10 Mind-Bending Movies Like Interstellar You Need to Watch

Very few science fiction films have left a mark quite like Interstellar. Christopher Nolan’s space epic blended real astrophysics with raw human emotions, grounding its wormholes, time dilation, and black holes in something very relatable: love, sacrifice, and the fear of extinction. It made audiences feel small in the face of the universe, yet emotionally connected to it.

If you’re searching for movies like Interstellar that balance big ideas with human stakes, these films explore similar territory. Some lean more into space survival, others bend time, reality, or memory, but all of them leave you thinking after they end.

Gravity follows medical engineer Dr Ryan Stone and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski after their space shuttle is destroyed during a routine mission, leaving them drifting alone in the vast emptiness of space. With oxygen running out and Earth slowly disappearing from reach, survival becomes a race against both time and fear. Beyond its visuals and tension-filled set pieces, Gravity is a story about grief, resilience, and the will to keep going when everything feels lost.

Sunshine follows a crew tasked with reigniting the dying sun, a mission that feels both heroic and hopeless. As pressure mounts, science begins to clash with faith and obsession. Fans of Interstellar will recognise the same tension between logic and belief, and the terrifying question of what humanity is willing to sacrifice to survive.

While more action-driven, The Tomorrow War taps into Interstellar’s concern for future generations. A global draft sends civilians into a war decades ahead in time, forcing one man (Dan) to confront both humanity’s extinction and his broken relationship with his father and daughter. Dropped into a hostile and unfamiliar world, Dan must navigate deadly battles while grappling with his past and the fate of humanity.

If Interstellar made you emotional about time, Arrival is for you. When mysterious alien spacecraft land across the world, linguistics professor Louise Banks is recruited by the U.S. military to establish communication with the visitors before global panic spirals into war. As Louise begins to understand the aliens’ complex language, she realises it reshapes how humans perceive time itself. 

What follows is a deeply emotional story about choice, destiny, and love, told through a sci-fi lens that rewards patience and reflection. Like Nolan’s film, it blends scientific theory with devastating emotional payoff, asking whether love is still worth it when loss is inevitable.

5. Coherence (2013)

Eight friends gather for a dinner party on the night a comet passes Earth, only to experience strange, reality-bending events. Parallel realities begin intersecting, and paranoia escalates as each person faces alternate versions of themselves. Fans of Interstellar’s time paradoxes will appreciate how this film turns existential dread into something uncomfortably personal.

Oblivion mixes post-apocalyptic sci-fi with questions of memory, identity, and truth. Technician Jack oversees a post-apocalyptic Earth, harvesting resources while believing humanity has relocated to Titan. When he encounters a mysterious woman and fragments of his lost memories, Jack discovers a hidden truth about the planet and himself. Like Interstellar, it pairs good visuals with an emotional mystery that hinges on love and self-sacrifice.

Long before Interstellar, Contact explored humanity’s relationship with the unknown. Following Dr Ellie Arroway’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence, the film wrestles with science, belief, and loneliness on a cosmic scale. It’s less about spectacle and more about wonder, making it a good companion piece to Nolan’s work.

This biographical drama chronicles the life of physicist Stephen Hawking, from his student days at Cambridge to his groundbreaking work in cosmology while battling ALS.

A secret agent known as the Protagonist must manipulate time using inverted objects to prevent a global catastrophe. Battling paradoxes, a ruthless arms dealer, and high-stakes espionage, he uncovers a mission where the future can destroy the past. Tenet’s plotting and time-bending mechanics make it a thrilling favourite for fans of Interstellar’s cosmic puzzles and emotional stakes.

Stanley Kubrick’s landmark film remains one of the most influential sci-fi movies ever made. It follows mysterious monoliths that guide evolution while fighting the rise of sentient machines. Its exploration of human evolution and artificial intelligence paved the way for films like Interstellar. It’s slower, more abstract, but equally obsessed with humanity’s place in the universe.

Archive is an emotionally driven sci-fi film about a grieving scientist working in isolation to bring his deceased wife back through artificial intelligence. What begins as an experiment in advanced robotics slowly turns into a story about loss, memory, and the ethical cost of refusing to let go. 

Archive 2020 Trailer

Set in a near future ruled by genetic perfection, Gattaca follows Vincent Freeman, a man born without genetic enhancement who dares to dream of space travel. The film examines fate versus free will, identity, and humanity’s obsession with control. 

Gattaca 1997 Trailer

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