Film

Becoming

Name: Becoming
Genre: Science Fiction, Drama, Thriller, Horror
Released: 2020
Cast: Toby Kebbell, Penelope Mitchell, Jason Patric, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Beth Broderick

Other titles called Becoming: the 2020 series (Disney+).

A couple's American road trip collides with an ancient, shape-shifting evil that wears the faces of loved ones. This is body-horror folk horror that trades jump scares for existential dread—a story about how intimacy becomes weaponized when you can't trust who's in the room with you. For people who want their horror to unsettle rather than entertain.

TMDb rating

2.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want horror that grows out of a fraying relationship on the open road, where the fear is about who your partner is turning into and how far you will go to hold on.

Skip it if you need the menace explained, since its ancient mythology is sketched in broad strokes and the middle can feel padded.

What it asks of you: At 98 minutes it runs lean, with long quiet stretches that let unease gather before anything loud arrives, and it rewards patience over close plot-tracking.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Thing1982

Carpenter's masterpiece about paranoia and trust breaking down when something can be anyone. The shape-shifter premise, the isolation, the slow creep of suspicion—all the DNA Becoming reaches for, executed with surgical precision and genuine scares.

But It's a 40-year-old film, and some viewers find the pacing glacial. The practical effects, though brilliant, show their age in ways that might feel quaint rather than frightening.

It Comes at Night2017

A family sealed in a house, paranoia metastasizing, the thing that matters most becoming the thing that destroys you. Like Becoming, this trusts the dread over spectacle and asks what happens when love becomes liability.

But Nothing much happens in the traditional sense. If you need plot momentum and clear answers, this will frustrate you. The ending divides people sharply.

The Invisible Man2020

Another film about invasion of safety and the weaponizing of intimacy—this time through obsession and control. Whannell's direction turns paranoia into pure style without losing the emotional core that makes the terror matter.

But The social commentary can feel didactic. Some viewers bounce off the tonal shifts between horror and thriller beats.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Becoming

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Annihilation2018

Both ask: what happens when you come into contact with something that changes what you fundamentally are? Both are more interested in the transformation than the explanation.

An incandescent sci-fi horror where mutation and transformation are beautiful and incomprehensible. The Zone where physics and biology cease to follow rules mirrors the unknowable force in Becoming—something that rewrites reality through proximity.

But It's visually astonishing but narratively slippery. The science is intentionally vague. Audiences frustrated by ambiguity and gorgeous abstraction over plot clarity will hate it.

Hereditary2018

Ari Aster's slow-burn dissection of a family torn apart by something older and crueler than they can comprehend. The mounting sense that what's happening is inevitable and unstoppable captures what Becoming attempts.

But It's three-hour-adjacent and relentlessly grim. The final act goes operatic in ways that some find brilliant and others find overwrought.

Let the Right One In2008

Swedish vampire film structured as an intimate character study. Like Becoming, it's about what happens when you let something dangerous into your life because you love it. The horror emerges from relationship dynamics, not jump-scares.

But It's deliberately slow and cold. The violence, when it comes, is shocking but sparse. If you want vampire spectacle, this isn't it.

Jacob's Ladder1990

Psychological horror about a man unraveling, unable to trust his own perception. The atmosphere of creeping wrongness and the question of what's real feels like spiritual kinship with Becoming's premise.

But It's very '90s in pacing and style. The twist has been widely spoiled. Some find it heavy-handed rather than subtle.

A Dark Song2016

An occult drama about two damaged people in a house together, the spiritual and the personal bleeding into each other. Quieter and more literary than typical horror, but the dread is genuine.

But It's a chamber piece with minimal action. The ending is ambiguous in ways designed to unsettle rather than satisfy. Very much not for everyone.

Under the Skin2014

Glazer's alien horror that works through atmosphere and wrongness rather than plot. Scarlett Johansson in an inscrutably strange film about something pretending to be human. Alien invasion from the inside out.

But It's experimental and often baffling. Long stretches of minimal dialogue and cryptic motivation. The pacing will lose most viewers within twenty minutes.

Mulholland Drive2001

Lynch's meditation on identity, perception, and the unreliable self. Not horror in the jump-scare sense, but deeply unsettling in how it questions what's real and who anyone actually is.

But It's Lynchian—deliberately fragmented and resistant to interpretation. Three hours of dreamlike narrative that some find pretentious. Requires active engagement and rewards patience unequally.

Goodnight Mommy2015

Both use the replacement/transformation of a loved one as the engine of horror. Both understand that the worst monster wears a familiar face and knows exactly how to hurt you because it knows you.

Austrian folk-horror about two boys and their mother—except she's not quite their mother anymore. Like Becoming, it uses the premise of someone's return to ask what happens when intimacy becomes the conduit for terror.

But It's bleak and brutal. Graphic violence toward children. The ending is genuinely disturbing in ways designed to linger. Not a film to recover from quickly.