Tumbbad is not just a film, it’s an experience carved from myth, morality, and rain. From its first frame, it pulls viewers into a world where desire takes shape, temptation has a face, and every drop of gold glitters with consequence. That haunting mix of beauty and horror is what makes Tumbbad unforgettable.
Released in 2018, the film blends folklore and allegory within a visually rich, rain-soaked landscape. Its creature mythology, period setting, and painterly visuals feel both ancient and startlingly modern. Viewers return for its meditation on inheritance, guilt, and the ruin that follows unchecked ambition.
This list gathers films that echo those same qualities myth-rooted horror, moral storytelling, and immersive worlds where human flaws become the truest monsters.
Why People Love Tumbbad
Audiences are drawn to Tumbbad because it goes beyond typical horror tropes and delves into something deeper the way desire and guilt intertwine, the way folklore can mirror human weakness. Its long rainy nights, its mythic beast, and its haunting mood combine into something unforgettable.
Moreover the film feels both old and new: rooted in ancient Indian myth yet directed and produced like an international art film. The mix of atmosphere and allegory gives it staying power for viewers who seek more than jump scares.
What Makes a Movie Similar to Tumbbad
Movies akin to Tumbbad tend to share a certain DNA: mythological or folklore roots, moral complexity, psychological horror, rich atmosphere, and often a visual style that elevates the narrative. They don’t rely purely on monsters but also on what those monsters represent greed, guilt, obsession, legacy.
When you see a film where human flaws are monstrous, where setting and story intertwine and where myth becomes metaphor then you’re in that same realm as Tumbbad — and you’ll likely appreciate the films that follow.
What People Are Saying on Reddit and Twitter
Across Reddit and Twitter fans continue to celebrate Tumbbad as “a visual poem about greed” and “one of the greatest Indian films ever made”. In a Reddit thread someone wrote: > “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed…” (https://www.reddit.com/r/bollywood/comments/176u3sj/the_world_has_enough_for_everyones_needs_but_not/)
Another viewer on X shared: “Watched Tumbbad again after years still gives chills. It’s not horror it’s mythology and madness intertwined.”
The Top 25 Movies Like Tumbbad
Pans Labyrinth 2006
Channel: Netflix
Release Date: October 11 2006
IMDb Rating: 8.2
Guillermo del Toro crafts a dark fairy tale where fantasy and fascism collide through a childs eyes. Like Tumbbad, the film uses myth to examine human cruelty and desire, wrapping moral questions in sumptuous design and melancholy wonder. Its fawn, labyrinth, and underground visions mirror the allure and danger of seeking forbidden knowledge. The story’s emotional pull arrives through choices that cannot be undone, reminding viewers that magic rarely saves us from the consequences of greed and fear.
The Witch 2015
Channel: Amazon Prime Video
Release Date: January 27 2015
IMDb Rating: 6.9
Robert Eggers builds dread from faith, isolation, and whispers in the woods. A family exiled to a harsh frontier confronts superstition and fracture from within. The slow burn tension echoes Tumbbad’s patience, letting atmosphere reveal how belief can twist love into suspicion. Nature feels sentient and hungry, and the past presses on the present with ritual weight. It is a tale where prayer and temptation circle each other, and where a bargain promises freedom yet demands something irretrievable.
The Orphanage 2007
Channel: Shudder
Release Date: March 28 2007
IMDb Rating: 7.5
J A Bayona delivers a ghost story soaked in grief and memory. A woman returns to her childhood home and awakens echoes she cannot ignore. In the spirit of Tumbbad, the house is more than a location. It is a ledger of secrets and debts that shape the living. The film favors tenderness and mystery over shock, slowly revealing how love and guilt bind the past to the present. Its final revelation turns terror into aching compassion without losing its chill.
The Wailing 2016
Channel: Criterion Channel
Release Date: June 8 2016
IMDb Rating: 7.5
Na Hong jin fuses rural folklore, possession, and police procedural into a relentless spiral of doubt. Villagers face an outbreak of violence that seems part sickness and part curse. Like Tumbbad, the film refuses easy answers, letting superstition, ritual, and human panic feed one another. The setting feels ancient even when modern, and every clue deepens uncertainty. By the time the shaman drums crescendo, viewers feel the tragedy of people who bargain with powers they barely understand.
Apostle 2018
Channel: Netflix
Release Date: October 12 2018
IMDb Rating: 6.3
Gareth Evans leaves action behind for a moody folk horror about fanaticism and control. A man infiltrates a remote island cult, discovering a captive divinity beneath the soil. Tumbbad fans will recognize the allure of sacred abundance and the rot beneath it. The village is a ritual machine that grinds everyone who feeds it. Wood creaks, lanterns flicker, and the land itself demands sacrifice. It is a parable of founders who imprison gods, then become prisoners of their own hunger.
The Ritual 2017
Channel: Netflix
Release Date: September 15 2017
IMDb Rating: 6.3
Old guilt and an older deity stalk four friends in the Scandinavian wilderness. The Ritual shares Tumbbad’s fascination with mythic beings tied to place, where a forest is both cathedral and trap. Grief makes its own maze, and apologies arrive far too late. The creature design feels born from carved wood and antler crowns, suggesting a culture that never really died. As offerings pile up, the friends learn that memory and worship can be indistinguishable forms of surrender.
Crimson Peak 2015
Channel: Amazon Prime Video
Release Date: October 16 2015
IMDb Rating: 6.5
This gothic romance frames ghosts as warnings rather than terrors. Guillermo del Toro paints with velvet reds, crumbling walls, and snow that falls like ash. Tumbbad admirers will appreciate the way architecture holds history and sin, and how inheritance binds people to ruin. The house groans with secrets, and every corridor is a memory that leaks. While the story brims with love and betrayal, its true subject is legacy, the thing that lures and poisons in equal measure.
The Devils Backbone 2001
Channel: Criterion Channel
Release Date: August 31 2001
IMDb Rating: 7.5
Set during the Spanish Civil War, this tale of an orphanage and a lingering spirit treats the supernatural as the residue of violence. Like Tumbbad, it is an allegory where treasure is really truth and discovery hurts. The unexploded bomb in the courtyard becomes a perfect emblem of suspended catastrophe. Innocence and cruelty share the same rooms, and every kindness costs something. The film endures because it believes ghosts are not strangers but the parts of the past we refuse to face.
Hereditary 2018
Channel: Max
Release Date: June 8 2018
IMDb Rating: 7.3
A family unravels under the weight of inheritance both mundane and occult. Ari Aster turns grief into architecture and turns a household into a ritual space. Tumbbad fans will recognize the terror of legacies we did not choose and can no longer refuse. Miniatures mirror lives, and secrets whisper through bloodlines. The film builds dread from fate rather than surprise, asking what we become when the story of our family has already been written elsewhere in careful script.
Midsommar 2019
Channel: Peacock
Release Date: July 3 2019
IMDb Rating: 7.1
Sunlit ceremonies conceal an ever tighter net of belonging and loss. The communal pageantry feels ancient and serene until you notice the cost of harmony. Like Tumbbad, the film treats ritual as both solace and snare. Grief makes the protagonist susceptible to a culture that promises meaning but requires surrender. Flowers and runes become a grammar of inevitability. By the end, affection and horror mingle so closely that the final smile feels like a prayer and a warning.
Under the Shadow 2016
Channel: Criterion Channel
Release Date: August 11 2016
IMDb Rating: 6.7
Babak Anvari sets a djinn tale within wartime Tehran, weaving domestic fear with public danger. The cracked ceiling and sirens heighten the sense that curses and bombs share one vocabulary of dread. Tumbbad fans will value how myth speaks to contemporary anxiety without losing specific cultural texture. A mother and child navigate both patriarchy and the supernatural, and the apartment turns into a map of obligations and losses. The final images linger as both escape and inheritance.
It Follows 2014
Channel: Hulu
Release Date: March 13 2014
IMDb Rating: 6.8
David Robert Mitchell gives a simple curse terrifying elegance. An entity walks, never runs, but it always finds you. Like Tumbbad, the film operates as allegory and nightmare at once. The suburbs feel timeless and out of time, a dream of America where every streetlight hides a figure moving closer. Friends form a frail chain against inevitability, exploring what we owe each other when fate cannot be beaten. The ending invites debate without breaking its eerie spell.
The Babadook 2014
Channel: Peacock
Release Date: January 17 2014
IMDb Rating: 6.8
Jennifer Kent turns grief and resentment into a storybook monster that will not be ignored. The film shares Tumbbad’s commitment to symbolism that grows from character. A mother and son struggle to survive a presence that feeds on denial, and the house becomes an index of unspoken truths. The creature is less villain than mirror. By the final scenes, the narrative suggests that some horrors must be managed rather than slain, which is its most courageous idea.
The Lighthouse 2019
Channel: Apple TV Plus
Release Date: October 18 2019
IMDb Rating: 7.4
Two keepers descend into obsession while waves gnaw at stone and sanity. Robert Eggers shoots like a sailor telling a curse by lamplight. Tumbbad fans will appreciate the mythic allusions to punishment, forbidden light, and the cost of looking where we are warned not to look. Seabirds judge, a beacon tempts, and stories compete until truth feels like a tide. It is a study of masculinity and madness that reads like a parable carved in salt.
Goodnight Mommy 2014
Channel: Shudder
Release Date: August 22 2014
IMDb Rating: 6.7
Twin boys confront a mother they barely recognize after surgery, and trust erodes scene by scene. The Austrian countryside feels sterile and uncanny, like a clinic for doubt. Tumbbad viewers will find familiar the way domestic rituals become stages for dread. The film thrives on silence, close frames, and gestures that ask more questions than dialogue answers. Its twist does not erase the sadness. What remains is the realization that love can curdle into fear when grief stays unnamed.
The Others 2001
Channel: Peacock
Release Date: August 2 2001
IMDb Rating: 7.6
Nicole Kidman anchors a slow, elegant haunting that prizes atmosphere over spectacle. Thick fog and shuttered rooms turn faith into a fragile candle. Like Tumbbad, the film believes that ghosts arise from obligation and secrecy as much as from death. The rules of the house are precise, and the violation of those rules is where horror blooms. Its famous twist endures because it clarifies the theme rather than merely shocking, recasting fear as a plea for understanding.
Bone Tomahawk 2015
Channel: Max
Release Date: October 23 2015
IMDb Rating: 7.2
A frontier rescue mission becomes an encounter with something older than the West. The film blends classical Western rhythms with savage dread, exploring how civilization masks appetites it cannot escape. Tumbbad fans will recognize the motif of men seeking control over forces that reduce them to meat and myth. Sparse landscapes feel watchful, and every campfire looks like an altar. Violence arrives with ritual weight, less exploitation than grim ceremony, leaving characters and audience equally chastened.
Annihilation 2018
Channel: Netflix
Release Date: February 23 2018
IMDb Rating: 6.9
Alex Garland adapts Jeff VanderMeer into a luminous zone where biology and identity dissolve. The shimmer is a mirror that refracts grief and ambition into new species. Tumbbad viewers will appreciate the fusion of wonder and terror, and the way discovery becomes self consumption. The lighthouse climax plays like a dance with the self, a vision of transformation that is both rebirth and erasure. It is science fiction that works like folklore, warning that exploration is never neutral.
Kill List 2011
Channel: Shudder
Release Date: March 23 2011
IMDb Rating: 6.4
Ben Wheatley begins with a domestic thriller and ends in ritual darkness. As two hit men take a series of jobs, the world tilts from banal cruelty toward something ceremonial and uncanny. Tumbbad admirers will see the same interest in bargains that seem practical until the bill arrives. Humor rots into dread, and ordinary spaces hide symbols in plain sight. The finale reframes the entire journey as a trap set by belief, ambition, and an appetite for order.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe 2016
Channel: Amazon Prime Video
Release Date: December 21 2016
IMDb Rating: 6.8
A father and son team examines a mysterious corpse, and the morgue becomes a ritual chamber. The film shares Tumbbad’s love of confined spaces where knowledge equals danger. As clues accumulate, the body tells a history of persecution and vengeance that reaches into the present. Storms cut off escape, and each discovery invites another misfortune. The intimacy between the examiners gives the horror human stakes, ending on a note that suggests some truths should remain buried.
Tale of Tales 2015
Channel: Kanopy
Release Date: May 14 2015
IMDb Rating: 6.4
Matteo Garrone adapts Giambattista Basile into three baroque fables where desire ruins kings and commoners alike. The film belongs with Tumbbad for its conviction that fairy tales are not for comfort but to expose the hungers that govern us. Sea beasts, crones, and enchanted twins populate courts that would trade anything for power or love. Every bargain backfires, yet characters keep bargaining, which is the most human thing. The result is lavish, grotesque, and quietly devastating.
Errementari The Blacksmith and the Devil 2017
Channel: Netflix
Release Date: October 12 2017
IMDb Rating: 6.4
Basque folklore supplies a playful yet haunting tale of a blacksmith who imprisons a demon. Like Tumbbad, it treats devils as negotiators and humans as the more dangerous species. The film’s rural setting feels carved from legend, with iron, ash, and candle smoke turning moral questions into tangible textures. A brave child becomes the conscience of the story, pushing adults to face the cost of their deals. It is a reminder that wit can be a form of courage.
November 2017
Channel: Criterion Channel
Release Date: August 10 2017
IMDb Rating: 7.2
This Estonian folk fantasy bathes its village in frost and mischief. People bargain with the Devil, build creatures from farm tools, and steal from each other with earnest desperation. Tumbbad fans will relish how everyday poverty breeds inventive sin, and how love becomes another impossible trade. The black and white imagery feels like a dream logged by a medieval scribe. Humor softens the cruelty without excusing it, creating a world where wonder and hunger live side by side.
Tigers Are Not Afraid 2017
Channel: Shudder
Release Date: September 11 2017
IMDb Rating: 7.0
Issa Lopez follows orphaned children who use magic to survive cartel violence. The film belongs with Tumbbad because it treats fantasy as a language for grief. Chalk drawings and tiny wishes carry enormous weight, and ghosts walk in broad daylight. The kids build a fragile family, showing that courage is often just refusing to abandon one another. Its ending balances sorrow and hope, suggesting that stories can shield us even when they cannot change what the world has taken.
Kwaidan 1964
Channel: Criterion Channel
Release Date: December 22 1964
IMDb Rating: 7.9
Masaki Kobayashi paints four Japanese ghost stories with theatrical sets and hypnotic color. The film shares Tumbbad’s dedication to atmosphere where sound and design carry as much meaning as plot. Each tale contemplates obligation and betrayal, showing how the living and the dead negotiate unfinished business. Though older than the other selections, Kwaidan remains essential because it demonstrates that horror can be elegant ceremony. It is a master class in how myth and image create enduring unease.
Final Words
Tumbbad proved that horror can be poetic that the darkest tales can hold mirrors to our deepest truths. It showed audiences that monsters are rarely born; they’re made from human hunger, pride, and regret. Each film on this list carries a fragment of that same spell: a fascination with greed, myth, and the unseen forces that shape our choices. Whether set in misty villages, gilded halls, or lonely forests, these stories remind us that desire always demands payment.
In the end, Tumbbad is not just about gold it’s about the price of forgetting our limits. The films here continue that conversation in different tongues and traditions, showing how fear and morality intertwine across cultures. Watch them not just for chills, but for reflection. Because sometimes, the scariest thing in any legend isn’t the creature in the dark it’s the part of ourselves that still believes we can control it.
