Movies To Watch If You Loved Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

It's that time again. You've just seen the big, bold blockbuster of the month, and you're hankering for more movies just like it. It happens to the best of us! Instead of turning to an algorithm that'll just recommend another Marvel movie you've already seen, how about checking out something totally new to you?

Built at the intersection between Marvel's IP-driven bottom line and filmmaker Sam Raimi's knack for horror and humor, the new Doctor Strange flick isn't exactly like most films. But, luckily, there are a lot of films it's a little bit like, including some pretty great ones. Whether you came away loving the movie's witchy mayhem, its multiverse-hopping hijinks, or even its hints at romance, this list has you covered. Here are eight movies worth checking out if you loved "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."

Mario Bava's classic 1960 Italian horror film "Black Sunday" has been the prototype for many a vengeful witch story over the last half-century. Even so, it shares more than just a basic character archetype with "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." The film follows a vampiric witch (Barbara Steele) who's revived two hundred years after her execution. When she awakens, she's driven to possess a young woman who looks exactly like her, in hopes of living the life she was denied when she was killed alongside her lover.

While the witch's prologue execution calls to mind "WandaVision" magician Agatha's (Kathryn Hahn) origin story, her resurrected state is a lot more like the latest movie's take on Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Single-minded and powerful, Scarlet Witch also tracks down a doppelgänger of herself in an attempt to possess her and regain an idyllic life she lost. Plus, "Black Sunday" trades in some of the same horror imagery as "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," including occult rituals and bodily decay.

Before Sam Raimi took on "Spider-Man," he brought another super-powered persona to life on the big screen: "Darkman." The 1990 film is based on Raimi's own short story, and stars Liam Neeson as Dr. Payton Westlake, a scientist turned revenge-seeking superhuman. Westlake is working on a cutting edge synthetic skin graft for burn victims when he himself ends up the victim of an explosion. To save his life, doctors perform a procedure that causes Westlake to stop feeling pain, making him feel strong and invincible while also destabilizing his mental health.

The movie follows Westlake as he tries to track down the men who left him for dead. Visually striking, funny, and R-rated, it's nothing like the superhero movies of today — but that's not a bad thing. "Darkman" is a balls-to-the-wall movie that's unafraid to get, well, dark. It's also an essential stepping stone in the dual tracks of Raimi's career, demonstrating both his handle on the superhero narrative and his masterful command of horror.

One of Raimi's grossest and goopiest horror films to date, "Drag Me To Hell" is also a crash course in horror as humor. If you let out a shocked laugh during the head-squishing, neck-snapping Illuminati scene in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," wait until you reach the end of this movie. The film follows a loan officer named Christine (Alison Lohman) as her life descends into turmoil after she denies an extension to an elderly Romani woman (Lorna Raver) in need.

For a PG-13 movie, "Drag Me To Hell" is super grotesque: at a certain point, it's as if the filmmaker is trying to fit as many bodily fluids as possible into its 99-minute runtime. It's also a whole lot of fun. Christine has clearly landed herself on the wrong side of a curse, and she spends the whole movie trying to avoid the nasty tricks of a demon named Lamia. There's a hint of the relentlessness that makes "Drag Me To Hell" so breathlessly fun in Scarlet Witch's seemingly unstoppable pursuit of America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez).

If Strange's romance plot felt a little thin to you, we've got good news: there's another multiverse movie out there that's grounded in real, profound emotion, and if you're lucky, you may even still be able to catch it in theaters. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's new genre-busting film is a word-of-mouth phenomenon, and for good reason. The movie stars Michelle Yeoh as a put-upon laundromat owner named Evelyn who's just trying to make it through tax season when she learns she has the ability to shift through universes.

"Everything Everywhere All At Once" has a take on the multiverse that's well and truly strange — in a good way. It's a place where you can be a famous actress, or a rock sitting on a cliffside, or a person born with hot dogs for fingers. The movie delves much deeper into the weird variances afforded by the idea of a multiverse than Marvel ever has, but it also gets deeper into the human condition, too. Evelyn's powers give her the chance to connect to her family — including husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) and depressed daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) on a level she never has before. The film takes a massive sci-fi concept and uses it to tell a small but extremely meaningful story.

If you're a Raimi newbie who found yourself loving the whip pans, gory reveals, and funny-scary close-ups in "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness," this is the perfect starting place for you. Despite the name, "Evil Dead II" reads as much like a remake (or reboot) of Raimi's first film as a sequel, meaning it's just as good an entry point as any into his gonzo filmmaking spirit.

In the movie, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) takes his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) on vacation to a rural cabin, where he expects to get some romance but stumbles upon an endless evil instead. All hell breaks loose when the pair discover a recited incantation from The Book of the Dead, unleashing a demon that seems intent on ruining Ash's week in the most outlandish and bloody ways imaginable. This movie is the blueprint for decades of horror-comedy that came after, and it's a career high point Raimi himself can't help but pay homage to, including with The Darkhold in the new Doctor Strange.

Although Christopher Nolan's blockbuster adventure has a cleaner visual style than the chaos of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," you can still see its impact in some of the latter film's scenes of uncanny urban design. When skyscrapers start to drift away and collapse in on each other, it's impossible not to think about "Inception." The hit film follows a skilled thief named Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) who assembles a team to sneak inside the sleeping mind of a very important person and plant a seed of an idea that will grow into his waking life.

The gorgeous, trippy visuals of "Inception" took audiences' breath away just over a decade ago, yet shot compositions that felt groundbreaking then — like those folding buildings — are oddly common now, including in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." Both movies also establish an internal logic within dream worlds that gives them a semblance of structure and familiarity. Raimi's dip into the multiverse relies heavily on dreams, which it theorizes are windows into other versions of the known universe. They also share an unseen ticking clock factor, as according to both movies, dabbling in dreams and unfamiliar dimensions for too long can have lasting consequences.

If the grosser aspects of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" freaked you out, you'll probably want to skip directly to this part of the list. The 1998 rom-com follows a woman named Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose life diverges into two narratives, each of which plays out a different romance story. One version of Helen catches a train that the other misses, and the minor difference leads to major ripples throughout her lives.

In one world, Helen meets a man named James (John Hannah) and discovers her boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch), is cheating on her. In the other, she doesn't have the meet-cute with James, and keeps muddling through her relationship with Gerry. It's impossible not to think about this particular subgenre of sci-fi relationship redo movies (see also: "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") when watching the latest Marvel flick, as one of its narrative through-lines involves Strange wondering if there's a version of himself somewhere out there who didn't totally blow it with his ex Christine (Rachel McAdams). The movie never gets to answer that question, but Strange gets to head back to his home world knowing at least one version of Christine seems to still love him.

Some of us have an insatiable habit of rooting for badass, bloodthirsty, superpowered women, even if they're meant to be the villain. If you happen to share this particular habit, may I offer you "The Witch" in this trying time? Scarlet Witch may have burned hot and fast before fizzling out under a pile of rubble, but there are plenty of other witches on the rise out there. All movie witches are by definition very cool, but few are as hypnotically compelling as the coven at the center of Robert Eggers' debut film.

"The Witch" is an extremely authentic period-specific horror film that follows a Puritan family as they attempt to survive after being banished from a New England town for their zealotry. The story is anchored by Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), a teenaged girl whose imminent womanhood makes her a subject of suspicion within her superstitious, patriarchal family. The zippy thrills of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" contrast pretty sharply with the slow and steady dread-building of "The Witch," but both revel in the unbridled, awesome power of a kid-stealing magical woman.