Summary

• "The Menu" explores themes of wealth and privilege through a shocking tale of revenge and violence.
• The movie balances comedy and anxiety, offering a unique and sinister tone that sets it apart from similar films.
• Fans of "The Menu" will enjoy other thrillers that subvert expectations and delve into social commentary, such as "Get Out" and "Ready or Not."

The Menu is a shocking thriller by director Mark Mylod, and its themes of class warfare and decadence can be found in a variety of other movies like The Menu. In The Menu, a collection of wealthy diners, including Margot Mills (Anya Taylor Joy) attend a world-renowned restaurant situated on an island. As their meal progresses courses, it becomes clear that the rigid head chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has different intentions than just feeding his guests. The Menu asks questions about wealth and privilege, using its restaurant setting to explore the premise. Other movies have examined a similar idea with the same sinister tone but few have had the same balance of comedy and anxiety.

Watch The Menu On Hulu

Certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an impressive 76% audience score as well, The Menu and its characters are a critical hit. It was also a relative success, making $79 million on a budget of only $30 million (via Box Office Mojo), and impressed viewers with its story focusing on social status and the idea of delivering the opposite of what many people expected when walking into the theater. Fans looking for thrillers about gatherings gone wrong and commentaries on class divides can find many a number of similar movies that are sure to please as much as The Menu.

18 Get Out (2017)

Rent on AppleTV+ and Prime Video

In The Menu, the chef and his crew have a plan to "eat the rich" and it is all in the name of social commentary. In a similar format, Jordan Peele's terrifying Get Out takes the social commentary and places it in a more direct horror genre story. Get Out depicts a wealthy white library family who abducts Black people in order to live forever in a “superior body” once they age. It’s beyond twisted and just like The Menu, the exact message isn’t immediately clear, rewarding rewatches. Get Out is one of the best movies like The Menu, a social parable that is disguised as a genre piece.

17 The Cabin In The Woods (2012)

Stream on DirecTV

The Menu subverts expectations by at first appearing to be about wealthy people gathering for an exceptional dinner, but it ends up as a tale of revenge and violence. Similarly, The Cabin in the Woods was a movie that viewers expected to be like a modern-day Evil Dead but they got something much more meta, as it ended up being a probing satire of the horror genre and its many tropes. Both The Menu and The Cabin in the Woods are best experienced knowing as little as possible going into it and fans of The Menu’s upending midpoint will enjoy something similar in The Cabin in the Woods.

16 Fresh (2022)

Stream on Hulu

Fresh is a 2022 film about a young, single woman named Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) who has been consistently unlucky on dating apps until she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan). However, Steve turns out to be worse than any of the other mediocre men she’s dated when he captures her in his home. One of the best horror movies like The Menu, Fresh's twist ending is for the horror fan who has seen everything and doesn't think they can be surprised. Noa, like Margot in The Menu, is a strong female lead put into a dangerous situation because of the secret machinations of a man they thought was only a date.

15 Ready Or Not (2019)

Stream on FuboTV

In Ready or Not, young bride Grace (Samara Weaving) marries into a wealthy board game magnate's family. After her reception, the family forces her to play a deadly game of Hide-and-Seek, in which she is being hunted. The movie creates an unsettling atmosphere right away since Grace doesn't know if she can even trust her new husband. Ready or Not will appeal to fans of movies like The Menu, as both feature characters who are brought somewhere strange because of the person they trusted. In both cases, a regular dinner or wedding turns into something worse than the protagonists could ever have thought.

14 Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Stream on Paramount+ with Showtime

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A fresh take on murder mysteries, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a twisted blast that examines whether a group of Gen Z friends even really like each other. As one person dies, and they scramble to figure out who among them did it, the characters trade insults and share the innermost thoughts that they would normally keep to themselves. Just as movies like The Menu descend into murderous disasters, Bodies Bodies Bodies turns a regular party into a fight for survival. Both movies maintain a sense of humor and comment on how wealthy elites can often be victims of their own impulsivity and naïveté.

12 The Feast (2021)

Stream on Hulu

The Feast takes place at a gorgeous mansion in Wales where a rich family invites two people over for dinner and each family member begins to act strangely before the event happens. The Feast is as surprising as a movie like The Menu and has a dark ending with characters who are not all they seem. The movie itself is set in a beautiful, affluent setting like in The Menu, and the distinct characters are memorable long after the film ends. Like The Menu, The Feast will appeal to fans of morality tales that punish those who don’t respect beauty, whether that be a dish or a mountain.

11 All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)

Currently unavailable to stream

Many slashers are about the ever-present social politics in high school. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane sees the titular protagonist (Amber Heard) attend a pool party thrown by a classmate and ends with the bullied students becoming the aggressors. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane has a twist ending and the characters have no idea what is really going on, just like Margot as she attends a mysterious meal in The Menu. And like Margot in The Menu, Mandy Lane is not a traditional final girl. Audiences who enjoy a horror lead who has more control than even the villain will approve of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.

10 Would You Rather (2012)

Stream on AMC+

In Would You Rather, Iris (Brittany Snow) attends a gathering and plays the eponymous game to win enough cash to save her sick brother. It's hard to know if Iris will really go through with it, as the game has much higher stakes than the standard party version. The games in Would You Rather are similar to the games Chef Slowik plays on his guests in The Menu in that they’re as much a test of how someone reacts as they are about succeeding.

9 Scream (2022)

Stream on Paramount+

Scream (2022), the fifth installment in the Scream franchise, once again uses slasher film tropes to both poke fun at and pay homage to violent horror films. This time, the characters talk about their wish to “reboot” the Woodsboro killings in a metatextual reference to the movie, itself a “very soft” reboot. The villains in Scream are obsessive in their pursuit of making a big, important statement, just like the characters in The Menu are obsessive about either creating something memorable or experiencing it. There’s something enjoyable about watching a character break multiple moral boundaries to achieve perfection and both these movies share this as a core theme.

8 You're Next (2011)

Stream on Hulu with Cinemax

In You're Next, Erin (Sharni Vinson) visits her boyfriend Crispian's (A. J. Bowen) family when masked intruders appear and systematically kill the party gatherers. What they didn’t count on is Erin having some serious survival skills. Just like The Menu, the “helpless” girlfriend turns out to be the only one with any survival instinct and a history that makes them much more formidable than meets the eye. Both movies reveal their heroines as being unexpectedly ready for the danger they’re about to face.

7 The Invitation (2022)

Stream on Netflix

The Invitation is one of the best 2022 horror movies, with Evie Jackson (Nathalie Emmanuel) being invited to a wedding that isn't just an ordinary celebration but offers her the chance to meet a family she didn't even know about. However, Evie finds out an incredibly dark truth about these relatives. Just like movies like The Menu, The Invitation asks what a person would do if they found themselves in a shockingly dangerous situation. Both Margot and Evie are strong, tough characters who make difficult choices to save themselves, making for compelling journeys.

6 Silent Night (2021)

Stream on AMC+

Both a compelling horror film and a sad look at a family celebrating Christmas, Silent Night imagines a world about to end and the characters who are saying goodbye to each other. A deadly gas is coming for everyone living in England, which sets up a tense and chilling environment. For those who enjoyed the second half of The Menu the most, Silent Night has a similar story of people trapped together, waiting for the inevitable. While Silent Night isn’t nearly as funny as The Menu, seeing the characters struggle with their impending doom in real time and trying to think their way out of an impossible situation is riveting.

5 Parasite (2019)

Stream on Max

Parasite is an Academy Award-winning film by director Bong Joon-ho that is equal parts thriller and sharp satire on the difference between those who have nothing and those who have everything. In Parasite, the Kim family takes on aid roles for the wealthy Park family. The Kims get sucked into the Parks' luxurious lifestyle, which leads to unexpected and deadly consequences. Like The Menu, Parasite pits the haves vs the have-nots, and never paints the latter as angelic or righteous. Instead, both movies show how people can be pushed so far from their ideals that they become unrecognizable even to themselves.

4 Triangle Of Sadness (2022)

Stream on Hulu

Triangle of Sadness is a satirical black comedy by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund. The movie follows a group of wealthy guests on a luxury cruise. The bad-mannered and obnoxious guests are juxtaposed with the working-class crew who struggle to provide all the absurd requests. Fans of The Menu will appreciate the movie's dark humor that goes from pointed conversations on communism and capitalism to extreme gross-out gags. Like The Menu, Triangle of Sadness offers a look into a luxurious experience few can afford, a private cruise in this case, and allows audiences to enjoy the wealth while also laughing and grimacing at the fates of snobbish characters.

3 Boiling Point (2021)

Stream on Roku

Beyond being a pointed satire of the wealthy and those who serve, The Menu is also a great restaurant and food movie. Like the Netflix documentaries it’s in part aping, the courses are presented on screen with overlaid text describing them. For fans of The Menu who particularly enjoyed the high-intensity cooking action of the movie, Boiling Point is another look at a chef who’s been broken down by his work and his customers. The film stars Stephen Graham as Andy Jones, an overburdened restaurant owner, as he and his crew work on a busy night, with only one single shot through the entire movie.

2 Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Stream on Netflix

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a sequel to 2019's Knives Out. In this movie, Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is invited to a billionaire’s island to play a murder mystery game. What other wealthy guests soon find out is that an actual murder has been committed, and it’s a race to solve it before more people die. Like The Menu, Glass Onion takes place on a secluded, remote island with all sorts of fanciful architecture and set design that is a pleasure to see on-screen. Furthermore, it follows the wealthy enjoying a worry-free lifestyle before a dangerous reality sets in.

1 The Hunt (2020)

Stream on Peacock

While The Menu has many comedic elements, it leans more into the dramatic. The Hunt is a movie like The Menu in tone, but the scales are tipped further in the comedic direction, as it's a political satire about a group of wealthy elites in the United States who have captured people from right-leaning parts of the country to hunt. It’s much more violent and explosive than The Menu, but it skewers both sides of the argument just like The Menu does. And like The Menu, The Hunt also ends on a slightly triumphant note for the one sympathetic character in the entire story.