Since its release in 2021,Squid Gamehas become a world sensation, and they’ve kept up the momentum after returning for a second season in late 2024. The show has captivated the world with its twisted humor of using South Korean children’s games as the basis for adeath gamewhere 456 players stake their lives to win 45.6 billion won.
Despite how utterly fantastic the show has been, there are similar movies that’ll feed your desire for moreworks, just like Squid Game. From indie films to high-budget productions, these high-stakes survival movies are not one to miss.
10Escape Room
2019
Although we are all familiar with escape games, 2019’s Escape Room takes the concept to another level. A fun ride from start to finish, it effortlessly simulates an escape room experience — just with the real consequence of death mixed in. The cast have great chemistry with one another, which makes their interactions on-screen more genuine and realistic.
The movie’s story follows six people who seem to be randomly invited to play an escape room for $10,000, only to realize that they’ve been targeted due to the collective tragedies they’ve experienced. Each escape room setting has been booby-trapped, killing those who fail to move on to the next room in time. The good nature of some characters is genuine, but for others, it’s a gradually fading facade as their numbers diminish with each room.
9Would You Rather
2012
A movie with one of the most depressing endings ever, Would You Rather may be smaller in scale than the other entries in this list, but is no less impactful. Similar to Squid Game, eight people with immense debts are invited to play a seemingly innocuous game by wealthy businessman Shepard Lambrick, but are soon subject to Lambrick’s depraved games.
Although Brittany Snow does an excellent job in her role as Iris, it’s Jeffrey Combs who steals the spotlight as psychotic villain Shepard Lambrick. Ultimately, Would You Rather is a commentary on class and elitism, while keeping things realistic by telling its audience that, in most cases,it’s the heroes who get the short end of the stick.
8Cube
1997
Cube was released in 1997 and has since become a cult classic. The movie has a very simple premise, following five people’s attempts to escape from a labyrinthine, cube-like prison, carefully navigating each room to avoid booby traps.
What is fantastic about this film is how the very construct of the Cube makes both the victims and the audience feel bewildered and penned in. Moreover, the film’s message also shows how individuals with respectable professions that inspire trust — such as Quentin being a cop — are the last people you’d want to be stuck with in a life-or-death situation.
7The Platform
A truly dystopian and thought-provoking movie, The Platform largely takes place in a vertical tower filled with two inmates each. Although some — like our main character, Goreng — could enter the facility voluntarily, most of its denizens are criminals. With over 300 floors, each floor is served food via a moving platform, with those at the top getting the lion’s share.
Residents switch floors every month, and predictably, those who have lived on the bottom floors even have to resort to cannibalism. The Platform is an intriguing social commentary on the state of our world, of the haves and have-nots, and how even those who have experienced poverty prioritize themselves over showing compassion to their fellow man.
6Ready Or Not
Ready Or Not is a dark comedy thriller that mixes a high-stakes hide-and-seek game with a fainthint of the supernatural. An obliviously happy Grace gets married to the wealthy Le Domas family and draws the dreaded ‘hide-and-seek’ card. In an interesting twist, both sides are locked in a death game, where one has to live and win or suffer punishment by death.
The Le Domas family had made a deal with the devil in exchange for riches, but they had to play a game every wedding day (and pray that no one picks the hide-and-seek card). The movie does a fantastic job of making you feel uneasy from the beginning, as well as balancing its comedic elements with thrilling action. It’s also quite realistic as it doesn’t turn either Grace or the Le Domas family into badass, expert killers, just desperate people who want to survive.
5Circle
2015
2015’s Circle takes the death game concept to new heights, its premise being that 50 people of various ethnicities and walks of life are locked in a death chamber. They quickly discover that they must vote for who will die once the timer runs out, or else the machine will randomly select someone to kill.
The movie is quite realistic in depicting the average human experience should one be put in such a situation. Quite early on in the film, lines are drawn between the participants as they decide who to die based on moral values that are constantly being rehashed when they’ve run out of people who don’t fit the mold. Although the dialogue and acting are top-notch, the film takes you by surprise with its twist ending.
4Exam
2009
Like 2015’s Circle, Exam is a movie that only takes place in one room for its nearly 2-hour long duration. Eight extremely intelligent candidates enter a room to take a test that would determine their suitability for a job at a megacorporation. The candidates soon realize it’s no ordinary test and show their true colors when the pressure intensifies as the clock ticks, just to figure out the question.
But unlike the entries in this list, the eliminated candidates are simply ushered out of the room instead of killed. However, the film is excellent at gradually building tension and desperation, and what some candidates turn into just to get that coveted job. Although some plot details could be fine-tuned, Exam is apsychological thrillerto watch.
3The Belko Experiment
2016
An underrated film, The Belko Experiment is set in Bogota, Colombia and takes place in a government office building. Despite its ending being quite disappointing and confusing, the movie has a way of captivating you from beginning to end, with unapologetic violence and emotional rollercoasters all around.
The movie follows 80 office workers (mostly Americans) who clock in for an average workday. The workers are locked into the building and have a specific time frame to kill a certain number of their colleagues, or else their heads explode. The office dynamics are established in the first five minutes of the film, which carries on when the experiment kicks in as everyone decides who’s friend or foe.
2As The Gods Will
2014
A Japanese classic that follows in the footsteps of the next entry in this list, As The Gods Will is a death game thriller mixed with the supernatural. The movie’s title refers to the life-and-death trials the ‘Gods’ themselves place on a select group of humans to test their worthiness.
Based on a manga of the same name, As The Gods Will incorporates Japanese children’s games (not unlike Squid Game), from Daruma-san to Kagome Kagome. One of the best highlights of the movie is its cinematography and striking color palettes, as well as its unpredictable twists.
1Battle Royale
2000
A classic directed by Kinji Fukusaku, Battle Royale is one of the most influential films of all time and is even cited to be one of the inspirations for Squid Game. The movie is considered a pioneer for death game-type shows and films, unapologetic in its violence and impactful in its themes of trust, fear, and survival.
A group of junior high school students are chosen to play in the Battle Royale, a survival game that runs every year. Now stuck on a remote island, some students are quick to kill, while others either choose to survive or refuse to participate in their own ways. Morally conflicting and totally unpredictable, there’s a reason why this isQuentin Tarantino’s favorite film.
