Movies like Midsommar take their core ideas from a long legacy of genre films and are a part of a new wave of horror films, one defined in particular by the movies of Midsommar's distributor A24. As a result, there are a lot of movies that are similar to Midsommar in of both style and subject matter. From a folk horror classic to more recent hits, the best movies that are similar to Midsommar can sometimes offer an insight into the process of the film's writer and director Ari Aster.
Though Midsommar was only Aster's second film, he had already made a name for himself in the world of horror movies and his stylistic influences became a matter of interest among his fans. These are often plain to see in Midsommar and once they're identified, it's easy to recommend similar movies that Aster's fans should love. However, horror movies like Midsommar become famous for their unrelenting atmospheres and uncompromising gore, so the requisite degree of caution is also recommendable.
13 The Wicker Man (1973)
- Available to stream on MovieSphere
As far as folk horror movies about cults go, none are as iconic as Midsommar. Though the movie is 50 years old and has had a notoriously bad remake, it remains a shocking, surreal, and provocative story revolving around sexuality and paganism.
The main character of The Wicker Man is a police officer investigating a disappearance in an island community that he visits, so fans of the mystery elements of Midsommar's plot will see all of those present and dialed up to their extreme here. It's not as gory as a modern horror movie like Midsommar, but, as the community in the film inevitably shows its true and sinister nature, the horror is just as palpable.
12 Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
- Available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video
As much of Midsommar's runtime is dedicated to relationship dynamics as it is to horror and there are few modern horror films that can really match that aspect of it. Bodies Bodies Bodies is a lot more comedic than a more intense horror movie like Midsommar, but it does delve into the darker sides of its characters through contemporary-feeling dialogue.
The film takes place at a mansion during a hurricane party, with the barbed conversation between the guests quickly devolving into a bloody murder mystery, so there's no cult aspect to the story. However, leaving the kind of self-centered characters seen at the core of Midsommar's ensemble alone to fight among themselves produces results that are just as volatile and violent.
11 Kill List (2011)
- Available to stream on Tubi
The cult and folk horror tropes that are utilized by Midsommar stem from specific sources in European culture and many of the same ones are used in Ben Wheatley's horror film Kill List. The movie follows two hitmen who move through a list of targets, with each killing becoming more disturbing than the last as it becomes clear that there is some wider plot being kept from the main characters.
Like Ari Aster, Wheatley is not the kind of filmmaker to shy away from either prickly drama or gruesome horror, so fans of the balancing act that Midsommar does with those two qualities will not be left wanting by Kill List. The film also has a gut-wrenching ending that will stick with even the most hardened horror movie fans for a long time after the credits roll.
10 Smile (2022)
- Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+
Midsommar places a heavy emphasis on the mental health of its main characters, particularly its protagonist, and one of the most successful horror films of recent years to highlight specific mental health issues in such a similar way is Smile. The film follows a therapist who, after a traumatic event at work, becomes stalked by a monster that takes the form of a person with a menacing smile.
Smile uses a conventional horror movie structure similar to the constantly oppressive curses of horror movies like The Ring and It Follows to show the steady psychological and emotional deterioration of the main character throughout. Fans of Florence Pugh's emotional lead performance in Midsommar will certainly appreciate Sosie Bacon's commitment to her role as her life is gradually overpowered by this pervasive and largely metaphorical force.
9 The Empty Man (2020)
- Available to stream on Cinemax
Horror movies like Midsommar really examine how the rhetoric and ritualism of a cult can influence a person's mind. David Prior's film The Empty Man is a straightforward supernatural chiller in many ways, and it's wrapped in a conventional detective mystery approach, but it offers a much deeper insight into the mentality of a nihilistic cult than either of those genres usually do.
The main character in The Empty Man is a detective who uncovers a dark cult while searching for a missing girl, much like in The Wicker Man. However, the film takes a more mind-bending approach to the narrative, layering in rich and disturbing lore surrounding the titular entity at the heart of the story.
8 The Invitation (2015)
- Available to stream on Pluto TV, Tubi, Peacock, and Amazon Prime Video
Not to be confused with the 2022 horror film of the same name, The Invitation is a slow-burning dramatic thriller set across one incredibly painful dinner party that takes on increasingly threatening overtones when it becomes apparent that the hosts have ed a cult. Though the story is set in the Hollywood Hills, director Karyn Kusama makes the feelings of isolation within the main characters and the central situation feel so apparent that it may as well be set in as secluded a location as Midsommar.
Like Midsommar, the film also heavily revolves around characters dealing with grief and how it's impacting their personal relationships. The cults in both films offer a feeling of stability and comfort to the characters but ask a terrible price for it, meaning that, similarly to Midsommar, The Invitation steadily ratchets up its tension throughout by making the main characters seem more and more trapped within obviously dire circumstances.
7 Men (2022)
- Available to stream on Showtime
Writer and director Alex Garland had been famous for his striking and unusual genre stories for a long time before his film Men but this English folk horror movie presented one of his strangest whilst also being his least elaborate. The film follows a grieving woman staying at a country home as she endures increasingly menacing encounters with a series of men who are all played by the same actor, Rory Kinnear.
As the movie neither explains nor even acknowledges the full extent of its peculiarity, the viewer is strongly compelled to interpret events for themselves and question the point of view of the main character. Fans of Midsommar's most cryptic qualities will have fun dissecting the themes of Men.
6 The Sacrament (2013)
- Available to stream on Hulu
Written and directed by Ti West, this found footage film eschews the usual supernatural horror angle for a more realistic scenario. The film is presented as the documentary footage of two journalists who are following a colleague as he visits his sister at a very reclusive religious commune, and it very much revolves around the workings of dangerous real-life cults.
The Sacrament is a very different approach to the subject of cults on a visual level compared to the one seen in Midsommar but the sense of helplessness that each set of main characters feels regarding their unnerving situations is very similar. There's an emphasis on emotional terror in the film as well as the interest in the psychology of communes that it also shares with Midsommar.
5 The Witch (2015)
- Available to stream on HBO Max
Next to Ari Aster, one of the most popular names in horror movies to emerge over the past decade is undoubtedly Robert Eggers, who wowed critics and general audiences alike with his debut The Witch. Through period-accurate dialogue and an overall stripped-down approach, the movie makes its 17th-century setting feel both authentic and terrifying.
Like Midsommar, the woods surrounding the main characters add a uniquely malevolent personality to the film and there are themes of female liberation intertwined with the atmospheric horror. The story follows a family of Christian settlers living on a remote farm in colonial New England as they become gradually overwhelmed by fear and paranoia over what the family's patriarch believes to be witchcraft destroying their lives. It's a simple premise that props up a much more ambiguous and complex narrative that fans of Midsommar's dreamlike moments will appreciate.
4 A Cure For Wellness (2016)
- Available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video
Director Gore Verbinski cemented his place in horror movie history relatively early in his career by successfully adapting the famous J-horror film Ring into the English language and although his latter horror film A Cure for Wellness is an original story, it evokes the style of classic European horror movies. Besides that, however, what makes it a movie that's similar to Midsommar is its focus on mental well-being.
The film follows a young and overworked businessman who's attempting to find one of his company's high-ranking executives at a retreat hidden at the foot of the Swiss Alps and the fragility of the main character's psychological state is as important in the film as Dani's is in Midsommar. Verbinski's skills with aquatically-themed horror also mean that the experience is satisfyingly weird once the dark secret behind the sanitarium's cult-like behavior is unearthed.
