Film

Chronicle

Name: Chronicle
Genre: Science Fiction, Drama, Thriller
Released: 2012
Cast: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw

Three ordinary teenagers find something buried in the woods and wake up with telekinetic power, all of it captured on their own cameras. What starts as showing off — flying, pranks, party tricks — curdles fast into something closer to tragedy. It's a superhero origin story reimagined as teenage loneliness and rage: intimate, handheld, and far sadder than the premise lets on.

TMDb rating

6.9

If you liked this

Brightburn2019

Same premise as Chronicle's darkest turn — an ordinary teen granted power he can't handle — but pushed all the way into horror, with no redemption arc offered or wanted.

But Much bloodier and meaner-spirited, with thinner character work than Chronicle's slow build.

Unbreakable2000

Shyamalan builds a superhero origin from grief and small gestures rather than set pieces, treating powers as something to be slowly, painfully understood — exactly Chronicle's patient approach.

But Glacially paced by modern standards, and the famous twist divides people between brilliant and silly.

Carrie1976

Telekinesis as the outlet for years of humiliation, building to a finale that's less about spectacle than about a kid finally being seen — and it going terribly wrong.

But Dated effects and fashion, and full melodrama where Chronicle plays it grounded.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Elephant Man1980

Both films use a close, watching-over-someone's-shoulder camera to track alienated teenage boys sliding toward violence; Chronicle adds superpowers where Elephant refuses that comfort entirely.

Van Sant follows ordinary high schoolers through banal hallway time with an intimate, drifting camera, letting mundane escalation become the horror — no powers, no metaphor, just the real thing.

But There's no genre pleasure to hide behind — it's slow, quiet, and genuinely upsetting rather than thrilling.

Cloverfield2008

The found-footage camera does the same intimate, chaotic work here — ordinary people with a handheld device trying to record something too big to understand.

But Shaky-cam monster-movie thrills rather than character study; the ambition is much smaller in scope.

District 92009

A documentary-style camera watches an ordinary man slowly transformed by forces beyond him, asking the same question Chronicle does — what does power actually do to decency?

But It's an alien-apartheid allegory first, superhero story second, so the parallel is structural rather than obvious.

Attack the Block2011

Working-class British teens face something extraordinary crashing into their ordinary lives, and the film never loses interest in who they are underneath the chaos.

But Played more for adrenaline and comedy than Chronicle's slow psychological unravelling.

Super 82011

Kids with a camera stumble into something they shouldn't have seen, and the film trusts amateur footage and teenage friendship to carry real wonder and dread.

But Spielbergian warmth and a family-friendly finish mean it never goes to the places Chronicle does.

Misfits2009no page yet

A group of nobody teenagers get inexplicable powers and immediately misuse them for petty, human reasons — funnier and nastier than Chronicle, but drawn from the same rotten well.

But British teen-show scale and humour might feel slight next to Chronicle's cinematic ambition.

Donnie Darko2001

A misunderstood teenage boy, a lurking sense of dread, and a slow curdle from strangeness into tragedy — different mechanics, same aching sense of a kid nobody's really watching.

But The metaphysics stay deliberately murky, which some find haunting and others just find frustrating.

Village of the Damned1960

Same premise stripped to its bones: extraordinary children, an adult world unable to contain them, and the slow realization that innocence and danger aren't opposites.

Long before drone shots and camcorders, this cold British B-movie asked the exact question Chronicle does — what happens when children get power nobody, including them, understands — and answered it with real menace.

But Stiff 1960s acting and modest effects will test anyone expecting Chronicle's visceral, kinetic style.

Akira1988

Both trace a friend group where one member's growing power curdles into rage and destruction — Akira just does it at ten times the scale, in ink and cel instead of camcorder footage.

Teenage psychic power spirals from thrilling to apocalyptic in this landmark anime, building to a city-levelling climax that Chronicle's own finale is clearly, lovingly indebted to.

But Dense, occasionally incoherent plotting and a maximalist animated style very far from Chronicle's grounded realism.