6 Movies to Watch if you like Missing (2023)

Aneesh Chaganty’s surprisingly well-crafted 2018 screenlife thriller Searching turned a lot of heads back when it got released. Missing (2023), which loosely follows a similar narrative pattern, is a classic case of how to induce tension into the head and minds of the viewers despite offering very little visual grammar.

Directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, the editors of Searching, the movie follows June, whose mother, along with her new boyfriend Kevin, are missing on their vacation to Colombia. The young girl, who sees that the FBI is unable to make any headway, decides to take things into her hand and investigates the possibilities of what could have gone wrong using all the digital tools at her disposal.

While seeming like a simple case of kidnapping at first, the twisted thriller turns into something truly unpredictable that will leave you in splits. If, like me, you were impressed by the way Missing (2023) used its screenlife genre to the best of its ability, here are a few other movies that you might wanna check out.

1. Unfriended (2014)

Unfriended started a genre that mashed the found footage subgenre with a twist of technical advancement. Putting an entire movie narrative on the internet and exhibiting a skillfully crafted horror movie out of it was a feat that director Timur Bekmambetov achieved back in 2014. Unfriended follows Blaire, a high schooler who is joined by a bunch of her friends on Skype discussing their Prom Night plans, only to notice someone not known to them join the chat.

Much like Missing (2023), Unfriended is a movie that follows this insane trip, i.e., knowing the unknown, only to stumble onto some of the most horrifying truths. While Unfriended does steer into the supernatural territory, sort of breaking its own narrative holds, it’s a great companion piece to watch alongside Missing.

2. Searching (2018)

If the opening paragraph wasn’t enough to convince you about watching this movie, here’s another straightforward reminder. Searching (2018) is not only a cinematic universe equivalent to Missing (2023); it is one of those movies that uses its screenlife mystery trope to great highs. The progression of Chaganty’s screenplay is so beautifully balanced out by John Cho’s search for his daughter that you almost believe the stakes are high.

Much like Missing (2023), Searching (2018) takes place almost entirely on computer screens or cell phones and is mostly focused on a single character. If you put the finale out of the picture, even the structure of both the films and themes of neglect are almost similar. However, Searching stands out in comparison because it somehow manages to develop these characters on the way to the endpoint,

3. Run (2020)

I know, I know, it’s not right of me to put another Chaganty film in here, but the themes of Missing (2023) and Run (2020) are so close to one another that it will be a crime not to put it here. Now that Missing has been out there for people to witness and really soak in, co-writers Aneesh Chaganty & Sev Ohanian have revealed that all three of their movies, i.e., Run, Missing, and Searching, have internal references to one another. In fact, they form a loose, unofficial trilogy where the events in Missing are like an epilogue to the ending of Run.

For what it’s worth, Run is about a young woman named Chloe Sherman (Kiera Allen) who is wheelchair-bound due to various health conditions, including arrhythmia and asthma. She has spent her entire life under the care of her overprotective mother, Diane Sherman (Sarah Paulson). However, as Chloe starts to become more independent and curious about the world outside, she begins to uncover disturbing secrets about her mother and her own past. Much like Missing (2023), the movie deals with themes of motherhood and the length to which a person would go in order to protect their secrets.

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4. Spree (2020)

Starring Stranger Things fame Joe Keery as Kurt Knuckle, a ride-share driver and social media enthusiast who becomes obsessed with gaining online fame, Spree is a black comedic thriller that is pieced together from various sources like Kurt’s live streams and other recordings as captured by his passengers to give a sense of screenlife thrill.

Determined to become a viral sensation and believing that the path to it is capturing shocking and outrageous things on live camera, Kurt goes absolutely berserk. While thematically, Spree and Missing are movies that are completely different, the fact is that they both are about young people using their gadgets to explore the chaos that ensues when things are left unchecked.

5. Host (2020)

Host, directed by Rob Savage, takes place entirely over a Zoom call during the COVID-19 pandemic; utilizing the popular video conferencing platform as the setting for the story.

The plot revolves around a group of friends in lockdown who decide to hold a virtual seance for fun. As they gather online and connect with a medium, they unwittingly unleash a malevolent spirit that begins to haunt them. As the supernatural occurrences escalate, the friends find themselves trapped in a terrifying and increasingly dangerous situation.

Much like Host, Missing, while not a horror film, escalates into a brutal thriller with real-life repercussions when everything was just going on alright online. Host delivers a disturbing horror experience by harnessing the constraints created due to the pandemic in order to explore themes of isolation, terror, and vulnerability.

6. C U Soon (2020)

The closest any movie on this list comes to Missing (2023) is the 2020 Malayalam techno-thriller C U Soon. Directed by Mahesh Narayanan, the story revolves around a young software engineer named Jimmy Kurian (Roshan Mathew), who becomes romantically involved with a woman named Anu (Darshana Rajendran).

Their relationship primarily develops through online communication and phone calls before Anu suddenly goes missing. Concerned about her well-being, Jimmy takes the help of his cousin, Kevin Thomas (Fahadh Faasil), who is a cybersecurity expert, and tries to investigate the situation utilizing various digital platforms.

Just like Missing (2023), C U Soon (2020) feels like one of those movies that starts with a rookie investigation before turning into something more darker, sinister, and brutal. Both the movies also have themes of abuse and captivity carefully put into them, and for what it’s worth, they both do it well.