Film

What Happened to Monday

Name: What Happened to Monday
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Action
Released: 2017
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Glenn Close, Willem Dafoe, Marwan Kenzari, Christian Rubeck

A stylish sci-fi thriller where Noomi Rapace plays seven identical sisters navigating a dystopian future where large families are forbidden. Each sibling takes a day of the week to live as one person in public, but when Monday goes missing, the others must venture outside their carefully controlled world. Slick, propulsive, and genuinely inventive.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like near-future paranoia built on a clever premise, where the pleasure is working out who is who and how the rules of the world bend around a single hunt.

Skip it if the plot is busy and bombastic, with set pieces arriving so often that the quieter human moments can feel squeezed out.

What it asks of you: Two hours and change of sustained attention, with a lot of cutting between faces and locations, and a tone that stays grim and tense rather than lightening up.

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

If you liked this

Cloud Atlas2012

Like Monday, it's an ambitious genre-bending film that uses multiple identities and timelines to explore how systems of control repeat across eras. Visually daring and emotionally resonant in ways blockbusters rarely attempt.

But Nearly three hours long, and the tonal shifts between romance, action, and cosmic philosophy demand your full attention. Some find it overstuffed.

Orphan Black2013

Tatiana Maslany plays multiple clones with distinct personalities, each terrifyingly vulnerable to the shadowy organization hunting them. It's the spiritual ancestor to Monday—same concept, deeper dive. Addictively plotted.

But Starts brilliant and occasionally loses its way in later seasons as mythology accumulates. Requires commitment across five years.

Looper2012

A high-concept thriller where a single actor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) must confront an older version of himself. Like Monday, it uses its sci-fi premise to explore identity and the cost of survival in an unjust system.

But The time-travel logic has holes. If you need every rule explained and consistent, you'll spend the ending frustrated rather than exhilarated.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from What Happened to Monday

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Fountain2006

Both use multiple roles for a single performer to explore themes of identity and what persists across time; where Monday uses this for thriller mechanics, The Fountain uses it for metaphysical meditation.

Darren Aronofsky's three-timeline epic also uses performance across time and identity to explore loss, love, and mortality—but it's avant-garde rather than action-packed. A single actor playing across centuries reveals something about grief that Monday's mysteries never touch.

But Deliberately fragmented and poetic to the point of obscurity. If you need narrative clarity and linear plotting, this will feel like pretentious noise. Audiences are split.

Never Let Me Go2010

A quiet, devastating story about people created by the state for a single purpose. It shares Monday's exploration of bodily autonomy and resistance to dehumanizing systems, but trades action for emotional devastation.

But Almost nothing happens. It's a film about waiting and acceptance. If you came for spectacle, you'll find only dread and loss.

Gattaca1997

A measured sci-fi thriller about a man defying a genetic caste system through identity fraud. Like Monday, it asks what it means to be human in a world that reduces people to data, but with more philosophical patience.

But Deliberately paced and low-key. No explosions, no twists—just one man's quiet determination. Some find it slow.

A Cure for Wellness2017

A visually stunning paranoia-thriller where a corporation hides sinister experiments behind wellness ideology. It matches Monday's distrust of institutional power and its willingness to make watching complicated and queasy.

But Wildly uneven in tone; takes itself very seriously in ways that occasionally veer into unintentional camp. Also two and a half hours, and not all of it necessary.

Westworld2016

HBO's reboot explores what happens when the oppressed gain consciousness and agency. Like Monday, it's visually polished, morally complex, and increasingly concerned with what freedom actually costs in a system designed to contain you.

But Season one is superb; subsequent seasons spiral into confusion. The show loses what made it work when it abandons mystery for mythology.

The Handmaid's Tale2017

A blisteringly intense adaptation of Atwood's novel about women stripped of agency by an authoritarian regime. Shares Monday's focus on survival, female resistance, and the erosion of identity under state control.

But Relentlessly dark and often traumatic. The first season is complete and perfect; later ones repeat beats and themes in diminishing circles.

V for Vendetta2006

A graphic-novel adaptation about resistance to totalitarian surveillance. Like Monday, it's a blockbuster that doesn't insult your intelligence, full of action but genuinely interested in how power works and who pays the cost.

But A touch of early-2000s digital-effects artifice, and the political philosophy sometimes overshadows character. The Guy Fawkes mask has also become a cliché since release.

Annihilation2018

Both are female-led sci-fi thrillers that use speculative premises to ask questions about bodily autonomy and identity, but Monday wants to solve its mystery while Annihilation wants to leave you uncertain.

A science-fiction film where a woman enters a mysterious zone that warps biology and identity. Like Monday, it's visually striking and built on a high-concept premise, but it abandons plot clarity for atmosphere and existential dread—making sense matters less than feeling alienated.

But The story is deliberately cryptic and the ending refuses to clarify what you've witnessed. Some find it frustrating; others find that frustration is the point.

Snowpiercer2013

Both are ensemble thrillers structured around oppressive systems that strip people of identity and choice; where Monday focuses on genetic control, Snowpiercer makes everything about economic class.

Bong Joon-ho's class-warfare thriller uses a single contained space and rigid social hierarchy to explore how systems trap and dehumanize. Like Monday, it's formally inventive and visually strange, but it's also brutally funny and deeply political in ways American sci-fi often isn't.

But The tonal whiplash—sudden shifts from brutal violence to absurdist comedy—doesn't work for everyone. Also, the climactic twist divides people sharply.