Netflix’s Brick (2025), directed by Philip Koch and starring Matthias Schweighöfer, Ruby O. Fee, and Frederick Lau, is a claustrophobic escape-room-styled thriller. The story revolves around a distant couple, Tim and Liv, who wake up to find their entire building mysteriously sealed in by impenetrable black walls overnight. As they dig deeper (both literally and metaphorically), they uncover a government glitch, a deranged conspiracy theorist, and a series of fatal consequences. While the film doesn’t break new ground in terms of genre innovation, it delivers a tense, compact experience that’s perfect for viewers who enjoy contained thrillers with high-stakes drama and a mystery at the core.
If Brick piqued your interest, you’re likely craving more stories of people trapped in surreal, high-concept scenarios — stories that explore survival, systems of control, psychological strain, and sci-fi paranoia. Below are 7 movies like Brick on Netflix and beyond, each echoing its themes or story structure in some form or another.
1. Cube (1997)
Before escape-room thrillers became trendy, Cube pioneered the concept. Directed by Vincenzo Natali, the film revolves around a group of strangers who wake up inside a vast, mysterious structure composed of interlocking cubic rooms. Each room has six doors leading to adjacent rooms, but many of them are rigged with deadly traps. As the group tries to find a way out, tensions rise, and personal dynamics shift—especially as they realize that each member might possess a specific skill needed to survive.
Like Brick, Cube is set entirely in a confined space, with characters forced to piece together a larger puzzle with minimal clues. The tension lies in the unknown — who built the trap, why, and how to escape — echoing the questions Tim and Liv face about the black walls surrounding their building.
2. Escape Room (2019)
In this fast-paced thriller, six strangers are invited to a highly immersive escape room experience with the promise of a large cash prize. However, once inside, they quickly discover that the rooms are not just puzzles — they’re deadly traps designed to kill anyone who fails to solve them. Each room is intricately themed (a freezing cabin, an upside-down billiard bar, a burning oven, etc.), and the survivors must rely on their wits and teamwork to stay alive. As the game progresses, they realize that they were all chosen for a reason, with their traumatic pasts linked to each puzzle.
Both films use the escape room concept as a metaphor for survival and psychological torment. In Brick, the walls themselves are part of a mysterious system. In Escape Room, the setting becomes increasingly sinister with every level. If you loved the suspense in movies like Brick, this one’s a must.
3. ARQ (2016)
Set in a single location, ARQ is a time-loop sci-fi thriller where a couple repeatedly wakes up during a home invasion in a dystopian future. Directed by Tony Elliott (a writer on Orphan Black) and starring Robbie Amell and Rachael Taylor, the setting is a future where corporations and rebel factions are at war over energy, with the film taking place almost entirely in a single house and unfolding over a series of time loops.
The story follows Renton, an engineer who has invented a machine called the ARQ, which can generate limitless energy — but it also traps him in a repeating time loop. The husband and wife relive the same violent sequence, and they realize the loop may be tied to a powerful energy source that one of them created.
Like Brick, ARQ focuses on a couple trying to reconnect while navigating a techno-mystery that unravels piece by piece. The locked-in setting, the use of technology gone wrong, and the emotional core of a fractured relationship make ARQ feel like one of the closest movies like Brick on Netflix.
4. Circle (2015)
Fifty people wake up in a black room. Every two minutes, one of them dies — and they must decide who deserves to live. There’s no escape, no clear answers, and the clock is ticking. Directed by Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione, Circle is a minimalist psychological sci-fi thriller that explores human morality under extreme pressure. As mentioned above, the strangers find themselves in a room where one of them is killed by an unseen force every other mind, but they soon realize that they are controlling the eliminations by vote, without discussion or any physical interaction. They must quickly decide who lives and who dies, as they attempt to understand the rules of the game and each other’s motivations.
Much like the group in Brick, the characters in Circle are forced to reckon with one another while trying to survive an unexplained trap. The moral dilemmas, the sense of dread, and the fight against an invisible enemy align closely with the tone of Brick.
5. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg and produced by J.J. Abrams, 10 Cloverfield Lane, stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, and John Gallagher Jr. The film follows Michelle (Winstead) waking up after a car accident to find herself locked in an underground bunker. Her captor, Howard (Goodman), insists he saved her life and that a catastrophic event has made the outside world uninhabitable. Alongside another bunker resident, Emmett, Michelle must decide whether Howard is a paranoid doomsday prepper—or if the threat outside is actually real.
Yuri’s conspiratorial mindset in Brick is cut from the same cloth as John Goodman’s character here. Both films tap into themes of distrust, gaslighting, and the blurred line between safety and captivity. For fans of tension-driven movies like Brick, this is a perfect next watch.
6. Await Further Instructions (2018)
Await Further Instructions centers on the dysfunctional Milgram family—Nick, his girlfriend Annji, his parents, sister, brother-in-law, and grandfather—gathered for Christmas when a mysterious black membrane envelops their suburban home.
Their only contact with the outside world is an ominous message on their television: “Stay indoors and await further instructions.” As the TV delivers more dire commands—warning of contaminated food, urging bleach use, demanding injections—the family’s paranoia spirals into mistrust, violence, and gruesome consequences.
The premise of the Brick and Await Further Instructions is nearly identical: a household trapped by an unknown force, struggling to decode its origin while their unity deteriorates. If Brick left you wondering what you’d do in such a surreal lockdown, Await Further Instructions pushes that dread even further.
7. Vivarium (2019)
A couple looking to buy their first home gets trapped in a suburban nightmare — a surreal, copy-paste neighborhood with no exit. Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg), after being abandoned by their real estate agent, find themselves unable to escape and are soon forced to raise a rapidly growing, inhuman child delivered in a box with the promise of release upon completion.
As the days pass in a loop of eerie domestic routine, the couple slowly unravels under the weight of isolation, despair, and the grotesque parody of parenthood.
Much like Brick, Vivarium is one of those movies that uses domesticity as the starting point for a deeper existential horror. Both of them dissect relationships under extreme pressure and use physical entrapment as a metaphor for emotional and societal confinement.
