, and, despite her Southern smile, she's starting to act strangely. As Helen tries to create a happy home life, Martha attempts to divide the family so that Jackson will become hers alone.

While on a class observation trip at a local mental hospital, young psychology major Abby Jones, has a chilling encounter with high-risk patient, Harmon Porter. She returns home for an evening of normal study with her two roommates unaware of the darkness she’s awakened within him.

On a particularly busy day at a suburban Ohio fast food restaurant, manager Sandra receives a phone call from a police officer saying that an employee has stolen money from a customer.

The sought-after images of top model Jennifer adorn magazine covers and billboards worldwide. When alone at a club, she is abducted and incarcerated in a cell with another prisoner. When their captor subjects the two to torture, they commit to escaping the chamber of horrors before they're killed.

In a shadowy world stitched from nightmares, a young woman's harrowing journey in a seedy hotel unveils her traumatic past. Haunted by violence and stalked through desolate streets, her psyche unravels as she confronts an abusive husband and unsettling memories.

Two dysfunctional couples rent a modern luxury desert home for the weekend hoping to sort out their messed-up lives. Just as they are about to settle in for a fun night, a neighbor turns up at their front door saying she has car trouble. But soon they discover the person they let into their home may have nefarious intents.

A man who returns home to find his wife cheating on him on their anniversary. He holds her and her naked and humiliated lover captive at gunpoint while he decides whether or not he's going to kill them. The story, inspired by true events, takes place over one day and is set in New Orleans during a stifling heat wave.

When a mysterious brick wall encloses their apartment building overnight, Tim and Olivia must unite with their wary neighbors to get out alive.

Massimo Sisti is a reputable professional with a nice house, a happy marriage, and two loving daughters, whose life is turned upside down when one day he finds a little girl tied up in his basement.

American social psychologist Ben Monroe investigates a local cult connected to a disturbing event. While he immerses himself into his work, his rebellious teenage daughter, Mazzy, gets involved with a mysterious local boy, who introduces her to the city’s underground party scene. As these two worlds head towards an intersection, Mazzy finds herself in great danger and Ben will need to race against the clock to save her.

Neighbors in a block wake one morning to find they have been sealed inside their apartments. Can they work together to find out why? Or will they destroy each other in their fight to escape?

Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.

A detective becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program while investigating a string of reality-bending crimes.

After years of separation, Irena Gallier and her minister brother, Paul, reunite in New Orleans. When zoologists capture a wild panther, Irena is drawn to the cat – and zoo curator Oliver to her. Soon, Paul will have to reveal the family secret: that when sexually aroused, they revert into predatory jungle cats.

Mr. Devereaux is a powerful man. A man who handles billions of dollars every day. A man who controls the economic fate of nations. A man driven by a frenzied and unbridled sexual hunger. A man who dreamed of saving the world and who cannot save himself. A terrified man. A lost man.

Jessica and her fiancé Evan just moved from the city into their dream home on a quiet suburban street. Soon after, Jessica catches her seemingly friendly new neighbor, Simon, in a strange lie and can't let her suspicions rest. The danger escalates when Simon lures her inside his home and imprisons Jessica in his secret bunker, meticulously decorated in the idealized style of the 1950's.

A restaurant owner going over the edge when an armed robbery is attempted at his establishment. He holds everyone captive at gunpoint – criminals and customers alike – and situations corrode into a nightmare state, guided by manipulation and raw compulsion.

A weekend get-away for two lovers turns into a nightmare of psychological mind games when their infidelity is discovered.

A psychiatrist becomes romantically involved with the sister of one of his patients, but the influence of her controlling gangster husband threatens to destroy them both.

A young singer/songwriter, despite being married, becomes involved with her new guitarist, who she soon discovers has a dark past and may be a danger to her and those close to her.

Motel Destino, a sex hotel in Northern Brazil, is run by the hot-headed Elias and his restless wife, Dayana. When a young gang member on the run named Heraldo stays at the motel, Dayana becomes intrigued with him. As the two navigate a dance of power and desire, a dangerous plan for freedom emerges.

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.

In London, an airport baggage handler is forced by French and British intelligence agents to seduce the wife of a businessman with ties to Syrian terrorists.

Laura is a successful plastic surgeon who feels her life is somewhat empty. She meets a young nurse and falls in love and experiences sexuality to a extent not known to her. However, this spiral of desire and seduction is a dangerous game where no one is who they appear to be.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

With his wife out sick, a struggling father brings home a lifelike AI, only to have his self-aware new help want everything her new family has to offer... Like the affection of her owner and she'll kill to get it.

A young designer falls under a man's erotic spell and is drawn into a world of sexual abandon from which she may never return.

A grieving woman in a secluded forest encounters a killer who injects her with a paralytic drug. As her body shuts down, her fight for survival begins.

Three people from different walks of life find themselves trapped inside a stalled elevator. What at first seems like an inconvenience rapidly escalates into a nightmare.

Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.

Summer 1968. 14-year-old Wolfgang is deported from his family in the secluded Church Welfare Institution sanctuary. One thing is clear for Wolfgang: His yearning for freedom, he will not soon buried in the bog.

A domineering but charismatic rancher wages a war of intimidation on his brother's new wife and her teen son, until long-hidden secrets come to light.

César, an unhappy concierge, maintains a peculiar relationship with the very diverse inhabitants of the upper-class apartment building where he works in Barcelona.

A pawn shop proprietor buys used goods from desperate locals – as much to play perverse power games as for his own livelihood, but when the perfect rump and a backed-up toilet enter his life, he loses all control.

The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.

Jimmy is a committed child psychologist who uses his own playbook, but when he is brought in to work with Ellie, he is completely unprepared for his subject—a 9-year-old psychopathic genius with nothing to lose. As he begins to understand the extent of her capabilities and the fate that has been planned for her, he struggles to overcome her defenses before it is too late for them both.

A boy kidnapped by two mismatched hitmen puts them at each other's throats while being driven to their employers, possibly to be killed. Cohen, an older professional becomes increasingly irritated with his partner Tate, a brutish killer, when their prisoner uses unnatural guile and resourcefulness to play them off against each other.

Spies, cops and armed children cross paths on a day of danger, mystery and possible transformation. Five unusual characters are unknowingly connected to an extraordinary smuggling operation, as religious conspiracy collides with urban crime.

Brought together at their childhood home over their dying mother, an estranged family is thrust into a deadly fight for their own survival.

A Secret Service Agent is held captive in the trunk of a car and endures high-speed mental and physical torture as terrorists attempt to extract needed information for their sinister plot.

A seemingly innocent man is abducted by a notorious L.A. serial killer, who forces his victims to switch roles with him so that he can enact his own capture, torture and murder.

A woman and her childhood friend seek out revenge on those who victimized and abused them.

An art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn't go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.

During a weekend, two shady businessmen flee to the Cayman Islands to avoid federal prosecution. But their escape ignites a chain reaction that leads a British native to commit a crime that changes the nation.

A troubled woman on the edge of divorce returns home to her younger sister after years apart. But when her sister and brother-in-law betray her trust, she embarks on a vicious crusade of revenge.

A counter-terrorism expert takes a job protecting a young heiress. After an attempted kidnapping puts both of their lives in danger, they must flee.

A widowed child psychologist lives in an isolated existence in rural New England. When caught in a deadly winter storm, she must find a way to rescue a young boy before he disappears forever.

When Vicki Maloney is randomly abducted from a suburban street by a disturbed couple, she soon observes the dynamic between her captors and quickly realises she must drive a wedge between them if she is to survive.

A student and her photographer boyfriend visit an island off of Massachusetts to research a hotel supposedly haunted by a witch.

After an accident, acclaimed novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by a nurse who claims to be his biggest fan. Her obsession takes a dark turn when she holds him captive in her remote Colorado home and forces him to write back to life the popular literary character he killed off.

A troubled young woman takes up residence in a gothic apartment building where she must confront a terrifying evil.

The beautiful O is taken by her boyfriend, Rene, to a bizarre retreat, where she is trained in bondage and sexual perversion...

The harrowing story of a disturbed young man's attempts to win the affections of an unsuspecting young woman. When Doug first sees Amy, he instantly falls for her and begins to watch her every move, going so far as to set up spy cameras in her apartment. However, as his fascination grows into obsession he's no longer satisfied with just watching.

When two married business executives having an affair are blackmailed by a violent criminal, they are forced to turn the tables on him to save their families.

Indolent aristocrat Tony employs competent Barrett as his manservant and all seems to be going well until Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister as a live-in maid.

Somewhere in Eastern Europe. Carole is a young nurse with a humanitarian aid group that has reached the end of its mission. But just then, the young woman and her two colleagues are kidnapped by strangers for mysterious reasons. Held captive, cared for and kept alive in an oppressive and sinister setting, the three prisoners soon discover with horror what their kidnappers truly have in store for them.

Kate and her daughter Beth live alone in an isolated farmhouse in the woods, but when Kate slowly begins to suspect that something sinister is happening, her motherly instincts are put to the test.

Forced to work extremely hard to keep things afloat, Paul begins hearing voices in his head questioning his past choices. Convinced that his wife has been unfaithful, he begins to see every male guest as a potential threat. What follows is Paul's downward spiral into the madness of deranged jealousy where he finally discovers that hell is not a state of mind – hell is himself.

A young couple purchase their new home to start a life together, only to find out the elderly couple next door have other plans for them.

A couple checks into a suite in Las Vegas. In flashbacks we see that he's a computer whiz on the verge of becoming a dot.com millionaire, she's a lap dancer at a club. He's depressed, withdrawing from work, missing meetings with investors. He wants a connection, so he offers her $10,000 to spend three nights with him in Vegas, and she accepts with conditions. Is mutual attraction stirring?

A woman named Emily checks into a hotel and offers the bellboy $2000 to temporarily marry her. We soon find out Emily is the caretaker of a wheelchair-bound mute named Helga, who was the childhood guardian of a pair of siblings: Miriam Webster and her half-brother, Warren, who is about to inherit the estate of their late father. Who is the mysterious Emily and what are her intentions?

A young woman studying the habits of webcam chat users from the apparent safety of her apartment witnesses a brutal murder online and is quickly immersed in a nightmare in which she and her loved ones are targeted for the same grisly fate as the first victim.

Claire is under the grip of a mysterious new cult called Faults. Desperate to be reunited with their daughter, Claire's parents recruit one of the world's foremost experts on mind control, Ansel Roth.

Following a brutal assault, a college co-ed's life spirals until she encounters her assailant while working as a dancer. The predator has become the prey, and the prey has set her sights on revenge.

An ex-soldier with PTSD is hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman while he's out of town.

In this darkly romantic ghost story, a woman travels to an isolated cabin where she is stalked by an apparition who inhabits her space as his own. With the unexpected arrival of the woman’s boyfriend, the dark spirit’s haunting grows obsessive. Soon the woman begins to exhibit weirdly irrational behavior as the thin line between sanity and possession begins to unravel. Is she battling her inner demons, or is a much darker presence threatening them all?

A man emerges with his autistic daughter and three others from a hospital elevator to find themselves trapped in the building with devilish monsters.

Six people, each of them is on the road to self-destruction. They wake up in cells in a surreal facility, without knowing how they got there or why.

While driving, an estranged couple's car is hit twice. A sheriff takes them to a motel where they hear disturbing noises from a room, realizing they're part of a deadly game.

A strange and destructive relationship develops between a chef and her neighbor, a former child actress.

An erotic story about a woman, the assistant of an art gallery, who gets involved in an impersonal affair with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to get complicated.

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.

Ella discovers a terrifying secret when she becomes trapped in an underground storage facility. To survive she must join forces with a group of strangers, each with something to hide.

In an opulent vacation home, a mysterious intruder is forced to kidnap the property owners -- a wealthy CEO and his wife -- when they arrive unexpectedly.

Newlyweds Cory and Sarah Morgan take Cory's 7-year-old son Liam up to the country for some much needed family time. When it appears as if Liam has run away, psychological suspense becomes straight-out horror, as Sarah and Cory must now confront a sadistic cult-like family who have been hiding in the house all along and have taken Liam for themselves.

Convinced that his fiancee is cheating on him, a man follows her to a hotel and calls his best friend to help him avoid a calamity.

A young psychology student is drawn into the dark and fearful world of a diabolic and mysterious App that starts to terrorize her, distributing compromising photographs, videos and text messages about herself and delves deeper and deeper into her personal life, flawlessly exposing all of her deepest secrets.

A student moves in with a family that lives in an underground house in the middle of the forest, far from civilization. His hopes of peace and quiet are soon shattered, when it becomes apparent that both the parents and their son have a screw loose.

Three family members head deep into the woods for a hunting trip that doubles as a distraction from their troubles at home. When all of their gear is stolen, they turn on each other, but soon realize there are much more treacherous forces at work.

After leaving work one night, Los Angeles attorney Jeff Mills and his colleague rescue a young, beautiful woman from an abusive boyfriend. Jeff soon becomes romantically involved with her and embroiled in the web of intrigue that follows her, despite a string of ominous happenstances and repeated warnings from his secretary.

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.

