20 best movies like The Machine (2023)

After a film premiere, a famous actor is kidnapped in the middle of Seoul. At first, he thinks it's a prank but then he starts doubting himself if this is more sinister than he imagined.

A group of friends think they found the perfect easy score - an empty house with a safe full of cash. But when the elderly couple that lives there comes home early, the tables are suddenly turned. As a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, the would-be thieves must fight to save themselves from a nightmare they could never have imagined.

Whilst vacationing in Greece, Beckett, becomes the target of a manhunt after a devastating car accident forces him to run for his life across the country to clear his name but tensions escalate as the authorities close in and political unrest mounts which makes Beckett fall even deeper into a dangerous web of conspiracy.

Roohi is set in a fictional town of North India. The film revolves around two small-town boys Bhaura and Kattanni who are stuck in a forest with Roohi. But there’s an insidious spirit following them with feet turned backwards.

Rhythm, a pregnant woman, is traumatised by nightmares about the unsolved kidnapping of her first child, Ajay. Soon, she embarks on a harrowing mission to solve the mystery of Ajay's disappearance.

A school teacher is forced to confront a brutal act from his past when a pair of ruthless drifters takes him and his family on a nightmare road-trip.

After Bobby and his best friend Kevin are kidnapped and taken to a strange house in the middle of nowhere, Bobby manages to escape. But as he starts to make a break for it, he hears Kevin’s screams for help and realizes he can’t leave his friend behind.

While exploring the neighboring woods, 13-year-old John discovers an unfinished bunker — a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents and older sister and drags their unconscious bodies into the bunker, where he holds them captive. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally do what he wants.

Victoria is a young mother trying to put her dark past as a Russian drug courier behind her, but retired cop Damon forces Victoria to do his bidding by holding her daughter hostage. Now, Victoria must use guns, guts and a motorcycle to take out a series of violent gangsters—or she may never see her child again.

Reclusive author Loretta Sage writes about exotic places in her popular adventure novels that feature a handsome cover model named Alan. While on tour promoting her new book with Alan, Loretta gets kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire who hopes she can lead him to the ancient city's lost treasure that featured in her latest story. Alan, determined to prove he can be a hero in real life and not just on the pages of her books, sets off to rescue her.

Dass specialises in small time kidnapping and has his own set of rules. The primary and most important among them is not to get involved with influential people. Three jobless youngsters meet Dass and the four take up an assignment for a hefty sum that throws away this primary rule and end up being chased by a dreaded policeman.

An ambitious reporter stationed in the Middle East who is taken captive after her convoy is ambushed. She is confronted by the trauma of her past and must find a way to bring down the militants who incarcerated her.

Ex-military specialist Clair Hamilton returns home from her tour in the Middle East due to her father's passing and to claim her inheritance. Her son is then kidnapped and held for ransom by a gang led by a mysterious figure known only as “Father”.

Virginia will do the impossible in order to rescue her little daughter who has been abducted. After a terrible accident, she has the chance to live one day more to save her. On her path, she will find out that there are worst thing than death.

Lewis is an outwardly ordinary guy, but in reality he is hiding an obsession - revenge - against Cathy. Lewis kidnaps Cathy in broad daylight and takes her to his home, where he locks her in a soundproof cell and attempt to extract a dark secret from her past.

Snatched off the street and held for ransom, a bound and gagged woman uses her limited powers to derail her two masked abductors' carefully laid plans.

The story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother to convince his billionaire grandfather Jean Paul Getty to pay the ransom.

Stranded at a rest stop in the mountains during a blizzard, a recovering addict discovers a kidnapped child hidden in a car belonging to one of the people inside the building which sets her on a terrifying struggle to identify who among them is the kidnapper.

Massimo Torricelli, a young and handsome boss of a Sicilian Mafia family, has no other option but to takeover after his father has been assassinated. Laura is a sales director in a luxurious hotel in Warsaw. She has a successful career, but her private life lacks passion. She is taking one last shot to save her relationship. Together with her bone-headed boyfriend Martin and some other friends, she takes a trip to Sicily. She does not expect that Massimo, the most dangerous man on the island, will get in her way, kidnap her, hold her captive and give her 365 days - to fall in love with him.

A college student who will do just about anything for Internet fame is kidnapped by a fan, and her reluctant roommate is the only one who can save her.

A gripping female-driven horror film where a young woman faces her darkest fears with seven other unwilling participants in a deadly game. A game that can only have one winner. The film burrows into universal themes of survival, revenge and redemption, and reveals the darkness lurking within us all.

John Garrity, his estranged wife and their young son embark on a perilous journey to find sanctuary as a planet-killing comet hurtles toward Earth. Amid terrifying accounts of cities getting levelled, the Garrity's experience the best and worst in humanity. As the countdown to the global apocalypse approaches zero, their incredible trek culminates in a desperate and last-minute flight to a possible safe haven.

Right before her wedding, a young woman finds herself abducted and held for ransom. As the initial days pass, she begins to develop a strange bond with her kidnapper.

Carved from a lifetime of experience that runs the gamut from incarceration to liberation, Dog Eat Dog is the story of three men who are all out of prison and now have the task of adapting themselves to civilian life.

Víctor is a child who is found casually roaming by a country road. His mother, Patricia, a well-known lawyer specialist in media trails, realizes about it and she goes to the hospital, where explains to the police that Víctor is deaf, and he's unable to talk, speaking using sign language. In the police headquarter Víctor explains that he was kidnapped by a strange man when we was entering to the school. The police identifies a possible suspect named Charlie, a man with money troubles and an 8-months pregnant wife who can't explain where he was when Víctor was kidnapped from the school. Seeing the inability of the police to arrest Charlie after some failed attempts to meet Víctor, Patricia contacts Raúl, Patricia's former love interest and Víctor's father, to ask him that he or a friends of him threat seriously Charlie. But when is discovered that Víctor made a false identification, Patricia tries to stop Raúl, starting a chain of events which consequences will be out of control...

A young NASA JPL scientist is abducted by extraterrestrials but when no one believes his story he becomes obsessed with finding proof which leads him on a journey of discovery.

What’s controlling the town on Block Island? There’s a force lurking off the coast and the wildlife and people are all behaving strangely.

When her child goes missing, a mother looks to unravel the legend of the Tall Man, an entity who allegedly abducts children.

An American businessman with a stake in a pharmaceutical company that's about to go public finds his life is thrown into turmoil by an incident in Mexico.

On the 4th of July, a serial killer has a moral crisis when he discovers that his latest victim is a high-school student; simultaneously, a rookie cop and a seasoned detective race against the clock to save her life.

A young Austrian girl is kidnapped and held in captivity for eight years. Based on the real-life case of Natascha Kampusch.

On a cold November day in 1983, is the world's most successful and richest brewer Alfred Heineken and his chauffeur Ab Doderer the door of his office abducted. What follows is the most notorious and infamous kidnapping case that the Netherlands has ever known. Twenty exhausting and nerve-grueling days staying the manufacturer in a cold, cramped cell, chained down and for the first time in his life utterly powerless. His kidnappers, four criminal friends from Amsterdam, encounter great difficulty to collect the ransom (excerpt from http://www.heinekenontvoering.com/synopsis).

Tells the comedic tale of Eddie Mannix, a fixer who worked for the Hollywood studios in the 1950s. The story finds him at work when a star mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming.

A small town detective while investigating the disappearance of a local woman comes across an unassuming Sociology professor who is hiding a secret life.

FBI Agent Karl Helter and his partner Rebecca Lombardo are very close to busting a sex-trafficking ring. When they realize their investigation has crossed the path of a brutal serial killer, they team up with a Texas Ranger to put an end to the infamous 'Truck Stop Killer'.

The true story of the kidnapping of Freddy Heineken, the grandson of the founder of the Heineken brewery, and his driver. They were released after a ransom of 35 million Dutch guilders was paid.

Sonny "Sundown" Garcia is the top cocaine distributor in the United States, which has made him a very rich and powerful man. It has also made him plenty of enemies. John Doe is just such a man. A nameless man of mystery, John lives to see Sundown not just dead, but to suffer six meaningful losses before his death—his fortune, his freedom, his love, his reputation, his most valuable possession and, finally, his life. John hires six hit-men, each one assigned to inflict one of the six meaningful losses upon Sundown.

When her boyfriend dumps Emily, a spontaneous woman in her 30s, she persuades her ultra-cautious mom to accompany her on a vacation to Ecuador. When these two very different women are trapped on this wild journey, their bond as mother and daughter is tested and strengthened while they attempt to navigate the jungle and escape.

Without the security of the job he wants or the future he dreamed of, Paul Dynan plans the perfect crime to help his struggling family – abduct the socialite children of three wealthy men and collect a ransom of $3-million dollars. Over the course of one long night, Paul and his accomplices hold the rich kids hostage awaiting the ransom with little idea of the secrets that will surface between the fathers when they are forced to choose between their children and their money.

Unable to face his new reality in a wheelchair, Ángel develops a deadly obsession with the woman who left him and unleashes a sinister revenge plot.

A wealthy young man is conned into staging a fake kidnapping in order to be a hero and win the affection of a girl he's madly in love with. But when one of the hired kidnappers is accidentally killed during the charade, he's forced to actually save her life while not revealing that it's been a ruse all along.

Communication is the key to the survival for nine strangers who have been kidnapped by a masked gunman and told that one of them will die every ten minutes until they discover how they are all connected. Who of the nine lives and who dies?

When his fiancee is kidnapped by human traffickers, Roman and his ex-military brothers set out to track her down and save her before it is too late. Along the way, Roman teams up with Avery, a cop investigating human trafficking and fighting the corrupt bureaucracy that has harmful intentions.

UNREQUITED is a psychological thriller and tells the story of Ben Jacobs, a troubled young man who, on his 18th birthday, has to leave the group home for "troubled teens" where he has been living for the past several months and move back in with his alcoholic mother. Upon his return, Ben soon discovers that his girlfriend, Jessica Morgan, has moved on with her life and is now dating an older college guy. Desperate for love and unable to cope with losing Jessica, Ben's troubled past catches up with him as he kidnaps her in an attempt to regain her affection. Spiraling out of control and on a very dangerous path, Ben must ultimately decide whether to let her go, or hold on to the one person he loves, even if it means destroying them both in the process.

An unidentified man posts a live feed on social media showing that he has kidnapped two strangers and intends to kill one before the day is out. His intention is to hold a capital 'trial' online. As the authorities recognize what's happening, it becomes apparent that the online public is going to act as judge and jury.

Jack is a young boy of 5 years old who has lived all his life in one room. He believes everything within it are the only real things in the world. But what will happen when his Ma suddenly tells him that there are other things outside of Room?

Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are—or how they got there. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, ruthless elitists gather at a remote location to hunt humans for sport. But their master plan is about to be derailed when one of the hunted turns the tables on her pursuers.

Two bruised hearts, 8-year-old Naomi and Kabir find solace in each other. They are both lonely and nursing psychological scars and mysterious tragedy. Naomi’s mother is a drug addict-peddler and Kabir loses the only person he loves. The talkative kid-next-door becomes the reclusive pawn shop owner’s only reason to live. When her life is endangered, his soul is awakened once again.

The anomalous heat wave overwhelms everything, forcing everyone to reverse the pace of life: only during the hours of darkness it is possible to work, move, survive. And it is precisely in the middle of the night that Samantha emerges from the darkness that had swallowed her. A thirteen year old kidnapped and long held prisoner, Sam is now suddenly free and, traumatized and wounded, is hospitalized in a hospital room. Next to her, Dr. Green (Dustin Hoffman), an extraordinary profiler. Green in fact does not hunt monsters in the outside world, but in the minds of the victims. Because it is inside the memories of Sam that the clues able to lead to the capture of his jailer are hidden: the Man of the Labyrinth. But Dr. Green is not the only one chasing the monster. There is also Bruno Genko (Toni Servillo), a private investigator with an unexpected talent.

The sudden disappearance of a wealthy banker's wife cracks open a dizzying world of secret fetishes, desperate acts and elaborate deceptions.