20 Mind-Bending Movies to Watch If You Loved Severance

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - March 24th 2025, 21:25 GMT+1

Cropped Playtime — PlayTime (1967)

If *Severance* had a great-uncle who didn’t say much but subtly dismantled the soul-crushing grind of modern work through elaborate slapstick and endless glass architecture, it would be *PlayTime*. Jacques Tati’s masterstroke is basically one long, minimalist, dialogue-light fever dream where people wander sterile office spaces and alienating cityscapes that seem designed to make humans feel like ants in a glass maze. It’s more about mood than plot, and if you’ve ever been in a fluorescent-lit meeting room wondering what your life has become, you’ll feel right at home. Imagine *Severance*'s Lumon building, but with more accidental pratfalls and fewer mind-wipes. | © Les Films de Mon Oncle

Cropped 1984 — 1984 (1984)

Here’s a warm-and-fuzzy tale of love, hope, and personal freedom—*just kidding*, it's *1984*. Based on George Orwell’s iconic novel, this grim dystopian vision stars John Hurt and Richard Burton and makes the severed minds of Lumon employees seem almost quaint. Surveillance? Check. Soul-erasing bureaucracy? Double check. An all-powerful corporation... I mean, government? Bingo. Watching this is like peering into the nightmare that might’ve inspired *Severance*’s break room. If Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel had a bedtime story to read to her innies, this would be it. | © Virgin Films

Cropped Brazil — Brazil (1985)

If Terry Gilliam made *Severance*, it would look a lot like *Brazil*. Bureaucratic nightmares? Check. Endless forms and departments? Check. A protagonist just trying to break free from a soul-grinding system? Check, check, check. This cult classic is basically a cartoonishly absurd, dystopian fever dream where logic gets steamrolled by red tape. Jonathan Pryce’s everyman character could easily be a Lumon employee who accidentally discovers there's a world beyond the break room—sound familiar, Adam Scott? It’s messy, funny, horrifying, and weirdly beautiful—basically *Severance*, but with more pipes and ductwork. | © Embassy International Pictures

Cropped Barton Fink — Barton Fink (1991)

So you’re an ambitious guy trying to climb the corporate—or literary—ladder, but the walls are closing in and your hotel might be hell? Welcome to *Barton Fink*, where the Coen Brothers serve up paranoia, writer’s block, and wallpaper that peels ominously. John Turturro stars as a screenwriter unraveling in a sticky, surreal Hollywood purgatory that gives Lumon’s claustrophobic office halls a run for their money. It’s a story about the horrors of being trapped—mentally, physically, artistically—something Severance’s Zach Cherry might appreciate as he counts down the macrodata refinements for the thousandth time. | © Circle Films

Cropped eing John Malkovich — Being John Malkovich (1999)

This one asks: what if you could literally crawl into someone else’s mind? And no, we’re not talking about mind-wiping tech à la Lumon. In Spike Jonze’s *Being John Malkovich*, a puppeteer (played by John Cusack, obviously) finds a portal into the actor John Malkovich’s consciousness, because why not? It’s all gloriously bizarre, uncomfortably funny, and absolutely Severance-coded. The film’s themes of identity, control, and the deeply weird mechanics of personhood could easily be discussed over a waffle party with Britt Lower’s Helly. Plus, the office is on floor 7½. Enough said. | © Propaganda Films

Cropped Dark City — Dark City (1998)

Take *Severance*'s mystery-box intrigue and inject it with a noir filter, aliens in fedoras, and cityscapes that rearrange like Ikea furniture on a sugar high—voilà, *Dark City*. Rufus Sewell stars as a man with no memory (relatable, innies?), hunted by trench coat-wearing "Strangers" who manipulate reality like they’ve got a god complex and a lot of time on their hands. The city never sees daylight, and time doesn’t flow right—sound familiar, Mark S? *Severance*'s eerie artificial world feels like it shares DNA with this cult classic. You might half-expect Patricia Arquette’s character to pop up and say, “Sleep now.” | © New Line Cinema

Cropped The Truman Show — The Truman Show (1998)

Jim Carrey in an existential crisis? Yes please. *The Truman Show* may be a little sunnier than *Severance*, but its themes hit just as hard: identity, surveillance, and the creeping suspicion that your life is not your own. Truman’s picture-perfect world is as manufactured as Lumon’s sterile office halls, and just like Adam Scott’s Mark, he starts to sense that something is very, very off. Bonus: the ominous corporation here is a literal TV network. If you’ve ever felt like someone’s watching your every move at work (hi, Harmony Cobel), this film gets you. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped e Xisten Z — eXistenZ (1999)

Before there was *Severance*’s mind-body split, there was David Cronenberg’s *eXistenZ*—a gooey, squishy, brain-twisting descent into virtual reality. Jennifer Jason Leigh (who, let’s not forget, practically is Lumon’s enigmatic queen bee in *Severance*) stars as a VR game designer caught in a reality that’s constantly glitching. Flesh ports? Check. Paranoia? Double check. Losing track of what’s real? Honestly, that’s just a Tuesday at Lumon. This film is Cronenberg doing what he does best: making you question your meat suit and the fabric of reality in equal measure. | © Alliance Atlantis

Cropped Office Space — Office Space (1999)

Now for a slight tonal pivot—from horror to hilarity. *Office Space* is like *Severance*’s goofy cousin who quit macrodata refinement to destroy a printer with a baseball bat. This Mike Judge cult classic nails corporate soul-suck in a way that might make Zach Cherry’s Dylan stand up and cheer (or at least roll his chair aggressively). TPS reports, fluorescent lights, meaningless middle management—it’s all here, minus the brain surgery. But underneath the jokes, the film captures that quiet desperation that drives *Severance*'s innies to rebel. Plus, no waffle parties... but there is flair. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Imagine if *Severance* wasn’t about work/life balance but love/loss suppression. Charlie Kaufman’s poetic, chaotic *Eternal Sunshine* stars Jim Carrey (again!) and Kate Winslet as two ex-lovers who literally erase each other from their memories. Sounds like a romantic version of Lumon’s chip, no? If Britt Lower’s Helly ever got romantically entangled with Adam Scott’s Mark S and then asked to be "clean-slated," this would be her emotional training video. It's funny, sad, dreamlike, and sometimes feels like someone spilled your brain across a surreal IKEA catalog. | © Focus Features

Cropped Moon — Moon (2009)

If *Severance* had a lunar branch, Sam Bell would be employee of the decade… mostly because he’s the *only* employee—and, well, technically not always the same one. *Moon*, directed by Duncan Jones, is a minimalist sci-fi brain-bender featuring Sam Rockwell giving multiple performances as a solitary worker unraveling a corporate secret so huge, it makes Lumon’s innie-outie tech look like office gossip. The isolation, the moral grayness, the corporate coldness—it’s all very *Severance*. I mean, Helly would 100% unionize this moonbase in five minutes. | © Sony Pictures Classics

Cropped The Double — The Double (2013)

Jesse Eisenberg meets Jesse Eisenberg in this darkly hilarious, Kafkaesque nightmare where one man’s mundane life is turned upside down by a doppelgänger who’s better at everything. *The Double* is kind of like *Severance* if Mark S’s innie and outie met… and one was way cooler. Directed by Richard Ayoade with that perfect blend of deadpan weirdness and bureaucratic horror, this film feels like a fever dream that someone at Lumon HR would definitely *not* approve. Also, if Tramell Tillman’s Milchick had to mentor both Jesses, he’d probably just start dancing to relieve the stress. | © StudioCanal

Cropped The One I Love — The One I Love (2014)

Mark and Helly, but make it couples therapy with a sci-fi twist. *The One I Love* stars Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass as a struggling couple who head off to a retreat that turns very *Black Mirror* very fast. Without spoiling too much (because discovering the twist is half the fun), let’s just say identity gets weird and no one leaves quite the same. It's like Lumon tried to fix relationships using experimental tech instead of wellness sessions. Patricia Arquette would *absolutely* greenlight this weekend getaway. | © RADiUS-TWC

Cropped Ex Machina — Ex Machina (2015)

Imagine you’re an employee flown to a sleek, remote tech compound to interview a mysterious new AI, and your boss is… let’s just say *intense*. That’s *Ex Machina*, Alex Garland’s chillingly sleek take on consciousness, manipulation, and good old-fashioned corporate deception. Oscar Isaac is the most brooding tech bro ever, Alicia Vikander’s Ava is a robot who knows *exactly* what she’s doing, and the whole thing plays like a beautiful HR violation. It’s the kind of twisted psychological puzzle that Adam Scott’s Mark would totally spiral into if Lumon added androids to the mix. | © A24

Cropped The Lobster — The Lobster (2015)

From Yorgos Lanthimos (king of awkward silences and emotional detachment), *The Lobster* imagines a world where being single gets you turned into an animal. Yes, really. Colin Farrell plays a man trying to survive a dystopian dating resort where failure to find love means zoological transformation. The tone is so dry it’s practically sandpaper, and the bureaucracy is delightfully cruel—just the way *Severance* fans like it. You can practically hear Helly saying, “Wait, I want to be a lobster,” just to spite the system. | © Element Pictures

Cropped Sorry to Bother You — Sorry To Bother You (2018)

*Sorry To Bother You* is what happens when *Severance* drops acid and joins a telemarketing cult. Boots Riley’s wild debut film follows Lakeith Stanfield as a down-on-his-luck caller who discovers the secret to corporate success is… sounding like a white guy. From there, it spirals into absurdity, complete with horse-people, labor revolts, and Armie Hammer playing an Elon Musk-meets-Satan CEO. It’s anti-capitalist, surreal, and laugh-out-loud bizarre—basically, if Dylan (Zach Cherry) quit Lumon and joined a more colorful nightmare. It’s satire with a sledgehammer, and we love it. | © Annapurna Pictures

Cropped Freaks — Freaks (2018)

No, not the Tod Browning one from the ’30s—this *Freaks* is a taut, sci-fi indie thriller that’s part *Room*, part *X-Men*, and all paranoia. A young girl lives locked inside with her father, who swears the outside world is too dangerous—but who’s really the threat here? The film keeps you guessing, pulling the same kind of narrative sleight-of-hand that *Severance* fans live for. There’s something deeply Lumon about an organization hiding the truth “for your own good.” It’s the kind of movie Helly would watch and think, “Wow, this kid has *way* more autonomy than me.” | © Well Go USA Entertainment

Cropped High Life — High Life (2018)

Robert Pattinson in space, but make it moody, slow, and slightly horrifying. *High Life* is Claire Denis' cosmic poem about isolation, sex, death, and doomed experiments aboard a prison-ship hurtling into a black hole. It’s visually stunning and emotionally bleak, sort of like Lumon’s wellness floor but with more gravity (or lack thereof). Andre 3000 and Juliette Binoche also appear, because why not add a dash of art-house chaos to your existential crisis? If Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel ran a spaceship instead of an office, it would look a lot like this. | © A24

Cropped Vivarium — Vivarium (2019)

You move into a nice suburban development. The homes are all identical. You can't leave. You’re given a mysterious child to raise. Cool cool cool. *Vivarium* is like *The Sims* programmed by Kafka, and it stars Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg as a couple trapped in a freaky real estate purgatory. The film plays like a metaphor for forced domesticity, capitalism, and alienation—aka the weekend reading list for Mark S. If Lumon had a residential division, this would be the model home, complete with inescapable cul-de-sac. | © Vertigo Releasing

Cropped After Yang — After Yang (2021)

Colin Farrell stars (again!) in this quiet, deeply human sci-fi tale about grief, memory, and the blurry line between artificial intelligence and family. When a beloved android named Yang breaks down, a family begins to unravel the rich, hidden layers of his existence. *After Yang* is emotionally reserved but devastating—like a wellness session that actually *works*. You get that same deep ache as when you watch Mark S long for his wife, only this time it's wrapped in elegant minimalism and soft lighting. Britt Lower’s Helly might actually cry at this one—and we’d cry with her. | © A24

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If Severance left you questioning reality, craving more unsettling office spaces, or just wanting another fix of eerie, existential storytelling—you're in the right place. Apple TV+’s hit series has captured the imaginations of sci-fi lovers and dark comedy fans alike, blending corporate satire, emotional depth, and psychological mystery into a binge-worthy masterpiece. But what do you watch after the final Lumon hallway fades to black?

In this list, we’ve rounded up 20 films that share Severance's DNA—whether it’s the identity-splitting weirdness, the dystopian bureaucracy, or that uniquely chilling atmosphere. From cult classics to modern sci-fi gems, these movies will scratch that post-Severance itch and maybe even make you question your own “innie” and “outie.” Let’s dive into the strange, cerebral, and darkly hilarious world of Severance-adjacent cinema.