Don’t worry, you’re allowed to talk about these movies.
Fight Club is an undeniable classic, and a movie that's more than earned the right to be considered one of the best of the 1990s. It's one of those cult classics that took a little longer than most movies to get popular, but once it crossed a certain threshold, it became considered one of the greats. It's also notable for being unique and even hard to define, given it's a darkly comedic and satirical psychological drama/thriller about a seemingly ordinary man who becomes involved in an underground (and revolutionary) fight club.
It's difficult to find movies that strike the same strange tone and feel present in Fight Club, but there are plenty of movies that are comparable in broader ways. The following films demonstrate this well, as they either have similar themes, premises, twist-filled narratives, or darkly comedic outlooks on life that ensure they scratch a similar itch. Any fan of Fight Club should track the following movies down and watch them, if they haven't already.
Another cult classic that was one of the best of its year (even though it took a while for it to become properly recognized), American Psycho is a comedy so dark some might not even realize it's a comedy. Of course, it also functions as a psychological thriller/horror/crime movie, and the humor is admittedly buried below a shocking story that revolves around a narcissistic investment banking executive who earns obscene amounts of money by day and (possibly) commits horrific crimes by night.
RELATED: Killer Movies to Watch if You Love 'American Psycho'
The psychological aspect of the film takes center stage as his crimes become more over-the-top, presenting the possibility that some – or even all – of them have merely been imagined. Delving into the mind of a tortured individual while depicting acts of violence within a satirical narrative makes American Psycho comparable to Fight Club, and fittingly, the movies were released just one year apart, too.
Fight Club might ultimately be more of a drama or a thriller than a broad comedy, and as far as comedies go, Office Space (another 1999 release) is quite broad. Office Space is enjoyable and easy to watch, with little-to-no violence and a premise surrounding a man who hates his job and antagonizes his superiors, only for his actions to get him promoted.
It was another film that took a while to get the recognition it deserved, and while it belongs to a slightly different genre, the themes surrounding alienation, the apparent meaningless of life, and dissatisfaction with one's current life are explored in both movies. Office Space takes a more light-hearted approach to such themes, sure, but it's not too far-fetched to say it has similarities to Fight Club.
Joker tackled alienation and lashing out against society in a way that was provocative enough to make it a surprisingly controversial movie. Maybe the controversy ended up helping it, as it earned a huge amount at the box office and even did well when award season came around, showing that people really can't get enough of Batman's most famous villain.
It's something of an origin story for its titular character, showing the circumstances which led to him embracing a life of chaos while dealing violently with the things in life that led to his breakdown. The loneliness and the anger captured in Joker is similarly depicted in Fight Club, with the movies having certain similarities, despite being released two decades apart.
Fight Club undoubtedly sends its protagonist (and, by extension, the audience) on a remarkably disorientating trip that ultimately questions aspects of the reality that had previously been taken for granted. However, it's unable to go quite as far as something like Brazil, which is even more surreal and psychologically intense, as well as (arguably) funnier.
RELATED: The Best Sci-Fi Movies of All Time, Ranked
Brazil also functions as a work of science-fiction, humorously depicting a dark dystopian world that pushes protagonist Sam Lowry to his mental and physical limits. It's a movie that continually manages to be both ridiculous and quite awe-inspiring, and though it takes a while to reach its powerful conclusion, it does eventually get there with devastating results. It's easy to recommend for those who appreciated the psychological aspects of Fight Club's story.
David Fincher was the director behind Fight Club, but that 1999 film was far from the first time he made a compelling psychological thriller. The Game, released two years earlier, might not be quite as great, but it's still very good, following a banker who's swept up in a disorientating game filled with strange rules and tasks that make him start to question his sanity.
If anything, the thrills and themes of The Game feel like they were refined and reshaped by Fincher, and then incorporated into the superior Fight Club. Yet this earlier film from the director is still very much worth watching, capturing a similar visual style and level of intensity that returned even stronger in 1999, for Fight Club.
God Bless America can be lumped in with the aforementioned films that deal with lashing out at areas of society, often in ways that are dangerous and/or violent. The plot of this 2011 film follows two people who hate the world they live in, and so decide to go on a killing spree, murdering those they deem cruel and/or stupid, even if they're not "criminals," legally speaking.
The result is a very dark comedy that's also super on-the-nose, but those who don't mind their satire broad and obvious should have a good time here. Fight Club handles the premise of a violent modern-day revolution (of sorts) with more finesse, but God Bless America does still work as a darkly comedic crime/thriller.
A highlight of Martin Scorsese's phenomenal filmography, Taxi Driver stands as one of the greatest films of its decade. The premise is simple, though the character exploration it provides runs deep, given it takes viewers inside the mind of a Vietnam War veteran who suffers from insomnia and finds himself alienated from the world after he takes a job driving a taxi in New York City.
RELATED: The Best Screenplays of All Time, Ranked
It's a slow-burn movie, with its lead character – Travis Bickle – lashing out in progressively dangerous ways as it goes on. It's a difficult but compelling film that does an excellent job of exploring a disturbed mind, excelling as a psychological deep-dive of its protagonist, just like Fight Club does for its main character.
Falling Down is very entertaining and quite silly at times, being just about as over-the-top as satire can get without also functioning as a full-on comedy. The narrative follows a middle-aged man who snaps one day, and decides he's fed up with the rules that control his life, and so he goes on a one-man crime spree against the things he doesn't like.
The movie follows him as he rebels, seemingly empowered by a new lack of caring about what anyone else thinks, all the while law enforcement tracks him and tries to prevent further destruction. Once again, it's a movie that explores the consequences of lashing out in frustration against society, with its dark (and probably intentionally satirical) look at such a thing being comparable to Fight Club.
Donnie Darko is another beloved cult classic, and a film that became appreciated more in the years after its initial release. It's a dark and often intense psychological thriller about a teenage boy who survives a freak accident, and then finds his life shaped by visions of a giant rabbit, with said rabbit telling him to perform various dangerous acts.
The dynamic between the title character here and a creepy rabbit is similar to the dynamic between Fight Club's protagonist and the mysterious Tyler Durden, given the latter encourages the former to do risky things in both instances. Donnie Darko, like Fight Club, is also moody and intense while also sometimes being quite funny, and is a comparably impressive and hard-to-forget cult classic.
The 2000s saw David Fincher branching out a little more from psychological thrillers, but then again, a movie like 2014's Gone Girl shows that he's apparently not planning to distance himself from the genre entirely. Just as Fight Club is one of the best psychosocial thrillers of the 1990s, Gone Girl is one of the best of the genre when it comes to the 2010s.
The plot follows a woman's mysterious disappearance, and the complications that arise when her husband begins being blamed (mostly via the media) for her vanishing. It unfolds in a wholly unexpected way, with its dark thrills and well-executed plot twists making it one of Fincher's best films, alongside Fight Club.
NEXT: Movies Like 'Gladiator' For More Epic Entertainment
Jeremy is an omnivore when it comes to movies. He’ll gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU. When he’s not writing lists for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.

source