10 Best Movies Like The Platform To Watch Next

"The Platform" is a contained sci-fi horror-thriller from Spain, which premiered on Netflix in 2019. The film is about a man named Goreng (Iván Massagué), who wakes up in an imposing, gray concrete room built by a mysterious — and clearly malicious — government referred to only as "The Administration." The concrete room Goreng finds himself in is on platform Level 48 in a vast, prison-like structure that starts at the top, Level 0 — which is opulence defined, with violin players, exquisite suits, high-class chefs, and overly-decorative feasts to gorge on — down to seemingly an infinite amount of levels below. The lower the level you are, the less food you get, to the point where cellmates succumb to murder and cannibalism to survive.

Goreng's memorable first cellmate is the stodgy Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), who chides Goreng derisively as a communist for wanting to help those on the lower platforms, implying that the aforementioned "Administration" is a fascistic – and capitalistic – regime (which makes sense, given Spain's history dealing with brutal fascist governments in the recent past). Throughout the rest of the film, Goreng meets different cellmates and is sent to different lower levels of the concrete structure until, eventually, Goreng works to stage a rebellion from the bottom up.

"The Platform" itself was a critical and commercial success, which led to a sequel — the aptly titled "The Platform 2" — in 2024. Below, we'll talk about ten films that are similar to "The Platform," whether politically, aesthetically, or, pardon the pun, structurally.

Warning: spoilers ahead!

Snowpiercer (2013)

Based on the 1982 French comic "Le Transperceneige" by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, 2013's "Snowpiercer" is acclaimed South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's English-language debut. The film is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth that, following climate change disaster, is in a new ice age that has covered the entire world completely in snow (hence, the name "Snowpiercer"). Because of the aforementioned global catastrophe, a massive, technologically-advanced super-train was built by an eccentric inventor (Ed Harris) to house all of the Earth's surviving population in a bid to protect the human race from extinction.

Unfortunately, there is a massive class divide among the train, where — like "The Platform" (and, sadly, reality) — those in the front cars of the super-train eat better food, have more space, and generally live more lavishly.Meanwhile, those in the rear cars have less of everything, to the point of starvation, disease, and mass death. Also like "The Platform," the mass starvation caused by the greed of the ruling class leads to desperation ... and cannibalism. At one point, Chris Evans' character, Curtis Everett — a revolutionary from the rear tail cars who is leading a revolt against the front of the train — states hauntingly, "Babies taste best," when talking about what he had to do to survive.

There are even structural similarities in both films' narratives. As Everett travels from car to car with his revolutionary comrades, we see how the train differs the closer to the front he goes, much like Goreng's descent in "The Platform." Essentially, while "The Platform" constructs its sci-fi class metaphor vertically, "Snowpiercer" does it horizontally.

Parasite (2019)

One of the more interesting — and nuanced — aspects of "The Platform" is how it showcases the way that people from lower classes may turn on others they deem even lower than themselves. For instance, despite the fact that Goreng's first cellmate, Trimagasi, knows that all prisoners are moved to different levels every month — and that they are randomly assigned to levels above or below where they start — he still nonetheless disrespects and mistreats the people on levels lower than his on any particular month. This includes spitting on partially eaten food as it goes down and urinating on those below. Afterward, he mentions how those above them always do the same as well, and that it's just the nature of the place, while also unsubtly implying that it's the nature of human beings, too.

A similar dynamic is seen in the second Bong Joon-ho film on our list, "Parasite," which came out the same year as "The Platform." However, unlike Joon-ho's previous film, "Snowpiercer," "Parasite" was made entirely in South Korea. Its story follows the lower working class Kim family, who are talented but unlucky — until they con their way into the lives of the rich Park family. However, things get complicated when it turns out another servant, who is in an even lower social class, discovers the Kims' con and attempts to blackmail them ... which leads to deadly consequences. Unfortunately, like in "The Platform," the lower class does more to hurt themselves than the ruling class exploiting them.

Us (2019)

The socially conscious horror-satire "Get Out," released in 2017, was acclaimed filmmaker Jordan Peele's feature film directorial debut, and it quickly became a massively successful commercial and critical hit. It not only made over $250 million dollars on a sparse $5 million dollar budget, but it was also nominated for Best Picture in 2018 and won Best Original Screenplay — which Peele wrote — the same year.

"Us" — which he also wrote and directed, and which came out the same year as "The Platform" and "Parasite" — is the highly anticipated follow-up to Peele's once-in-a-generation debut film. A much more ambitious film than "Get Out" in many ways, "Us" is about dangerous, murderous doppelgangers of a middle-class family, dressed in identical red jumpsuits as they stalk their seemingly innocent identical counterparts, trying to kill them and take over their lives. It is eventually revealed that these doppelgangers are a global threat, threatening to take over the world.

The similarities between "Us" and "The Platform" are numerous. For one, it's eventually revealed that the doppelgangers are part of a government experiment to control the populace. Until they're set free, they're forced to live in an underground facility — not too dissimilar to the one from "The Platform." It also deals with the theme of "haves" and "have nots" as Red, one of the doppelgangers, laments at one point about the lack of comforts her family had and which those above them take for granted; thus the doppelgangers' desperation and lack of options lead to an inevitable violent, bloody confrontation.

The Menu (2022)

While there are obviously other systems of control in place at the concrete facility Goreng and the others find themselves in, the biggest weapon the mysterious "Administration" holds over the prisoners is the utilization of food rations. As mentioned in the intro, in "The Platform," those on the top levels gorge themselves on the food placed on the eponymous lowering platform, creating a situation where the lower levels get less and less food until there's nothing left. And since prisoners have to remain on a particular level for a month, if they are on a low enough level that gets no food the entire time, many cellmates go insane — or rely on cannibalism — to survive.

Now, 2022's satirical dark comedy "The Menu" from 2022 isn't necessarily about starvation and cannibalism, but it is using food as a symbol to comment on class divisions within society. In "The Menu," Ralph Fiennes plays Julian Slowik, an enigmatic master class chef who invites rich socialites to his mysterious personal island. There, Slowik offers more and more abstracted dishes to his unsuspecting guests, until it's revealed he is going to kill everyone there because the guests are all bad people who either exploited their own employees, disrespected service workers, or underappreciated the art and craft of cooking.

While "The Platform" uses food to show how authoritarian regimes use starvation as a means to maintain systemic control, "The Menu" instead uses it as a way to comment on how capitalism and commercialization curdle passion, art, and, ultimately, culture.

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

The facility seen in "The Platform" is brutal and unforgiving, which makes it seem like a prison of some sort for criminals and/or subversives. While Trimagasi was indeed imprisoned there for killing someone, one of the more interesting plot twists revealed in a flashback is that Goreng willingly chose to enter the facility, volunteering to stay there for six months in exchange for accreditation. While we don't see how the "Administration" advertised the facility, it obviously didn't reveal the extent of the brutality those stuck there would face.

In 2018's hilarious dark political satire "Sorry to Bother You," from writer-director Boots Riley, a similar plot point exists. This film is set in a heightened world where a down-on-his-luck unemployed Black man named Cassius "Cash" Green (LaKeith Stanfield) hustles his way into a telemarketing job and gets ahead by using a fake "white voice" (David Cross).

Now, there are many pertinent themes that "Sorry to Bother You" shares with "The Platform." These include desperation spurred on by poverty, systemic class divisions, and even how race plays into those divisions; in "The Platform," we see how extra dismissively people treat Goreng's last cellmate, the dark-skinned Baharat, played by Emilio Buale. There's also the aforementioned plot point where a company is selling living in prisons as a good thing through manipulative, capitalistic marketing, at one point even showing a commercial where the prisons are made to look "cool and hip" like an "MTV Cribs" episode.

They Live (1988)

Much like "The Platform," John Carpenter's 1988 satirical sci-fi action film "They Live" uses a science fiction conceit to critique the structural inequalities inherent in capitalism and, really, any society that relies on strict hierarchies of "haves" and "have-nots." In Carpenter's story, evil aliens live among humans in secret, while "The Platform" has a fictional facility with anti-gravity technology.

"They Live" follows a buff drifter named Nada (wrestler-turned-actor "Rowdy" Roddy Piper) who is struggling to find work in the city. One day, he comes across a pair of special sunglasses that allow him to see the world for what it really is. He learns that the aforementioned evil aliens are disguising themselves as humans and are controlling humanity through subliminal messaging. For instance, with the glasses on, money reads, "This is your God," and billboards are emblazoned with the command, "Obey." Nada decides to fight back, leading to one of the greatest action movie lines ever: "I came here to kick a** and chew bubblegum ... and I'm all outta bubblegum!" He then begins blasting aliens away — unfortunately, still disguised as humans to everyone but Nada — with a shotgun.

Both "They Live" and "The Platform" end with a desperate man recruiting another, more skeptical man to their righteous crusade against the corrupt ruling elite. In "They Live," it's Keith David, a fellow working man, and in "The Platform," it's Goreng's cellmate, Baharat. Both films end on a symbolic, sacrificial gesture that is ambiguous while leaving the audience optimistic that it worked.

Cube (1997)

While most of the entries on this list are chosen for their political, thematic, and philosophical similarities to "The Platform," 1997's gory, contained horror film "Cube" has been chosen for its obvious aesthetic and narrative similarities. Both films are about strangers finding themselves trapped in a single location with multiple, mostly identical, rooms. Production on both films was also probably similar, considering the main difference between the different rooms in the eponymous giant cube is what color the walls are lit as, while practically the only difference between each cell in "The Platform"'s facility is the level number engraved on the wall.

The story of "Cube" involves five disparate strangers who try to escape the titular cube; however, every identical-looking room (again, save for the color of the walls) they find themselves in is beset by deadly traps, such as the famous scene where a man is gruesomely cut into tiny little pieces by metal wires (a death that was recreated in the first film of the "Resident Evil" franchise), melting acid, etc. Furthermore, each person responds differently to the stress of the situation, either by being violent, suicidal, or desperately hopeful, in a shockingly similar way to how each of Goreng's cellmates responds to their respective predicament in "The Platform."

There is also the existential question of who built the cube and why, with one character positing — chillingly — that there is no purpose, and that people are put in there to justify the time and cost it took building it in the first place.

The Hunger Games (2012)

It might seem strange to compare a hard-R dark, gory horror film like "The Platform" with a hugely popular blockbuster film based on YA novels that, at one point, rivaled the popularity of the "Harry Potter" series. In fact, "The Hunger Games" is actually the first film on our list not to be rated R! However, anyone with even just cursory knowledge of Katniss Everdeen's epic adventure through cultural osmosis would know that there are obviously many similarities shared between the films.

For one thing, both stories deal with seemingly all-powerful and corrupt fascistic governments that pit the lower classes against each other to maintain control over the populace. In "The Platform," the mysterious "Administration" has citizens from the lower class on different platforms in a massive concrete facility where those on the lower levels get less and less food until nothing is left — incentivizing disdain among the prisoners. The ones on the lower levels resent those above them for gorging on the food, and those above use their privilege to feel superior (even if only temporarily).

Meanwhile, in "The Hunger Games," the world is split up into different distinct districts where, as punishment for a prior revolution, a televised death match set up by the evil, ruling Capitol forces citizens from the underprivileged districts to compete to the death until there's only one left. These battles between the "haves" and "have-nots" are, in theory, meant to disincentivize further revolutions, but they eventually backfire in both films.

Metropolis (1927)

"Metropolis," German auteur Fritz Lang's epic silent film released in 1927, is unarguably one of the most influential science fiction films of all time. From its dystopian futuristic urban architecture influencing the look of films like "Blade Runner," to its state-of-the-art miniature work spearheading special effects for decades, to its robot design directly inspiring the look of C-3PO from the "Star Wars" franchise, its myriad of influences are staggering and all-encompassing.

Furthermore, like "The Platform," "Metropolis" uses sci-fi trappings to discuss the massive class divides found within an industrialized society. In "The Platform," as mentioned above, the "Administration" seems to be an opulent, fascistic, and capitalistic group that is using the large, concrete facility the characters find themselves in as a way to control the masses, offering a false sense of "solidarity" that Goreng's second cellmate, Imoguiri (Antonia San Juan), naively preaches about. In "Metropolis," a corrupt industrialist subjugates the working class below the city until a saboteur inventor creates a robot to lead the workers in revolt.

There have been accusations of the film as having both a communistic message (sympathizing with the plight of the workers in the underpart of the eponymous Metropolis), while others have convincingly argued it is a proto-fascist text (namely, how it shows revolution as ultimately folly and that workers need to remain subservient to capital and controlled by a singular mediator). However, regardless of Lang's intent — which seems to not have intended any fascistic messaging — it still is an amazing filmic achievement, regardless.

Strike! (1925)

There's a famous quote by Rod Serling, the creator of the seminal — and overtly-political — sci-fi series "The Twilight Zone," where he stated, forlornly, "I found that it was all right to have Martians saying things Democrats and Republicans could never say." Or, in other words, political ideas — especially radical political ideas — are often shunted into genres like science fiction where, theoretically, those concepts won't be subjected to much scrutiny (or worse, wildly misinterpreted, like "Star Wars" fans who glamorize the Galactic Empire).

Despite its sci-fi wrapping, the themes of "The Platform" are grounded in a real truth. In the real world, wealth inequality is rampant, food scarcity is on the rise, private prisons are being erected to curb societal discontent, and poverty and desperation — a direct causation of the aforementioned wealth inequality — are a leading cause of violence. These themes are also exemplified in the excellent 1925 silent Soviet film "Strike!," the most grounded movie on this list.

Helmed by famed director Sergei Eisenstein — who had previously popularized the now-ubiquitous editing technique of "the montage" — "Strike" doesn't focus on one main character. Instead, like Eisenstein's other 1925 epic, "Battleship Potemkin," the film presents a strike against a corrupt factory within the brutal tsarist empire as the collective effort it really was. The movie also attempts to emphasize that organizing a worker's revolution starts from the ground up, a message seen in "The Platform" when Goreng and Baharat attempt to fairly distribute the rations and send a message to the top levels.