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Joel Edgerton as Jason Dessen in “Dark Matter.” Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV.
This is Streamalikes, where you can find a curated list of recommendations to stream based on what you already like.
Apple TV sure has the touch when it comes to high-concept sci-fi thrillers that get into your head and won’t leave. Based on the book by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter is a near-perfect speculative thriller-mystery, packed with twists and turns and brought to life by an absolutely stacked cast.
This story of parallel universes and parallel selves who don’t always have their (or your—it’s confusing) best interests at heart is addictive. If the weekly release schedule is giving you the shakes and you’ve already burned through our list of the best streamalike series, then there’s one movie that’s a perfect match: 2014’s Coherence.
Coherence (2014) is a similarly mind-warping thriller
If you love the sense of paranoid danger that suffuses Dark Matter, you’ll love Coherence, which explores similar themes. And if you thought the idea of a parallel version of yourself trying to steal your life was cool, imagine multiple parallel versions of yourself sowing chaos over the course of a few hours, until you have to take extreme measures to protect yourself in a world where you suddenly can’t be sure if your friends are really your friends.
The story is set on the night of an “astronomical anomaly” in the form of a comet passing very close to Earth. Eight friends with complex histories gather for a dinner party. Just as their personal dramas start to derail the evening, the comet comes to its closest point, the power goes out, and things get weird. One house in the distance still has power, but when two of the group walk there, they discover it’s the same house they just left—except not. And when they return, carrying a strange box filled with personal items and photographs of everyone with a number written on the back, everyone knows they’re in for a long night.
It slowly becomes clear that there are multiple realities overlapping, and the dinner guests from other universes have also gone out exploring—and now they may all be mixed up. And not all the parallel people are to be trusted. The tension keeps rising as mysterious blackmail notes, violent attacks, and impersonations abound, leading to a shocking ending composed of nested twists. Whether you love the way Dark Matter handles Jason’s desperate attempts to hang onto his real family, the idea that you can’t trust what you see, or the twisty sci-fi stuff at the show’s core, you’ll love Coherence for all the same reasons.
Stream Coherence on Kanopy, Tubi, Hoopla, or Plex, or rent it on Prime Video.
