Film

Cube

Name: Cube
Genre: Thriller, Science Fiction, Mystery
Released: 1998
Cast: Nicole De Boer, Nicky Guadagni, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller

Six strangers wake inside a vast cube made of identical, booby-trapped rooms, with no memory of how they got there and no obvious way out. Survival depends on pooling half-understood skills - maths, engineering, instinct - while the traps thin their numbers. Made on a shoestring, it's disciplined, claustrophobic sci-fi horror where the real threat quickly becomes each other, not the architecture.

TMDb rating

6.8

If you liked this

Saw2004

Same bones as Cube - strangers waking in a nightmare apparatus, forced to use skill and morality to survive - but pushed into gorier, more theatrical territory. Jigsaw's traps turn survival into a moral test, and the mystery has real momentum.

But It's grimier and more sadistic than Cube ever gets, with torture-heavy violence that can tip into spectacle rather than dread.

The Platform2019

A vertical prison instead of a cube, but the same cold arithmetic: strangers, scarce resources, a system designed to turn victims against each other. It's angrier and more overtly political than Cube, with a finale that lands like a gut punch.

But Subtitled and unapologetically grim - the satire is blunt, and the body horror doesn't let up.

Circle2015no page yet

Fifty strangers, one room, one rule: every two minutes someone dies by vote. It strips Cube's puzzle-solving down to pure social calculus - who do you sacrifice, and why - and the tension never loosens across its brisk runtime.

But No sets to speak of, no gore, just voices deciding who lives - some will find it static.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

12 Angry Men1957

Cube is strangers trapped by a system, forced to use their particular skills to survive together - strip away the sci-fi trap and you get this: twelve men locked in a room, no walls closing in, just prejudice and reason doing the killing or the saving.

One room, one afternoon, twelve strangers deciding a man's fate through nothing but argument - it's the purest ancestor of every trapped-stranger thriller, proving you don't need traps to make a room feel lethal.

But It's black-and-white, dialogue-only courtroom drama from 1957 - no traps, no gore, and pacing modern viewers may find slow.

Devil2010no page yet

Five strangers trapped in a stalled elevator, one of them not human. It swaps Cube's geometry for a single box and its sci-fi dread for supernatural paranoia, but the claustrophobic whodunit tension is nearly identical.

But M. Night Shyamalan wrote it, not directed it, and the twist is smaller than the setup promises.

Exam2009no page yet

Eight candidates, one locked room, one blank piece of paper - the job goes to whoever works out the real question. It's Cube's structure with traps swapped for psychological warfare, just as tense on a fraction of the budget.

But It's almost entirely dialogue in one room - if you wanted physical danger and gore, this trades it away.

Vivarium2019no page yet

A couple house-hunting stumble into an identical suburban maze they cannot leave, endlessly repeating streets standing in for Cube's shifting rooms. It's slower and eerier, swapping lethal traps for existential dread about domestic life itself.

But Deliberately numbing pacing and an ending that refuses easy answers will frustrate anyone wanting momentum.

The Belko Experiment2017

An office tower locks down and a voice orders employees to kill each other or die themselves - Cube's lethal architecture repurposed as corporate satire, played broader and bloodier, with dark comedy nudging through the carnage.

But The satire is thin and the violence plays for splatter more than dread - it's a blunter instrument.

Escape Room2019no page yet

Strangers lured into deadly puzzle rooms with hidden skills that matter - basically Cube dressed up for a multiplex crowd, glossier and more forgiving, but the same pleasure of watching people reason their way through traps.

But It's PG-13 slick where Cube is grubby and mean - the danger feels more like a theme park.

The Cabin in the Woods2012

Trapped victims, an unseen system pulling levers, and a slow reveal of the machinery behind the horror - it takes Cube's idea of being tested by an indifferent structure and turns it into a horror-genre victory lap.

But It's a comedy-horror hybrid poking fun at genre tropes - tonally miles from Cube's straight-faced dread.

Danganronpa: The Animation2013no page yet

Same engine as Cube - strangers with specialised skills locked in a shifting structure, forced through lethal puzzles to earn their way out - but reimagined as a hyperactive Japanese anime adapted from a video game, trading dread for gallows-humour spectacle.

Trapped students with secret talents, a sadistic mastermind, and elaborate death-puzzles they must out-think to survive - it's Cube's DNA wearing candy-colored anime clothes, gleefully embracing the absurdity instead of playing it straight.

But It's loud, cartoonish and often played for laughs - if you want Cube's grim minimalism, this is the opposite extreme.

The Stanford Prison Experiment2015

Cube imagines strangers turning on each other inside an engineered structure designed to strip away their identities; this film shows it actually happening, in a real 1971 experiment where ordinary people, given roles and confinement, became guards and prisoners within days.

No traps, no sci-fi - just a basement, assigned roles, and the unbearable speed at which decent people become cruel once a system tells them who to be. It's the sober, true-life nightmare Cube's paranoia gestures toward.

But It's a based-on-fact drama with no genre pleasures to soften it - grim, talky, and deliberately unpleasant to sit through.