Movies Like Resident Evil: 12 Survival Horror Movies

By Victoria Taylor | Writer & Producer

September 4, 2026

September 4, 2026 8 min read Updated November 10, 2026

Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil (2026) starts the film series again from scratch. Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier caught up in an outbreak over one long night, with Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser in the cast. It’s a new story set in the world of the games rather than a remake of any of them, and it leans towards survival horror rather than the action of the Milla Jovovich films.

That’s what the games did best. You were never quite equipped for what was in the next room. Ammunition ran low, doors led nowhere and running away was often the smart choice. The best movies like Resident Evil share that feeling, whether the threat is a virus, a creature or the people locked in with you. Here are 12 of them.

Quick Picks

Closest to the games: [REC]
Best outbreak movie: 28 Days Later
Best zombie action: Train to Busan
Cregger’s previous film: Barbarian
The classic: Alien
Most claustrophobic: The Descent

The Best Movies Like Resident Evil

1. [REC] (2007)

TV reporter Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) is shadowing a Barcelona fire crew for a night when they’re called to an apartment block. An elderly resident attacks a police officer, and then the authorities seal the building from the outside without explaining why.

Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza shot it as found footage, so you only ever see what the camera sees. Each floor is a new level, the stairwell is the only way through and the final minutes in the penthouse are as close to a Resident Evil game as cinema has come. The American remake is Quarantine (2008).

Watch it for: a sealed building, an infection and nowhere to go.

2. 28 Days Later (2002)

Jim (Cillian Murphy), a bicycle courier, wakes up from a coma in an empty London hospital. A virus that turns people into raging killers within seconds has swept the country while he was unconscious.

Danny Boyle’s infected are fast, which changed zombie films for the next decade, and the opening walk through a deserted London is still unforgettable. Like the best of Resident Evil, the film shows that other survivors can be as dangerous as the infected. The story continued in 28 Weeks Later and 28 Years Later.

Watch it for: the outbreak film that reinvented the genre.

3. Train to Busan (2016)

A workaholic fund manager (Gong Yoo) takes his young daughter on a train from Seoul to see her mother in Busan. An infected passenger gets on just before the doors close.

Yeon Sang-ho turns each carriage into a new obstacle, with the survivors working out how to get from one end of the train to the other. Ma Dong-seok, as a tough expectant father, gives the film its best fights, and the selfishness of some passengers is as frightening as the infected.

Watch it for: a relentless zombie thriller with real emotional weight.

4. Barbarian (2022)

Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at a rental house in Detroit late at night and finds it double-booked: a stranger (Bill Skarsgård) is already staying there. That turns out to be the least of her problems once she goes down to the basement.

Cregger made it before Weapons and Resident Evil, and it already plays like a game level: a house that keeps revealing new rooms, tunnels and doors that shouldn’t be opened. It’s also very funny, and best seen knowing as little as possible.

Watch it for: the best clue to how Cregger approaches horror.

5. Alien (1979)

The crew of the commercial ship Nostromo answers a distress signal and brings back something that kills them one by one in the ship’s ducts and corridors. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the one who keeps asking the right questions.

Ridley Scott’s film set the template for survival horror long before the games did: an enclosed space, a creature far stronger than you, and a company that cares more about the specimen than its crew. Umbrella Corporation owes a lot to Weyland-Yutani.

Watch it for: the film every survival horror story comes back to.

6. The Descent (2005)

Six women go caving, and a rockfall seals the way they came in. They have limited light, limited rope and no idea where they are, and then they find out they’re not alone down there.

Neil Marshall makes the cave itself the first enemy, with narrow passages and total darkness, before the creatures arrive. Torches, flares and a single video camera’s night vision become the only ways to see.

Watch it for: claustrophobia and some of the best jump scares of the century.

7. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

As the dead rise across America, two SWAT officers, a helicopter pilot and a TV producer escape Philadelphia and take refuge in a shopping mall. They clear it, lock it down and settle in, for a while.

George A. Romero’s film is the foundation the Resident Evil games were built on: securing a building, managing supplies and knowing the defences will eventually fail. Romero even directed a Japanese TV commercial for Resident Evil 2. Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake is faster and more of an action film.

Watch it for: the zombie classic, with plenty to say about shopping.

8. The Mist (2007)

A thick mist rolls into a small Maine town, and the people shopping at the supermarket find that there are things inside it. David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his young son are among those trapped in the store.

Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novella cares as much about the people as the creatures. As fear grows, a religious zealot (Marcia Gay Harden) wins more followers, and the supermarket becomes as dangerous as the car park. Darabont’s new ending is one of the most talked-about in horror.

Watch it for: monsters outside, panic inside, and that ending.

9. A Quiet Place (2018)

Creatures that hunt by sound have wiped out most of humanity. The Abbott family has survived on a farm by living in silence, but Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is pregnant, and a baby can’t be kept quiet.

Like a good survival game, the film sets out its rules early and then tests them. Everything you learn about the creatures matters later.

Watch it for: simple rules and unbearable tension.

10. Green Room (2015)

A punk band witnesses a murder backstage at a neo-Nazi bar and barricades itself in the green room. The bar’s owner (Patrick Stewart) is calmly working out how to get them out.

There are no monsters, but it plays like survival horror: one gun, a few makeshift weapons, an unfamiliar building and attackers who know every corridor. Every decision about when to open the door matters.

Watch it for: survival horror with human enemies.

11. It Comes at Night (2017)

After a deadly sickness spreads, Paul (Joel Edgerton) keeps his wife and teenage son alive in a boarded-up house in the woods, with strict rules and a single red door. When a desperate stranger breaks in, Paul has to decide whether to trust him and the family he brings with him.

Trey Edward Shults never shows the outbreak. The horror is in quarantine, suspicion and what fear does to decent people.

Watch it for: a slow, sad and very tense take on the outbreak story.

12. Crawl (2019)

During a Category 5 hurricane, Haley (Kaya Scodelario) goes looking for her father and finds him injured in the crawl space of the family home. The water is rising, and alligators have come in with it.

Alexandre Aja’s film works like a level with a timer: the flood changes the map every few minutes, and every route out has something waiting in it.

Watch it for: a lean, fun creature feature.

Movies Like Resident Evil by Type

Outbreak and infection

28 Days Later, [REC], Train to Busan and It Comes at Night are about a virus spreading faster than anyone can understand it.

Trapped in one building

The Spencer Mansion and the Raccoon City Police Department are what most players remember. For the same feeling, try [REC], Dawn of the Dead, The Mist, Green Room and Barbarian.

Creature survival

Alien, The Descent, A Quiet Place and Crawl are about learning what the creature can do before it learns where you are. For more, see our list of the best survival thriller movies.

What Makes Survival Horror Work?

Survival horror is about not being strong enough. The hero has fewer bullets than they would like, less information than they need and no guarantee that the next room is safer than the last. That’s the difference between the early Resident Evil games and the action-heavy films of the 2000s, and it’s why every film on this list keeps its characters short of something: light, time, allies or a way out.

The other ingredient is a clear map. Whether it’s a train, a mall or a flooded basement, you need to know where the characters are and what’s between them and safety. Then every closed door is a question.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who directed the 2026 Resident Evil?

Zach Cregger, the director of Barbarian and Weapons. He co-wrote it with Shay Hatten.

Is the 2026 Resident Evil connected to the Milla Jovovich films?

No. Sony presents it as an all-new story set in the Resident Evil universe, not a continuation of the earlier films or a remake of a single game.

What is the closest movie to the Resident Evil games?

[REC] is the closest: a sealed building, an infection and an investigation that leads further in. Dawn of the Dead (1978) is the film the games owe most to.

Film posters courtesy of The Movie Database (TMDB). This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.