The internet's obsession with liminal spaces has finally found its ultimate cinematic expression in A24's Backrooms, the feature-length adaptation of the viral horror internet phenomenon that has turned empty hallways, fluorescent lighting and uncanny repetition into nightmare fuel.

But while Youtuber-turned-director Kane Parsons' film may be breaking box-office records (it's apparently A24's biggest opening weekend to date) and introducing mainstream audiences to the eerie appeal of in-between spaces, cinema has long been fascinated by environments that mess with our sense of reality. From endless suburban developments and impossible labyrinths to dreamlike realities that bend the laws of time and identity, these films tap into the same unsettling feeling that something familiar has become profoundly alien.

Whether you're drawn to existential dread, reality-warping mysteries or architecture that seems to have a mind of its own, these 12 films capture the strange, disorienting atmosphere that makes liminal-space horror so compelling. Consider them your next stop after completing Backrooms – if escape is even possible.

1. Exit 8 (2026)

Where to watch: It's not currently available on any subscription streaming services in Australia. However, it is available to purchase or rent on platforms such as Apple TV or Google Play.

This film was adapted from the viral Japanese walking-simulator game. It's a Japanese-language film about a lone commuter who must spot subtle anomalies or risk being looped endlessly through the same fluorescent corridor. Like Backrooms, it's fascinated by liminal space as existential horror, and transforms all-too-familiar transit infrastructure into a reality-glitching nightmare.

2. Vivarium (2019)

Where to watch: You can stream it for free in Australia on SBS On Demand.

What begins as a house-hunting trip for a young couple (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) curdles into a suburban purgatory when they're trapped inside an endless estate of identical green houses and forced to raise a mysterious child. Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (who you might also know as the director of Aussie film The Surfer) weaponises the uncanny banality of modern housing developments, creating a nightmare of repetition, artificiality and social conformity.

3. Cube (1997)

Where to watch: It's not currently available on any subscription streaming services in Australia. However, it is available to purchase or rent on platforms such as Apple TV or Google Play.

Long before escape-room horror became a genre unto itself, this Canadian cult classic dropped six strangers into a colossal maze of cube-shaped rooms, some rigged with lethal traps and others offering cryptic clues to their escape. With no clear explanation for who built the structure or why, the film channels pure bureaucratic dread. If you're a fan of shows like Squid Games this might be your next watch.

4. The Platform (2019)

Where to watch: It's available to stream in Australia exclusively on Netflix.

Imagine a vertical prison where a lavish feast descends floor by floor, leaving those at the bottom to survive on whatever scraps remain: that's the brutal premise of Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia's breakout Spanish thriller. Equal parts social allegory and survival horror, it uses its stark, repetitive architecture to explore class inequality. A great add for fans of Bong-Joon Ho films.

5. Skinamarink (2022)

Where to stream: It's currently available to stream on Shudder and AMC+ in Australia. You can also rent or purchase the film through platforms like Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.

Shot on a shoestring budget by Kyle Edward Ball, this experimental horror film follows two children who wake in the middle of the night to discover their father missing, the doors and windows gone, and the darkness itself behaving strangely. Rather than relying on plot or jump scares, the film recreates the disorienting sensation of being a frightened child lost inside an endlessly shifting house.

6. Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

Where to watch: It's currently not available to stream in Australia. However, you can rent or purchase the film digitally through platforms like Fetch TV or Google Play.

Before directing Mandy, Panos Cosmatos crafted this hypnotic cult oddity set inside a retro-futurist research facility where a young woman attempts to escape the control of a sinister scientist. Bathed in neon light and analogue synths, the film feels like a forgotten VHS transmission from another dimension, drawing on the same sense of spatial alienation and uncanny architecture that powers liminal-space horror.

7. The Truman Show (1998)

Where to watch: You can stream it on Stan and Netflix in Australia.

Peter Weir's beloved sci-fi satire stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, an ordinary man who slowly realises his entire life is taking place inside a gigantic constructed reality being broadcast to millions. Although far warmer than most films on this list, its obsession with artificial environments, hidden systems and the unsettling discovery that the world around you is fundamentally fake makes it a surprisingly compelling companion piece to Backrooms.

8. Us (2019)

Where to watch: You can currently stream it in Australia on Netflix.

Jordan Peele's ambitious sophomore horror-thriller follows a family whose holiday is interrupted by terrifying doubles of themselves emerging from a vast subterranean network hidden beneath America. As the mystery unfolds, the film expands into a surreal exploration of identity, privilege and social invisibility, with Lupita Nyong'o delivering one of the most memorable dual performances in modern horror.

9. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

Where to watch: You can currently stream it in Australia on Netflix.

A simple road trip to meet a boyfriend's parents gradually unravels into something stranger and more elusive in this adaptation of Iain Reid's novel, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman (who you may know as the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Oscar-winner Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons anchor a film that constantly reshapes its own reality, drifting through shifting timelines, impossible spaces and fractured identities with the logic of a dream.

10. Lost Highway (1997)

Where to watch: It's currently unavailable to stream; however, you can rent or purchase the film digitally on the Apple TV or Google Play.

David Lynch is practically synonymous with the concept of liminal spaces in film – and this one begins with a jazz musician accused of murdering his wife. The film's narrative then abruptly fractures into an entirely different life, leaving viewers to navigate a maze of doubles, surveillance tapes and distorted realities. The film turns identity into a kind of liminal space itself, creating a mood of dread and disorientation.

11. Stalker (1979)

Where to watch: It can be streamed on Kanopy (usually for free with a participating library card). Additionally, you can rent or buy the film on digital storefronts like the Apple TV and Google Play.

Andrei Tarkovsky's 70s masterpiece follows three men on a journey into the Zone, a forbidden and possibly sentient landscape said to contain a room that grants a person's deepest desire. Patient, philosophical and visually hypnotic, it's one of cinema's defining explorations of mysterious spaces, influencing everything from video games and science fiction to contemporary liminal horror through its haunting vision.

12. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Where to watch: It's available to stream in Australia on HBO Max and periodically on SBS On Demand.

Stanley Kubrick was a master of liminal spaces – most of his films could be added to this list, from The Shining to A Clockwork Orange. However, his seminal masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey is where we think you should start. A film about human evolution, artificial intelligence and the mysteries of the cosmos, it turns spacecraft corridors, sterile rooms and infinite voids into spaces of awe and terror. Its final stretch, in particular, remains one of cinema’s most unsettling journeys through the unknown.