Film

Thoroughbreds

A cold, exact little thriller about two teenage girls in wealthy Connecticut who drift, almost lazily, toward murder. It runs on tone rather than shock — deadpan, clipped, unnervingly funny in places — and studies a friendship built on recognition rather than affection. Anton Yelchin's final performance adds unexpected weight. Best for viewers who like their morality ambiguous and their violence implied.

TMDb rating6.4

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Heathers1989

The original teen murder-comedy, and still the sharpest — it invented the deadpan, quotable voice Thoroughbreds is speaking in, skewering high school cruelty with a body count and a smirk.

But Its late-80s slang and broader satire feel dated next to Thoroughbreds' icier, more contemporary control.

Heathers poster

American Psycho2000

Patrick Bateman is the adult, male mirror of Amanda's blank affect — wealth, status anxiety and violence rendered with the same clinical, darkly funny detachment.

But It's gorier and more overtly satirical of yuppie culture, with humor pitched broader than Thoroughbreds ever attempts.

American Psycho poster

The Talented Mr. Ripley1999

Watch it for the slow, seductive pleasure of a sociopath learning to perform a normal life — Matt Damon's charm-as-mask is Lily's arc in miniature, played out across Italy.

But It's longer, warmer and more romantic, with none of Thoroughbreds' clipped, refrigerated pacing.

The Talented Mr. Ripley poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Heavenly Creatures1994

Same premise — two girls, a fused private world, a murder plotted almost as an act of love — but this one is rooted in fact and played as tragedy, not deadpan comedy.

Peter Jackson's early masterpiece dramatizes a real 1954 case of two teenage girls whose friendship became so consuming it ended in murder — raw, romantic and genuinely upsetting.

But It plays the intensity completely straight, with real grief and no ironic distance to hide behind.

Heavenly Creatures poster
More like this (8)

Promising Young Woman2020

Same cool fury at institutions that protect predators, and the same willingness to let a female lead be genuinely frightening rather than sympathetically damaged.

But It's angrier and more explicit about sexual violence, with a candy-colored revenge-fantasy tone Thoroughbreds never touches.

Promising Young Woman poster

We Need to Talk About Kevin2011

Tilda Swinton anchors this fractured, dread-soaked portrait of raising a child who might simply be missing something essential — the nature-versus-nurture question Thoroughbreds refuses to answer.

But It's slower and sadder, structurally fragmented, with little of the wit that makes Thoroughbreds go down easy.

We Need to Talk About Kevin poster

Cruel Intentions1999

Same moneyed, East Coast boredom curdling into cruelty, and the same sense that beautiful teenagers are playing chess with other people's lives.

But It's glossier and more melodramatic, more invested in seduction than in the blank psychology Thoroughbreds sits with.

Cruel Intentions poster

The Bling Ring2013

Sofia Coppola's true-crime teens are equally hollowed out by privilege and boredom, filmed with the same cool remove that lets you watch without being told how to feel.

But The crimes are burglary, not murder, so the dread never climbs as high as Thoroughbreds'.

The Bling Ring poster

Killing Eve2018

For the same electric, obsessive pairing of two women drawn to each other's darkness, stretched into a stylish, globe-trotting cat-and-mouse series.

But It's a multi-season commitment, and the tone drifts campier and more overtly stylish as it goes on.

Killing Eve poster

Emma.2020

Purely for Anya Taylor-Joy doing the inverse trick — all the same watchful intelligence and control, aimed at Austen's comedy of manners instead of murder.

But It's a bright, frothy period comedy with zero of Thoroughbreds' menace — go in expecting nothing dark.

Emma. poster

The Bad Seed1956

It's the ancestor of Amanda's self-diagnosis — a film literally built around whether evil can be innate rather than caused, filtered through 1950s anxiety instead of contemporary irony.

A 1950s Hollywood curiosity that asks Thoroughbreds' central question decades early: what if a person is simply born without a conscience, dressed in pigtails and good manners?

But Stagey and censor-bound, it can't show its violence directly and ends on a tacked-on note of reassurance.

The Bad Seed poster

Sharp Objects2018

Same idea that money and manners are a thin coat over generational damage, stretched from a tight thriller into a haunted, atmospheric limited series.

An eight-hour, sun-bleached Southern gothic where inherited cruelty seeps through generations of women in one wealthy small town — slower, sadder, and just as rotten underneath.

But It trades Thoroughbreds' brisk 92 minutes for a slow-burn miniseries pace that demands real patience.

Sharp Objects poster

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