arloGet the appMovies like Mortal Engines
2018 · Movie · PG-13 · your starting pointIf Mortal Engines is the itch, these scratch it — some louder, some quieter. Free ones first.
Movies like Mortal Engines, ranked
1. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
Peter Jackson's steampunk aesthetic and world-building obsession carries over into this fantasy adaptation, where intricate creature design and sprawling underground cities replace mobile metropolises but maintain that same sense of wonder through meticulously crafted visual environments.
2. The City and the City (2018)
Both narratives feature cities as central characters with their own rules and hierarchies, but The City and the City explores the psychological toll of living within invisible borders through a noir detective lens rather than kinetic action.
3. City of Ember (2008)
Two teenagers navigate crumbling infrastructure and decode cryptic systems to escape a dying enclosed world, echoing the resourcefulness and post-apocalyptic desperation that drives Mortal Engines' protagonists.
4. The Wandering Earth (2019)
Colossal planetary engines drive both the plot and world-building, as characters navigate catastrophic environments where humanity's survival depends on massive, mobile technology that reshapes the landscape itself.
5. The Wandering Earth II (2023)
Both films engineer spectacle around colossal moving structures as their central visual conceit, using massive engineering feats to explore how civilizations adapt when Earth itself becomes uninhabitable.
6. City Rats (2009)
This prompt asks me to write a recommendation for "City Rats" to a fan of "Mortal Engines," but there's a significant problem: these titles don't share meaningful elements that would make this recommendation genuine.
7. Outerworld (2018)
The sprawling post-apocalyptic wasteland and pursuit across hostile terrain mirror Mortal Engines' relentless chase through a fractured world, while both films build spectacle around unlikely partnerships forged amid competing factions vying for survival.
8. Mythica: The Iron Crown (2016)
The steam-powered aesthetic and sprawling quest across hostile terrain echo the same sense of epic world-building, while both feature young protagonists thrust into survival missions against overwhelming odds.
Tell me what kind of night it is — I'll pick the one for you.