15 Best Movies Like The Abyss

Movies like The Abyss present smart science fiction with a great mystery, in some cases underwater and in others in the deep trenches of space. Out of all James Cameron's films, The Abyss seems to be the one that's forgotten more often than others. In fact, the special effects on The Abyss could be considered the precursor to what was later done on Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Released in 1989, The Abyss sees a search and rescue mission for a sunken submarine discover something unexpected.

The movie is not only notable for its unusual story, but also for its achievements in the field of visual effects (for which it won the Academy Award). Fortunately for those who loved this underrated gem, there are other movies similar in concept or atmosphere. James Cameron went on to make some of the most groundbreaking films in history after his success with The Abyss, and many filmmakers looked to his achievement with this film to create other sci-fi masterpieces.

15 Stargate (1994)

Scientists Open A Portal To Another World

While he remains best known for his disaster movies, Roland Emmerich also directed one of the most groundbreaking science fiction movies of all time, Stargate. The film sees scientists uncover a portal to other worlds and end up heading in to find new discoveries, while accompanied by a military force led by Kurt Russell's Jack O'Neil and a linguist played by James Spader.

The movie spawned a television series that was incredibly successful and featured spinoffs of its own. However, the movie deserves all the praise it receives for its smart story and inventive sci-fi. Much like The Abyss, this is about people going into a mysterious area (one deep underwater and the other into distant worlds) and finding alien life that they have to survive. Both movies also display groundbreaking visual effects, although Stargate didn't reach Oscar-level success like The Abyss.

14 Avatar: The Way Of Water (2022)

James Cameron Brings Sci-Fi Back To The Water

James Cameron fell in love with the water after The Abyss. He went on to make Titanic and then worked on a documentary going as deep in the oceans as he could. He then began his journey in creating Avatar, which led to the sequel, where he took that franchise into the water with Avatar: The Way of Water. In this film, Jake and his family go into hiding with a water tribe when the humans return to hunt him down. This leads to some of Cameron's most breathtaking underwater scenes.

Just like The Abyss, this gave Cameron a chance to shoot underwater, and that is an area he excels over all other filmmakers.

The movie was a monster success and gave James Cameron three of the highest-grossing films of all time (Titanic and the original Avatar being the other two). However, it wasn't as critically successful as his other movies, with only four Oscar nominations and one win, although, expectedly, it was for Best Visual Effects. Just like The Abyss, this gave Cameron a chance to shoot underwater, and that is an area he excels over all other filmmakers.

13 Event Horizon (1997)

A Crew Set Out To Find A Missing Spacecraft

The main idea of The Abyss was that a submarine sunk and the U.S. government sent out a team of divers to find it before the Soviets beat them to it. That is similar to the storyline from Event Horizon. In this sci-fi horror movie, a rescue team is sent to find a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Just like in The Abyss, the team sent in are regular crew members who have no idea what they are walking into.

There are some major differences though. The Abyss has moments of horror, but it is more of an alien contact movie and not one with murderous creatures. However, what the crew finds in Event Horizon is that the spacecraft has returned from Hell and is full of a demonic presence that wants the souls of any who enter onto the ship. This is a film that is pure horror, and for fans who are familiar with the video game projects of Paul W.S. Anderson, this is a movie that shows he is much more than a video game director.

12 Leviathan (1989)

An Underwater Facility Is Attacked By A Mutant Creature

There are many times when similar movies are released at the same time with similar themes. Armageddon and Deep Impact were two movies about asteroids hitting the Earth that were released around the same time. A similar thing happened in 1989. In that one year, The Abyss, DeepStar Six, and Leviathan were all released about the terrors of the deep oceans. All three movies were about humans discovering mysteries from the deep oceans, with DeepStar Six as the least beloved of the three.

Unlike The Abyss, which saw the divers come across alien life and make contact with the aliens, Leviathan went more in the direction of horror. Instead of aliens, the crew of the underwater geological facility ended up coming across a hideous mutant creature that attacks them. What really makes this movie stand out is the visual effects, just like The Abyss, but this time with practical creature design by the legendary Stan Winston.

11 Below (2002)

A Crew Of A Submarine Encounters A Ghost

David Twohy directed the highly underrated and brilliant supernatural horror movie Below. This film came two years after Twohy's breakout movie Pitch Black and was based on a script by Darren Aronofsky. The film takes place in 1943 during World War II when a U.S. Navy submarine is patrolling the Atlantic Ocean. The sub answers a distress call and picks up three survivors, including a nurse and two wounded men. However, a series of strange events happen on the submarine after picking them up.

This is a ghost story, with the crew of the submarine haunted by the spirit and each member begins to die one by one. Much like The Abyss, this is a claustrophobic movie, with the victims aboard a submarine deep in the ocean, with no way of escaping the mounting dangers. The movie was a box office failure, but it went on to become a cult classic once it hit home video, a frightening and inventive underwater thriller.

10 Sphere (1998)

A Spacecraft Is Found On The Floor Of The Pacific Ocean

Though a flop with critics on release, this star-studded adaptation of Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton's novel of the same name has developed a more appreciative following over the years thanks to its unusual story. Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson star in the movie of a spacecraft found sunk on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, believed to have been there for nearly 300 years.

A collage of the posters for The Abyss, Dredd, Inception and Back to the Future

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The plot is very similar to The Abyss in a lot of respects as it follows a team of scientists as they travel to the seafloor to study a mysterious craft. Down there, they begin to experience horrifically bizarre events as they attempt to wrap their heads around the power contained within the ship, and fans of The Abyss' more intense moments should find their attentions grabbed throughout.

9 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick's Sci-Fi Masterpiece

Stanley Kubrick's seminal sci-fi classic can be considered a source of inspiration for just about every single movie set in space that was released after it if not every science-fiction film in general. This movie is one of the most cerebral of sci-fi movies, with a mission into deep space leading a man into discovering the origins of life itself.

The movie has a looser kind of narrative structure that revolves around mysterious monoliths that are unearthed by humanity in–what was back in the late '60s–the near future, with a secretive mission venturing deep into space to find answers only for the ship's AI to turn on the crew. Fans of the darker elements of The Abyss will not be left wanting by the terrifying HAL 9000 computer and their deadly descent into paranoia and many of the groundbreaking effects remain stunning to this day.

8 Interstellar (2014)

A Man Travels To A Black Hole To Try To Save Earth

Christopher Nolan clearly drew from the inspiring designs of 2001: A Space Odyssey for his own space opera movie with a comparable–if more conventional–plot. It follows a team of astronauts following what seems to be an alien invitation to move humanity from the dying Earth to a new habitable galaxy. However, once the team sets off to a black hole, they realize that time goes by differently in space, and they realize they might never make it back home alive.

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Their perilous journey may take them into a lot of apocalyptically stressful situations but it never really strays into the domain of horror, echoing the more upbeat sentiments about contacting alien life shown in movies like The Abyss. Fans of James Cameron's epic sense of scale will also appreciate the movie's dedication to gargantuan IMAX shots.

7 Super 8 (2011)

Three Kids Try To Survive A Giant Monster

J.J. Abrams' Super 8 is an homage to classic '80s kid-led movies like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Goonies. The difference is that Super 8 focuses even more on its mystery elements while also integrating some action and horror sequences. Set in 1979 in a fictional town in Ohio, the movie follows a group of kids making their own Super 8 movie. While filming a scene on a train station, they see a train derailing and an alien escaping from it.

Based more on Steven Spielberg movies than James Cameron, it is still an inventive sci-fi romp, with the kids trying to survive this creature while discovering that things on Earth are not what they might have been led to believe. It's a wholly different take on first contact than the one seen in The Abyss, but one built out of similar influences. It is very similar to what would happen if the Goonies found a monster instead of a treasure ship.

6 Cube (1997)

A Puzzle Box Of Death

For those who enjoyed the darker, horror-like elements of The Abyss, Cube will be the perfect movie to watch next. This sci-fi story is somewhat of a predecessor to Saw, but instead of focusing on horror, it hangs more on the mystery of what's going on and why the characters are in their predicament.

To get out, they need to get around the numerous traps located almost in every cell they get to and it's an extremely smart use of the kind of confined metal spaces that movies like The Abyss helped popularize within the genre.

The plot sees a group of strangers waking up to discover that they've been trapped in a strange structure that appears to be a cube filled with cells also in the shape of cubes that are all connected to one another. To get out, they need to get around the numerous traps located almost in every cell they get to and it's an extremely smart use of the kind of confined metal spaces that movies like The Abyss helped popularize within the genre.

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