If Apex Left You Breathless, Try These 10 Movies

Looking for movies like Apex? The best picks are survival thrillers and cat-and-mouse hunts — films where isolated protagonists face cunning predators. Start with Collateral, The Hunt, and Hard Candy for that same desperate, edge-of-your-seat energy.

There’s a particular kind of adrenaline that hits when a character realizes they’re not exploring the wilderness — they’re being stalked through it. Apex, directed by Baltasar Kormákur and starring Charlize Theron as a grieving woman trapped in the Australian wild by a methodical killer, taps into something primal. The tagline says it all: “Hunt. Survive.” Two words that reduce the entire thriller genre to its most essential wiring. I watched the opening act with my jaw slightly unhinged, not because the premise is revolutionary, but because Kormákur — who knows a thing or two about isolated survival stories from his work on Adrift and Everest — frames the Australian outback like it’s actively conspiring against you.

Why Fans Love Apex

What makes Apex work isn’t just the cat-and-mouse mechanics. It’s the collision of grief and survival instinct. Theron’s Sasha isn’t a trained assassin or a final girl from central casting — she’s a woman processing loss by pushing her body to its limits, only to discover that the wilderness has teeth beyond anything she imagined. That emotional undercurrent elevates what could have been a straightforward hunt picture into something with genuine psychological weight.

The Australian setting does heavy lifting too. Vast, indifferent, and stunningly photographed, the landscape becomes a character — one that offers no comfort and fewer hiding spots. At a lean 96 minutes, Kormákur keeps the tension coiled tight. There’s no fat on this production, no unnecessary subplots cluttering the central chase. Just a predator who underestimates his prey and a woman who discovers exactly how far she’ll go to survive.

The supporting cast adds texture without distracting. Taron Egerton’s Ben and Eric Bana’s Tommy each bring distinct energy to the tension, while Caitlin Stasey and Bessie Holland round out a ensemble that feels grounded rather than glamorous. The TMDb rating sits at 6.4 — and honestly, that tracks. Apex isn’t a masterpiece. The third act stumbles into familiar territory, and some of the killer’s motivations feel pulled from a lesser screenplay draft. But the atmosphere? The dread? The way sound design makes every snapping twig feel like a death sentence? Those elements linger long after the credits roll.

If you’re hunting for films that scratch the same itch — the hunted-human thriller, the wilderness survival pressure cooker, the cat-and-mouse psychological duel — these ten picks will carry you through.

1. Collateral (2004)

Michael Mann’s nocturnal masterpiece shares Apex’s fascination with a predator who operates with chilling precision. Tom Cruise’s hitman Vincent and Jamie Foxx’s cab driver Max become locked in a forced companionship that’s really a slow-motion hunt through Los Angeles. The urban jungle replaces the Australian outback, but the dynamic — a cunning killer who believes they control every variable encountering someone who refuses to be prey — mirrors Apex’s central tension. Mann’s diegetic sound design and digital cinematography create a Los Angeles that feels as hostile and indifferent as any wilderness.

📖 Related: Check out our full cast guide

2. The Hunt (2020)

Betty Gilpin stars in this blunt-force satire where wealthy elites hunt working-class people for sport. If the “twisted game” aspect of Apex hooked you, Craig Zobel’s film takes that concept to its most extreme, cartoonish conclusion. What starts as broad political commentary sharpens into a genuinely tense survival thriller once Gilpin’s Crystal starts flipping the script. The tonal shifts won’t work for everyone — this movie swings between vicious comedy and earnest action — but when it clicks, it delivers the same satisfaction of watching a predator realize they’ve become the prey.

3. Hard Candy (2005)

David Slade’s debut feature is essentially Apex’s psychological DNA compressed into a single room. Ellen Page (pre-transition, credited as Elliot Page) and Patrick Wilson engage in a grueling cat-and-mouse game where power dynamics shift so violently you’ll need a scorecard. The film asks the same question Apex poses: what happens when someone who thinks they’re the hunter meets someone with sharper instincts? Slade’s direction is claustrophobic in the best way, and the tension escalates through dialogue and performance rather than action set pieces. A masterclass in controlled chaos.

4. The Revenant (2015)

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s survival epic shares more DNA with Apex than you’d expect. Both films strand their protagonists in hostile wilderness, both transform grief into fuel for survival, and both treat landscape as an antagonist. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass endures a bear mauling, betrayal, and near-death exposure — and while Apex operates on a smaller canvas, Theron’s Sasha channels a similar feral determination. Iñárritu’s film is longer, more punishing, and far more visually ambitious, but the emotional core — someone refusing to die despite every reason to surrender — rhymes perfectly.

5. Blood Diamond (2006)

Edward Zwick’s conflict thriller appears in Apex’s TMDb recommendations, and the connection makes sense once you look past surface genre differences. Both films thrust characters into lawless territories where survival depends on reading threats faster than they materialize. Leonardo DiCaprio’s smuggler and Djimon Hounsou’s desperate father navigate Sierra Leone’s diamond wars, and while the political stakes dwarf Apex’s personal story, the visceral tension of being hunted through territory that offers no safe harbor feels cut from similar cloth. Zwick’s film is also 96 minutes longer — a reminder that Kormákur’s restraint with runtime is genuinely admirable.

6. Hannibal Rising (2007)

TMDb lists this as a direct similarity, and the logic holds: both films explore the psychology of predators and the formative experiences that create them. Peter Webber’s origin story for Hannibal Lecter tracks a young man shaped by wartime trauma who learns to hunt with methodical precision. Gaspard Ulliel brings an unsettling elegance to the role. The film falters when it leans into origin-story obligations, but its best moments — the quiet, predatory sequences where Hannibal calculates his next move — capture the same cat-and-mouse electricity that makes Apex compelling. Worth watching for the atmosphere alone.

7. Wake in Fright (1971)

Ted Kotcheff’s Australian nightmare is the godfather of every outback thriller that followed, Apex included. Gary Bond plays a schoolteacher stranded in a mining town that slowly, systematically strips away his civility. This isn’t a hunt in the literal sense — there’s no single predator stalking prey through the bush — but the film captures something essential about Australian masculinity as a hostile force. The kangaroo hunting sequence remains one of the most disturbing sequences in cinema history. If Apex’s Australian setting gripped you, this is the essential companion piece. It’s the film that proved the outback could be cinema’s most terrifying landscape decades before anyone else tried.

8. Alone (2020)

John Hyams directed this stripped-down survival thriller that feels like Apex’s leaner, meaner cousin. Jules Wilcox plays a woman relocating to start a new life who crosses paths with a methodical serial killer on a remote stretch of Pacific Northwest highway. What follows is a relentless pursuit through dense forest territory. The film earns comparison to Apex through its twin commitments: first, to portraying a grieving protagonist whose emotional state becomes survival fuel; second, to a killer whose calm demeanor masks genuine menace. At 98 minutes, it matches Apex’s tight pacing and refuses to pad its runtime with unnecessary backstory.

9. Ready or Not (2019)

Samara Weaving’s bride discovers her new in-laws hunt humans on their wedding night in Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s gloriously unhinged thriller. The “twisted game” premise aligns directly with Apex’s central hook, though Ready or Not coats everything in dark comedy that Apex pointedly avoids. Weaving brings the same physical commitment Theron does — battered, bloody, refusing to quit. The film’s satirical edge gives it a different texture, but the underlying satisfaction of watching someone flip a predatory scenario remains identical. A more fun version of the nightmare Apex takes seriously.

10. Strangled (2016)

Árpád Sopsits’s Hungarian thriller rounds out this list as one of TMDb’s recommended companions to Apex, and it earns that placement through its unflinching examination of a predator operating with terrifying methodical precision. Based on real serial killings in 1960s Hungary, the film follows both the killer’s calculated movements and the investigation struggling to catch up. It’s heavier going than Apex — slower, more methodical, less concerned with action set pieces. But for viewers who want to understand the psychology behind the “cunning killer” archetype that Apex employs, Strangled offers a harrowing masterclass. Not for the faint-hearted, but impossible to shake.

Honorable Mentions

Tracks (2013) — Mia Wasikowska traverses the Australian outback solo. No killer on her trail, but the same hostile wilderness and isolation that make Apex’s setting so effective.

You’re Next (2011) — Adam Wingard’s home invasion thriller flips the prey-predator dynamic with vicious wit. The animal masks make it more horror-leaning, but the satisfaction of watching hunters become hunted is identical.

The Descent (2005) — Neil Marshall traps six women in an unmapped cave system with creatures that hunt by sound. Claustrophobic, intense, and a reminder that sometimes the wilderness doesn’t need a human predator to become lethal.

Blue Ruin (2013) — Jeremy Saulnier’s revenge thriller shares Apex’s interest in what happens when grief becomes action. Smaller scale, but the feral energy of someone with nothing left to lose feels deeply familiar.