1. Parasite (South Korea)
Like Get Out, Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-winning masterpiece uses a seemingly inviting space—a wealthy family’s pristine modern home—as the stage for a brutal examination of class. The Kim family slowly infiltrates the affluent Park household, but their parasitic
relationship is a two-way street. The Parks, for all their politeness, are utterly dependent on the labor of the poor, viewing them as disposable. The film masterfully builds a sense of dread not from ghosts, but from the quiet indignities of class difference, culminating in an explosion of violence when the social contract finally shatters. The tension comes from the terrifying realization that politeness is just a mask for contempt.
2. The Platform (Spain)
If Get Out explored the insidious horror of liberal racism, The Platform presents a stark, brutal allegory for systemic inequality. The film is set in a vertical prison where a platform of food descends from the top, leaving less and less for those on the lower levels. It’s a gut-wrenching depiction of how social hierarchies function, turning people against each other in a desperate fight for survival. Like the Sunken Place, the prison is a horrifying trap disguised as a system. It forces its characters—and the audience—to confront an uncomfortable question: would you maintain your morality when faced with starvation, or would you become part of the problem?
3. Bacurau (Brazil)
This genre-bending film feels like a Western, a sci-fi thriller, and a powerful political statement all at once. The residents of a small, isolated town in the Brazilian outback discover their home has literally been erased from the map, just as a group of wealthy, mostly American tourists arrives to hunt them for sport. Bacurau shares Get Out's theme of an outside group seeing a community as nothing more than objects for their own perverse pleasure. It is a fiery, thrilling, and ultimately triumphant story of a community fighting back against predatory forces that seek to exploit and erase them, blending surreal visuals with righteous fury.
4. Goodnight Mommy (Austria)
Get Out’s horror was rooted in the familiar becoming terrifyingly alien—the unnerving feeling that the people who are supposed to care for you are actually impostors. Goodnight Mommy takes this concept to its most primal conclusion. After their mother returns from cosmetic surgery, her face wrapped in bandages, twin boys Lukas and Elias become convinced that the woman in their home is not who she says she is. Her behavior is cold, strange, and cruel. The film creates an almost unbearable atmosphere of psychological dread and paranoia within the claustrophobic confines of a remote, modern house, forcing you to question who to trust when the heart of the family feels like a hostile stranger.
5. Titane (France)
While far more extreme and graphic, Julia Ducournau’s Titane shares a key element with Get Out: body horror as a vehicle for exploring identity. Get Out used the terrifying idea of having one's consciousness trapped inside a stolen body. Titane pushes the boundaries of what a body can be, following a woman who has a titanium plate in her head and a shocking connection to machinery. When she goes on the run, she disguises herself as a long-lost boy and forms a strange, tender bond with the boy's grieving father. It's a shocking, challenging, and strangely moving film that uses its visceral horror to ask profound questions about gender, love, and what it means to be human in a world that demands conformity.
