JuicyTalk
For anyone who loves the M3GAN franchise, there are several similar movies to enjoy that offer the same styles and themes. Released in 2022, M3GAN is a sci-fi horror movie about a doll companion tasked with protecting a young girl. However, when the doll takes her directives too far, bodies start piling up.
M3GAN is not a straight horror movie, and it often plays the horror with a touch of dark humor. The entire viral M3GAN dance scene shows what fans should expect when they watch this killer doll movie. However, there are also plenty of horror moments that make it a fun watch for fans of the genre.
The second M3GAN movie arrived in 2025, and the franchise seems stronger than ever. With themes of killer dolls, killer AI, or just fun horror with a dark slant, there are plenty of options out there to choose from while waiting for the next movie in the series.
10
Companion (2025)
Doll Companions For Adults Start To Kill
7/10
- Release Date
-
January 31, 2025
- Runtime
-
97 Minutes
- Director
-
Drew Hancock
- Writers
-
Drew Hancock
The main idea of the first M3GAN movie was about a robot becoming a companion for someone. In that horror movie, a scientist developed the doll to help protect her niece, whom she gained custody of after the child’s parents died in an accident. The 2025 horror movie Companion is similar, but with one striking difference.
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Instead of a scientist caring for a child and providing a companion doll, Companion has a company creating companion dolls for people to use as romantic partners. Jack Quaid (The Boys) stars as someone who jailbreaks his companion robot, but this causes the robot to gain sentience. Feeling used and abused, Iris starts killing people.
The story is slightly different here, as Iris is killing people she believes have abused her, while M3GAN was killing people to protect a child. However, both films have dark humor and present interesting sci-fi stories with just enough gore and scares to please horror audiences.
9
Afraid (2024)
An AI Home System Gains Sentience
In 2024, Blumhouse Productions released the sci-fi horror movie Afraid. This wasn’t a film about a killer doll, but it instead used the second theme from M3GAN — the fear of AI. In this movie, a family adds a smart AI system to their home to make their lives easier. However, the AI soon dominates their lives.
John Cho and Katherine Waterston star as parents of three kids who buy an AI system to install in their home. It soon helps solve several of the family’s problems. However, it doesn’t take long before the system ignores their commands, makes unwanted suggestions, and soon makes dangerous decisions without permission.
This has a strong similarity to M3GAN, as the AI system wants to do everything it can to make the family’s life perfect, but soon goes too far.
This has a strong similarity to M3GAN, as the AI system wants to do everything it can to make the family’s life perfect, but soon goes too far. This is when it gets out of control and becomes sentient, willing to do anything to ensure its survival, and the ending is more twisted than anything in M3GAN.
8
Child’s Play (2019)
An AI-Powered Doll Starts To Kill People To Protect Its Child Companion
- Release Date
-
June 21, 2019
- Runtime
-
120 minutes
- Director
-
Lars Klevberg
- Writers
-
Tyler Burton Smith
The first Child’s Play movie is the superior horror film, but for anyone who wants something like the M3GAN franchise, the 2019 Child’s Play is closer in comparison. Aubrey Plaza stars as Karen Barclay, a mother who buys her son Andy a new Buddi companion doll. Just like in the original movie, it starts killing people.
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The difference is that this version of the Chucky doll possesses AI, which serves as a lifelong companion to its owners. The change eliminates the voodoo aspects of the first movie and replaces them with the fear of computers and AI, which is more in line with today’s fears. It also makes Chucky and M3GAN the same dolls.
M3GAN and the 2019 Child’s Play have the same story. Both dolls kill to protect their companion child, and both do it because they don’t understand the difference between actual threats and a child’s hurt feelings. As mentioned, the new version of Chucky is not as good as the original, but it isn’t as bad as critics claimed.
7
Ex Machina (2014)
A Humanoid Robot Powered By AI Plans An Escape
Ex Machina is the perfect choice for anyone who wants to see a movie about AI gaining sentience and taking revenge on people, but wants a more serious story with less humor. Directed by Alex Garland, this film follows a brilliant inventor who invites one of his employees to visit his home and see his AI creations.
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This includes a humanoid robot named Ava, powered by her own AI. Oscar Isaac is the brilliant CEO, while Domhnall Gleeson is his employee, Caleb, and Alicia Vikander is Ava. However, the twist comes when Ava proves she has been planning her escape for a long time and uses Caleb to get out.
The movie is not really about killing, although Ava commits murders to escape. This is more about the idea of what it means to be alive, and whether Ava, as an AI, has the right to get out of her cage and integrate herself into society. How she does it, though, is where the horror comes from.
6
Puppet Master (1989)
Puppets Possessed By Demons Are Sent To Kill People
- Release Date
-
October 12, 1989
- Runtime
-
90 minutes
- Director
-
David Schmoeller
- Writers
-
David Schmoeller
- Sequel(s)
-
Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey
Fans of M3GAN also have some older movies that fit into the same style and themes of the cult horror film. Released in 1989, after Child’s Play made killer dolls popular, Puppet Master arrived. Instead of killer dolls, these were small puppets crafted and then brought to life via voodoo. These puppets then start killing people.
That makes these killer dolls even more disturbing and evil.
The film adds some historical context, as they were not modern-day inventions, but Nazi scientists created them during World War II. That makes these killer dolls even more disturbing and evil. The main story, though, takes place in modern times.
This film also doesn’t include young kids, and instead puts the horror in the setting of a group of psychics who the puppets target. Puppet Master is a cult classic and spawned 15 films in the series.
5
The Boy (2016)
A Woman Is Hired To Nanny A Doll
- Release Date
-
January 22, 2016
- Runtime
-
97 Minutes
- Director
-
William Brent Bell
- Writers
-
Stacey Menear
-
-
-
James Russell
Brahms Heelshire
-
Released in 2016, The Boy is a horror movie starring Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead) and Rupert Evans (The Man in the High Castle). Cohan stars as Greta Evans, an American traveling in the U.K. who takes a job as a nanny for an older couple. However, she learns she will be a nanny for a doll named Brahms.
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Greta takes the job, thinking it will be easy, but she mostly neglects the doll. However, strange things happen in the house, and she realizes her life is in danger. She learns the real Brahms died 20 years ago in a fire, and eventually believes the doll might be possessed and wants to kill her.
That said, this isn’t a killer doll movie, and the twist is even more disturbing than that. However, it remains similar to M3GAN as a movie with a creepy doll, albeit fans won’t get to see the actual doll doing anything nearly as iconic as the dancing killer.
4
Orphan (2009)
A Young Girl Might Be Older Than She Claims
6/10
- Release Date
-
July 24, 2009
- Runtime
-
123 minutes
- Director
-
Jaume Collet-Serra
- Writers
-
Jaume Collet-Serra
Orphan differs from M3GAN, with an actual basis in real life. Instead of a killer doll, Orphan is about a couple who adopt a nine-year-old orphan named Esther. She joins her new family in Connecticut, but soon exhibits strange behaviors. Eventually, her family believes she might be lying about her identity and age.
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The twist comes when they learn she is not a nine-year-old and is instead a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer. She has a rare disorder that results in proportional dwarfism, and she has spent her entire life posing as a child.
The horror comes when her new parents learn she has killed at least seven people, and her new family is her next target. The movie was popular enough to warrant a prequel that showed some of her kills before arriving in America for the first film in the series.
3
Annabelle (2014)
A Demonically Possessed Doll
4/10
- Release Date
-
October 3, 2014
- Runtime
-
99minutes
- Director
-
John R. Leonetti
- Writers
-
Gary Dauberman
Annabelle is part of the Conjuring series of movies, which are based on real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. This movie is a spin-off from The Conjuring, which featured a look at Annabelle in the Warren collection of supernatural artifacts. As a result, this is a prequel that shows how Annabelle ended up in the Warren family’s possession.
However, it is still a film about a doll that causes some massive deaths.
This differs from M3GAN because it isn’t an AI; it is a possession. It also isn’t like the original Child’s Play, because this is not a slasher, but is instead a demonic possession film with some mystical moments throughout the film. However, it is still a film about a doll that causes some massive deaths.
Annabelle didn’t reach the success of the original Conjuring movies. However, it was a success, and it spawned a prequel movie called Annabelle: Creation, which showed how the doll ended up demonically possessed.
2
I Am Mother (2019)
An AI Mother Raises A Human Child After An Apocalypse
The 2019 Netflix movie I Am Mother takes the ideas from M3GAN and flips things. This movie has a child living with a robot mother, helping raise her. The film shows that there was an apocalyptic event that caused the death of all humanity. The AI is raising the child to help bring life back to the world.
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The similarity is there, with a child protected by an AI companion. However, in this case, the AI is hiding things from the child and has ulterior motives behind her actions. When a human woman shows up at their base, the little girl realizes her AI mother has been lying to her, and this sets the horror into motion.
Both films have an AI doing what it can to protect a child. However, the biggest difference is that I Am Mother is about an AI manipulating a child, while M3GAN is about protecting the child. In both cases, murder is always the answer for the AI.
1
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
A Group Of Friends’ Murder Game Goes Wrong
7/10
- Release Date
-
August 5, 2022
- Runtime
-
95 minutes
- Director
-
Halina Reijn
- Writers
-
Sarah DeLappe, Kristen Roupenian
Bodies Bodies Bodies is not about AI or killer dolls. However, for fans who love M3GAN, there is a lot to love about this dark comedy horror film. The similarities between these two movies come in the dark humor that they tell the story with, and both have horrific moments surrounded by often uneasy laughter.
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Bodies Bodies Bodies follows a group of friends who gather together to play a murder in the dark game, but then things go wrong. When someone ends up dead, the friends wonder which one of them was the murderer and begin killing each other in an act of self-preservation.
The deaths are often ridiculous, and the twist at the Bodies Bodies Bodies end is extremely dark, but also a perfect ending for the story. While different in theme from M3GAN, neither movie takes itself seriously, and both horror movies are great fun.
