10 Movies Like The Call to Watch Next

by Dojo! April 20, 2022 · Automatic

It happens occasionally on Netflix that an older movie is somehow discovered by a ton of folks, at the same time, and shoots to top of the streaming service’s most-watched films ranking. No one’s quite sure how this phenomenon happens, though one theory is that due to this era’s over-abundance of content a movie that’s new to Netflix — like The Call was when it hit the site on April 10 — actually get mistaken for a new release.
Last week, Halle Berry’s The Call, from 2013, inexplicably became Netflix’s number one movie nine years after its release. This 9-1-1 operator thriller — which was also WWE Studios’ most commercially successful film (not because it featured then-wrestler David Otunga) — featured Berry as an emergency dispatcher who races against time to save a young girl (Abigail Breslin) kidnapped by a serial killer.
….so “The Call” is the No. 1 movie on @netflix right now, nearly 10 years after it’s release. Are y’all OK? 😂
— Halle Berry (@halleberry) April 13, 2022
Anyhow, if you were one of the many who recently watched The Call on Netflix, or just remember liking it almost a decade ago, here are some other movies like The Call to check out. Ones that involve serial killers, ticking clocks, female leads, and/or heroes desperate to save innocent lives (even if that life is their own).
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Year: 2011
Streaming: Netflix
This gruesome American remake of the 2009 Swedish film, from David Fincher, stars Rooney Mara as a vigilante hacker, a punisher of abusive men, who forms an unlikely romance with a journalist (Daniel Craig) out to solve a 40-year-old (possible) murder. What follows is the reveal of a diabolical dormant serial killer as the cold case investigation becomes a more lethal than either ever expected. This film is the the perfect, intense follow up to watch.
Read IGN’s review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
The Guilty
Year: 2021
Streaming: Netflix
A remake of a 2018 Danish film of the same name, The Guilty was a pandemic production, featuring minimal cast, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as an LAPD officer working a night shift at a 9-1-1 call center who answer a call from a woman claiming to have been pulled into a white van and kidnapped. With much of the drama taking place over the phone, voices in The Guilty include Ethan Hawke, Riley Keough, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Dano, Bill Burr, and more. The Equalizer’s Antoine Fuqua directed and True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto wrote this well-acted, twisty thriller.
Read IGN’s review of The Guilty.
Hush
Year: 2016
Streaming: Netflix
Modern horror master Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, Midnight Mass) crafted a wicked must-watch in 2016 with his sinister stalker movie, Hush. Starring Haunting of Hill House/Midnight Mass’ Kate Siegel as a deaf/mute author being targeted by a mysterious madman, Hush takes place all in one house as Siegel’s heroine must do everything she can to evade a masked psycho she can’t hear. This movie is not for the faint of heart.
And check it out, Siegel’s character, Maddie, even made our list of the Best Horror Movie Heroines!
In the Shadow of the Moon
Year: 2019
Streaming: Netflix
Spanning decades, In the Shadow of the Moon, directed by Jim Mickle (Netflix’s Sweet Tooth), starts in 1988 when a police officer (Logan’s Boyd Holbrook), hungry to become a detective, begins tracking a serial killer who resurfaces every nine years. Over the course of 30 years, he continues to cross paths with this mysterious killer, who’s somehow able to know the future, as his obsession with solving the case threatens to destroy everything. This selection’s the most mind-bending, supernatural entry on the list but it’s sure to satiate your craving for intrigue and adventure.
Read IGN’s review of In the Shadow of the Moon.
Phone Booth
Year: 2002
Streaming: HBO Max
This early-Aughts Colin Farrell thriller, from the late Joel Schumacher, kept things mostly confined to a single Times Square phone booth as Farrell’s fast-talking, scheming publicist becomes the pawn of a rooftop sniper (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland), forced to stay on the phone, and in the booth, by a crazed hidden gunman with malevolent plans.
Phone Booth appears on IGN’s list of the Best Alfred Hitchcock-Style Thillers!
Cellular
Year: 2004
Streaming: Free with ads on Tubi
Another action thriller where the central character’s forced to stay on the phone — and literally conceived by the guy who wrote Phone Booth, Larry Cohen) — is 2004’s Cellular, starring Chris Evans, Jason Statham, and Kim Basinger. A kidnapped woman finds a phone and, instead of the police, accidentally contacts a college student who must scramble to locate her before…his battery dies.
Panic Room
Year: 2002
Streaming: Paramount+
Jodie Foster stars in this tension-filled David Fincher film about a mother and daughter (Kristen Stewart) who hole up in a high-tech panic room while their New York brownstone is invaded by robbers (Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, and Dwight Yoakam). Fearing for their safety, Foster’s heroine attempts to turn the table on the intruders from inside the solid, surveillance-wired sanctuary and what follows is a deadly game of survival.
Check out IGN’s (old school) review of Panic Room.
P2
Year: 2007
Streaming: Free (with ads) at Roku, Vudu, Redbox, and Pluto TV.
Inspired by French survival horror flick High Tension, P2 follows follows a young woman (Continuum’s Rachel Nichols) who becomes trapped in an underground NYC parking garage on Christmas Eve, where she is pursued by a psychopathic security guard (Yellowstone’s Wes Bentley) who is obsessed with her. It’s a single-location, high-stakes nightmare as this night before Christmas turns into a gritty, violent crucible.
Read IGN’s review of P2.
The Cell
Year: 2000
Streaming: Free to borrow with Hoopla subscription, rentable
This trippy, disturbing film from music video director Tarsem Singh (R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”) is a wild race against time/serial killer tale about a child psychologist (Jennifer Lopez) who, at the behest of an FBI agent (Vince Vaughn), ventures into the warped, traumatized mind of a comatose psycho (Daredevil’s Vincent D’Onofrio) to find the location of his latest victim, who will drown if not found in a few short hours.
The Frozen Ground
Year: 2013
Streaming: Netflix
It’s only fitting to wrap up a list centered around a 2013 film that suddenly blew up on Netflix with The Frozen Ground…because the same thing happened to 2013’s The Frozen Ground back in 2020. It shotto the top of Netflix’s movie chart despute being several years old. The Frozen Ground stars Nicolas Cage in the true story of the tracking and capture of Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen (John Cusack).