movielex
movie
L
ex

Movies like When a Stranger Calls Back

Key Features:
Psychological thriller, Stalker, Crisis management, Detective, Investigation, Cat and mouse, Paranoia, Fear, Mystery, Criminal psychology
Tone:
suspense-driven, serious
Target Audience:
Thriller enthusiasts, Mystery fans, Viewers who enjoy suspense, Fans of crime stories
Emotional Arc:
Anxiety → Dread

When a Stranger Calls Back

1993-04-04
When a Stranger Calls Back Poster - Find Similar Movies

A retired detective and a crisis-center counselor hunt a killer stalking a coed.

Genres
Horror, Thriller, TV Movie
Cast
Carol Kane, Charles Durning, Jill Schoelen, Gene Lythgow, Karen Elizabeth Austin, Babs Chula, John Destry, Duncan Fraser, Jenn Griffin, Gary Jones
Crew
Fred Walton, Fred Walton
Rating
5.8(84 votes)
When a Stranger Calls BackWhen a Stranger Calls Back
Select exactly what you are looking for


When a Stranger Calls

A student babysitter has her evening disturbed when the phone rings. So begins a series of increasingly terrifying and threatening calls that lead to a shocking revelation.



When a Stranger Calls

Far away from the site of a gruesome murder, a teenager named Jill Johnson arrives at a luxurious home for a baby-sitting job. With the children fast asleep, she settles in for what she expects to be an ordinary evening. Soon, the ringing of a phone and the frightening words of a sadistic caller turn Jill's routine experience into a night of terror.



When Strangers Appear

A man enters a roadside diner run by a young woman and claims he is being chased by murderers.



Never Talk to Strangers

Sarah Taylor, a police psychologist, meets a mysterious and seductive young man, Tony Ramirez, and falls in love with him. As a cause of this relationship, she changes her personality when she begins to receive anonymous telephone calls.



The Caller
6.2

Troubled divorcee Mary Kee is tormented by a series of sinister phone calls from a mysterious woman. When the stranger reveals she's calling from the past, Mary tries to break off contact. But the caller doesn't like being ignored, and looks for revenge in a unique and terrifying way...



Don't Hang Up
6.255

An evening of drunken prank calls becomes a nightmare for a pair of teenagers when a mysterious stranger turns their own game against them.



The Phone Call
7.3

Heather is a shy lady who works in a helpline call centre. When she receives a phone call from a mystery man, she has no idea that the encounter will change her life forever.



The Strangers: Chapter 2

When The Strangers learn that one of their victims, Maya, is still alive, they return to finish what they’ve started.



The Return
6

Joanna Mills has a successful career but feels her personal life is spinning out of control. She has few friends, an estranged father, and a crazy ex-boyfriend who is stalking her. Joanna begins having terrifying visions of a woman's murder, and it seems that she is the killer's next target. Determined to solve the mystery and escape her apparent fate, Joanna follows her visions to the victim's hometown and finds that some secrets just do not stay buried.



The Stranger
6.149

Two strangers strike up a conversation on a long journey. However, neither is who they appear to be, each carry secrets that threaten to ruin them — and in the background, one of the nation's largest police operations is closing in.



The Night Caller
7.2

A serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their lives. Minos, as he calls himself, wants to prevent the world from free women and he targets at first these ones. Commissaire Letellier is given the investigation and he has hard work with the maniac.



Return
Return(2015)
6.434

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.



The Calling
5.869

Detective Hazel Micallef hasn't had much to worry about in the sleepy town of Port Dundas until a string of gruesome murders in the surrounding countryside brings her face to face with a serial killer driven by a higher calling.



Stalked by My Doctor: The Return

Dr. Beck, who has changed his name, saves a young teenage girl drowning in Mexico, whom he falls in love with. As always, there are some complications in his way, but he has plans to possibly get past them and get the girl of his dreams.



The Strangers: Prey at Night

A family's road trip takes a dangerous turn when they arrive at a secluded mobile home park to stay with some relatives and find it mysteriously deserted. Under the cover of darkness, three masked killers pay them a visit to test the family's every limit as they struggle to survive.



Welcome the Stranger
5.104

Alice arrives unannounced at her estranged brother Ethan's house in an attempt to reconcile, but bizarre visions, the return of his strange girlfriend and Alice's paranoia and suspicion force the siblings to cling onto reality amidst mysterious circumstances.



Fright
Fright(1971)
6

Young babysitter Amanda arrives at the Lloyd residence to spend the evening looking after their young son. Soon after the Lloyds leave, a series of frightening occurrences in the gloomy old house have Amanda's nerves on edge. The real terror begins, however, when the child's biological father appears after recently escaping from a nearby mental institution.



Backtrack
Backtrack(2015)
5.771

Troubled psychotherapist Peter Bowers is suffering from nightmares and eerie visions. When he uncovers a horrifying secret that all of his patients share, he is put on a course that takes him back to the small hometown he fled years ago. There he confronts his demons and unravels a mystery 20 years in the making.



Hangman
Hangman(2015)
4.753

Returning from vacation, the Miller family find their home has been broken into. After cleaning up the mess they continue with their lives, shaking off the feeling of being violated. But little do they know the nightmare has just begun.



Smiley
Smiley(2012)
4.318

After learning of an urban legend in which a demented serial killer named SMILEY can be summoned through the internet, mentally fragile Ashley must decide whether she is losing her mind or becoming Smiley's next victim.



No Good Deed
6.009

Karen never planned on being a hero. A recent widow, she has her hands full with work and parenting her son Max. Then Karen saves Jeremy's life during a drug store robbery and quickly discovers that the young man is intent on paying her back at any cost. At first, life starts improving for this good Samaritan, but as Jeremy's efforts become more extreme, Karen starts to wonder if no good deed truly goes unpunished.



Night Call
6.858

Mady, a student, works as a locksmith by night. He helps Claire get into her apartment and soon realizes that she lied to him about her identity and robbed something that belonged to a dangerous man, Yannick. Mady gets embroiled in a manhunt and will have one night to prove his innocence.



Sometimes They Come Back

Desperate for a job to help him support his family, Jim Norman takes a position teaching high school in the town where his brother was murdered in front of him by teenage bullies twenty-seven years before. The teens who committed the crime are long dead, but now the kids in Jim's new class keep dying and being replaced by new students who look like the deceased hoodlums.



Copycat
Copycat(1995)
6.472

An agoraphobic psychologist and a female detective must work together to take down a serial killer who copies serial killers from the past.



Along Came a Spider
6.339

After the harrowing death of his partner, forensic psychologist and best-selling author Alex Cross cannot forgive himself and has retreated to the peace of retirement. But when a brilliant criminal kidnaps a senator's young daughter, he is lured back into action as the kidnapper wants to deal with Alex personally. Teamed with Jezzie Flanigan, the Secret Service agent assigned to protect the missing girl, Alex follows a serpentine trail of clues that leads him to a stunning discovery - the kidnapper wants more than just ransom.



The Call
The Call(2020)
7.505

Connected by phone in the same home but 20 years apart, a caller puts a woman’s past — and life — on the line to change her own fate.



Don't Answer the Phone!

A Vietnam veteran that spends his days photographing pretty girls, and his nights strangling them, sets sights on the patients of a radio psychiatrist.



The Stepfather
5.82

Michael Harding returns home from military school to find his mother happily in love and living with her new boyfriend, David. As the two men get to know each other, Michael becomes more and more suspicious of the man who is always there with a helpful hand. Is he really the man of her dreams or could David be hiding a dark side?



Don't Knock Twice
5.5

A mother desperate to reconnect with her troubled daughter becomes embroiled in the urban legend of a demonic witch.



Scar
Scar(2007)
4.4

Joan Burrows returns to her hometown for her niece's graduation, only to be confronted by the serial killer she thought she offed years ago -- after he kidnapped and tormented her and her best friend.



Neighborhood Watch
6.47

When a mentally ill young man thinks he witnesses an abduction and the police refuse to believe him, he reluctantly turns to his next door neighbor – a bitter, retired security guard – to help him find the missing woman.



Sometimes They Come Back... Again

Jon Porter returns to his hometown after the sudden and bizarre death of his mother. He hopes to leave as soon as the funeral is over but it's too late. The sinister forces that caused his sister's brutal murder 30 years ago are back. Jon knows the nightmare can't continue. He must stand up to his fear and exorcise the demons who have risen again to take posession of his beautiful teenage daughter - body and soul.



Bastard
Bastard(2015)
4.686

Five strangers - newlywed serial killers, a suicidal, depressed policeman, and two young runaways with a secret - become suspects and potential victims when a masked murderer makes its presence known in an isolated mountain town.



Spiral
Spiral(2007)
6.1

A reclusive telemarketer has only one semblance of a friend: His telecommuter boss. But the telemarketer's social circle seems to improve greatly when a whimsical co-worker enters his life. Only, as he begins to sketch his new friend's portrait, disturbing "voices" from the phone man's past threaten to lead him into a network of destruction.



Amusement
Amusement(2008)
5.596

While being interrogated by a police psychiatrist, the near-catatonic Tabitha tries to explain why she and two of her childhood friends are being hunted by a serial killer. The truth that's dying to come out weaves together three tragic secrets from their past. Two of the girls' boyfriends become unwitting targets in their deadly game.



The Call
The Call(2013)
6.8

Jordan Turner is an experienced 911 operator but when she makes an error in judgment and a call ends badly, Jordan is rattled and unsure if she can continue. But when teenager Casey Welson is abducted in the back of a man's car and calls 911, Jordan is the one called upon to use all of her experience, insights and quick thinking to help Casey escape, and not just to save her, but to make sure the man is brought to justice.



What Comes Around
5.7

A young love affair becomes a menacing game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems in this immersive thriller.



Babysitter Wanted
5.441

When she takes a job babysitting a young boy for a night at his family's remote farmhouse, sweet college co-ed Angie Albright becomes the target of a scar-covered creep making mysterious phone calls and prowling outside the windows. Angie gets the drop on the would-be killer, but quickly discovers that her nightmare has just begun.



The Call
The Call(2020)
5.461

In the fall of 1987, a group of small-town friends must survive the night in the home of a sinister couple after a tragic accident occurs. Needing only to make a single phone call, the request seems horribly ordinary until they realize that this call could change their life…or end it.



Stalked by My Neighbor

A girl and her mother escape to suburban safety after a home invasion scares them out of the city, but they're soon menaced by a sinister figure.



Unhinged
Unhinged(2020)
6.4

Rachel is a divorced single mother whose bad day gets even worse. She's running late to drop her son off at school when she honks her horn impatiently at a fellow driver during rush-hour traffic. After an exchange of words, she soon realizes that the mysterious man is following her and her young son in his truck. A case of road rage quickly escalates, at horrifyingly psychotic proportions, into full-blown terror as Rachel discovers the psychopath's sinister plan for revenge. He is single-mindedly determined to teach her a deadly lesson.



Escapee
Escapee(2011)
3.864

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.



Old Man
Old Man(2022)
5.708

Deep in the woods, a lost hiker stumbles upon the cabin of an erratic and reclusive old man. What starts off as cordial conversation soon turns dangerous as it becomes clear that one or both of them might be hiding a terrifying secret.



10x10
10x10(2018)
5.2

Lewis is an outwardly ordinary guy, but in reality he is hiding an obsession – revenge – against Cathy. Lewis kidnaps Cathy in broad daylight and takes her to his home, where he locks her in a soundproof cell and attempts to extract a dark secret from her past.



Resurrection
6

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.



Cape Fear
Cape Fear(1962)
7.4

Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.



Creepy
Creepy(2016)
6.7

After having narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of a psychopath, detective inspector Takakura quits active service in the police force and takes up a position as a university lecturer in criminal psychology. But his desire to get to the bottom of criminals’ motives remains, and he does not hesitate long when former colleague Nogami asks him to reopen an old case.



The Strangers
6.1

After a 4 a.m. knock at the door and haunting voices, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt’s remote getaway becomes a psychological night of terror as three masked strangers invade. Now they must go far beyond what they thought themselves capable of if they hope to survive.



Strangers on a Train

A charming psychopath tries to coerce a tennis star into his theory that two strangers can commit the perfect crime by exchanging murders—each killing the other’s most-hated person.



One Missed Call
5.4

Several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves -- messages which include the date, time, and some of the details of their deaths.



Boogeyman
Boogeyman(2005)
5

Every culture has one – the horrible monster fueling young children's nightmares. But for Tim, the Boogeyman still lives in his memories as a creature that devoured his father 16 years ago. Is the Boogeyman real, or did Tim make it up to explain why his father abandoned his family?



Dementia
Dementia(2015)
4.669

After being diagnosed with dementia, an elderly war veteran is forced by his estranged family to hire a live-in nurse, only to find she harbors a sinister secret.



Sometimes They Come Back... for More

On a arctic circle radio shack, an ancient evil lurks, ready to strike at a psychologist, an army man and their collective forces.



I.T.
I.T.(2016)
5.414

Mike Regan is a successful, self-made man who has it all: a gorgeous wife, a beautiful teenage daughter and a sleek, state-of-the-art “smart home”. But he soon finds himself in a deadly, high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse when his I.T. consultant, Ed, starts using his skills to stalk Mike’s daughter and endanger his family, his business, and his life. In a world where there is no privacy, and personal secrets can go viral by the click of a mouse, Mike needs to rely on his old connections to defeat a new kind of nemesis.



Visiting Hours
5.504

A deranged, misogynistic killer assaults a journalist. When he discovers that she survived the attack, he follows her to the hospital to finish her off.



Bad Samaritan
6.738

A thief makes a disturbing discovery in the house where he breaks in. Later, when he returns to the same house with his partner in crime, things are no longer how he expected.



Fear in the Night
5.78

It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Peggy is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?



Klute
Klute(1971)
6.733

A high-priced call girl is forced to depend on a reluctant private eye when she is stalked by a psychopath.



Friend Request
5.432

A team of two detectives is tasked with apprehending a crazed, online psycho who tracks down and lures victims via a popular social media site.



Scissors
Scissors(1991)
4.975

A woman trying to recover from a sexual attack is locked in a posh apartment with a corpse of the very man she's been dreaming would murder her. She tries to hang on to reality when objects around her seem to come to life.



Stepfather 2
5.485

"Stepfather" Jerry Blake escapes an insane asylum and winds up in another town, this time impersonating a marriage counselor. With a future wife and new stepson who love him, Blake eliminates anyone who stands in his way to building the perfect family.



The Stranger
4.5

The Stranger is a man with no name, no memory and absolutely nothing left to lose. But when he finds himself hunted by both the FBI and the Russian mob, this amnesiac decides to fight back. Pursuit cannot stop him. Torture will not break him. And with every beating, bullet and betrayal, he’ll remember another piece of the horror that took away his career, his family and his identity.



Doppelganger
4.9

After being implicated in a murder, a young woman flees New York City and moves to Los Angeles, where she rents a room from a writer. They begin an affair, but it seems she's been followed by a homicidal duplicate of herself.



The Conversation
7.509

A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.



Secret Window
6.566

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.



Karthik Calling Karthik

A much abused loner achieves success, and even wins the heart of his gorgeous co-worker, after getting early morning mysterious phone calls from someone.



The Nanny
The Nanny(1965)
6.9

Nanny, a London family's live-in maid, brings morbid 10-year-old Joey back from the psychiatric ward he's been in for two years, since the death of his younger sister. Joey refuses to eat any food Nanny's prepared or take a bath with her in the room. He also demands to sleep in a room with a lock. Joey's parents -- workaholic Bill and neurotic Virgie -- are sure Joey is disturbed, but he may have good reason to be terrified of Nanny.



Don't Let Go
6.902

A detective suffering from a personal loss receives a call from his recently deceased niece. Being able to communicate across time, the two work together to try and stop the crime before it occurs.



Enemy
Enemy(2014)
6.854

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



Trespassers
4.87

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.



Black Phone 2
6.858

Four years after escaping The Grabber, Finney Blake is struggling with his life after captivity. When his sister Gwen begins receiving calls in her dreams from the black phone and seeing disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp, the siblings become determined to solve the mystery and confront a killer who has grown more powerful in death and more significant to them than either could imagine.



The Calling
4.844

On her wedding night, a young woman conceives a child during an hallucinatory encounter. Several years later, as her friends and family begin to behave strangely, she pieces together clues that lead to one conclusion...her son is the Antichrist



Strait-Jacket
6.5

After a twenty-year stay at an asylum for a double murder, a mother returns to her estranged daughter where suspicions arise about her behavior.



Veronica
Veronica(2017)
5.871

A female Psychologist who has stopped practicing medicine, decides to take the case of Veronica de la Serna, a young woman whose previous therapist has mysteriously disappeared.



Nightwatch
6

A law student takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue and begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect in a series of murders.



Return to Sender
6.116

A nurse mistakes a stranger who pays her a visit for her blind date and soon, the man rapes her and turns her life upside down. The woman works to reclaim her life and exact revenge on her assailant after he's paroled from prison.



Chasing Sleep
6.006

A college professor wakes up to find his wife has not returned home, then struggles to understand her disappearance.



Drop
Drop(2025)
6.387

Violet, a widowed mother on her first date in years, arrives at an upscale restaurant where she is relieved that her date, Henry, is more charming and handsome than she expected. But their chemistry begins to curdle as Violet begins being irritated and then terrorized by a series of anonymous drops to her phone.



Almost Blue
6

A police inspector suspects a serial killer is afoot in the university city of Bologna, luring in his victims through online video chats before murdering them and assuming their identity.



Smile
Smile(2022)
6.666

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.



The Silencing
6.426

A reformed hunter becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he and the local sheriff set out to track a vicious killer who may have kidnapped his daughter years ago.



Phone Booth
6.858

A slick New York publicist who picks up a ringing receiver in a phone booth is told that if he hangs up, he'll be killed... and the little red light from a laser rifle sight is proof that the caller isn't kidding.



The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Suburban couple Caitlin and Miguel hire seemingly sweet Polly to take care of their newborn baby. But Polly's true motives have little to do with singing lullabies...



The Night Listener
5.5

In the midst of his crumbling relationship, a radio show host begins speaking to his biggest fan—a young boy—via the telephone. But when questions about the boy's identity come up, the host's life is thrown into chaos.



Scare Campaign
5.74

A popular prank TV show, Scare Campaign, has been entertaining audiences for the last 5 years with its mix of old school scares and hidden camera fun. But as we enter a new age of online TV, the producers find themselves up against a new hard edged web series that makes their show look decidedly quaint. It's time to up the ante, but will the team go too far this time, and are they about to prank the wrong guy?



The Return
6.661

After the death of his father, a brilliant college student returns to his family home where he learns that the horrors from his childhood aren't as dead and gone as he once thought.



388 Arletta Avenue
5.115

A young couple find themselves in an unnerving situation with a mysterious stalker.



Trick
Trick(2019)
5.8

A detective tries to track down a masked killer who reappears every Halloween to wreak bloody havoc.



Nightmare
Nightmare(1964)
6.8

A young student is haunted by recurring dreams of her mother murdering her father, but her nightmare is just beginning as she tries to prove to her loved ones that she is not insane.



Creep 2
Creep 2(2017)
6.3

After finding an ad online for “video work,” Sara, a video artist whose primary focus is creating intimacy with lonely men, thinks she may have found the subject of her dreams. She drives to a remote house in the forest and meets a man claiming to be a serial killer. Unable to resist the chance to create a truly shocking piece of art, she agrees to spend the day with him. However, as the day goes on, she discovers she may have dug herself into a hole from which she can’t escape.



The Vanishing
7.4

Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.



The Babysitter's Seduction

The mother of the family for which Michelle baby-sits dies unexpectedly. Michelle is asked to take over looking after the children and is gradually "seduced" by the father.



A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio

Rod leads a radio show dedicated to horror. Until suddenly the announcer begins to receive strange calls from a child who desperately asks for help. At first thinks that it is a bad joke until he discovers that this is not the case. These calls hide a dark secret…



Nine Dead
Nine Dead(2010)
5.26

Communication is the key to the survival for nine strangers who have been kidnapped by a masked gunman and told that one of them will die every ten minutes until they discover how they are all connected. Who of the nine lives and who dies?



The Captive
5.832

Eight years after the disappearance of Cassandra, some disturbing incidents seem to indicate that she's still alive. Police, parents and Cassandra herself, will try to unravel the mystery of her disappearance.



Wander
Wander(2020)
5.3

After getting hired to probe a suspicious death in the small town of Wander, a mentally unstable private investigator becomes convinced the case is linked to the same 'conspiracy cover up' that caused the death of his daughter.



They Come Knocking
5.8

After losing his wife to cancer, a father takes his two daughters on a road trip where he finds his family in the crosshairs of terrifying supernatural entities.



I Saw What You Did
6.2

Teenage friends Kit and Libby make prank phone calls for fun but then find themselves involved in a brutal double murder committed by one of their targets.



Operator
Operator(2015)
5.044

When the daughter of veteran 911 call center operator Pamela, and her estranged husband Jeremy, a Senior Police Officer, is kidnapped and held hostage, they are left desperate, with no choice but to follow the kidnapper's rules: send messages through dispatch for all police and fire units to scatter to remote locations throughout the city where they are met with chaos. Not knowing who or why, they must race against the clock to make the choice of their lives: save the city — or save their daughter.

AboutPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceContact Us