If you’ve aimlessly scrolled a streaming app in the last few years you’ve probably seen a thumbnail for something called Escape Room. I watched Escape Room maybe a year ago, and then had a conversation with someone about it only to realize we were talking about two different movies. It turns out, you can’t just copyright the idea of “escape rooms” or even the name so like any good rush-to-market film genre there’s tons of movies and copycats about escape rooms without all the pesky unique titles.

Because this leads to a pile of movies with near identical titles but no relation, I’m going to do my best to untangle and organize them so you have a handy reference guide. But also, I’m only watching the ones I can see for free, which I think is an appropriate amount of laziness for this lazy sub-genre.

But first, to understand the escape room movie we should get this out of the way: Here’s a few titles that are NOT escape room movies that I found that have escape room-y titles:

Escape From Room 18 (2017, dir. Daniel Brea) 

This one is not about escape rooms, but rather about Nazis. I didn’t see it, but if you see this title remember: it’s not about escape rooms, it’s about Nazis.

Riddle Room (2016, dir. Bryan Binder)

Riddle Room is just about a room. The person does want to escape the room, but I can’t include this one as part of the genre. It is on Tubi if you want to see it though.

Celebrity Escape Room (2020)

This is a TV special, hosted by Jack Black and has four celebrity guest contestants: Lisa Kudrow, Ben Stiller, Courtney Cox and Adam Scott.

I had never heard of it because it came out on network TV in May of 2020, and I was in no mood at the time. I did watch it though, and Jack Black is fun in it. As far as the “celebrities playing games” genre goes, this is the only watchable example I’ve ever seen. It’s on YouTube and Jack Black has a ponytail in it.

OK, now onto the real escape room movies in chronological order. They have confusing titles, but remember that on top of that the plots are mostly all the same too. You will be getting something that rips off Saw, maybe rips off Cube a little, and it will feature a clunky line describing what an escape room is.

Escape Room (2017, dir. Peter Dukes)

The original! I think. I have not seen it, but this is one of the earliest ones and the one that stars Skeet Ulrich and Sean Young. From what I can tell Skeet operates an escape room, but gets more than he bargained for when he adds some kind of riddle box to the attraction. I think the riddle box houses the spirit of a killer.

You can rent it for $3.99 on Amazon, but you can also do a lot of stuff for $3.99. Sometimes I think about how that amount could cover a cool t-shirt at Goodwill. A shirt you may keep for years. Something to consider.

Escape Room (2017, dir. Will Wernick)

This one is also called Escape Room and came out in 2017 but this one is streaming for free on Tubi, so I watched it. I was going to say you can remember this one as “the one that starts with a birthday party” but there’s a Russian one that also does that so this is “the American one that starts with a birthday party.”

This one has the worst puzzles. One puzzle we see a guy who has a padlocked chastity belt strapped around his bathing suit area and the lock has a 4 digit number code. So the guy assumes the numbers correspond to letters, and the code must be a four letter sex word so he instantly guesses “HEAD” and it’s right and he takes the device off, and then that doesn’t lead to anything or trigger a new puzzle. He just now no longer has this metal thing on his groin and he dies like 15 minutes later so it didn’t even matter. This is not a good puzzle, or a good movie.

At one point a guy yells, “Fuck these puzzles!” I hear ya, my man.

Escape From Marwin aka Escape Room (2018, dir. Jordy Castejón)

This one has two titles, and one of them makes me think it has some kind of connection to Welcome to Marwen even though it’s spelled differently and made by different people from a different country.

This is a Spanish movie and I couldn’t find it streaming for free, also it doesn’t appear to be about “escape rooms” of the corporate field trip variety. The description I found says it’s about death row prisoners who are put into an escape room to have a chance to win their freedom. You can rent this one for $1.99. Hey, maybe!

Escape Room: Quest of Fear (2018, dir. Adreas Marfori)

This is “the Russian one that starts with a birthday party.” 

It’s streaming on Tubi but has no baked-in subtitles, just a closed caption option that is not accurate, and riddled with misspellings. One character does succinctly describe escape rooms though. “One goes around and solves situations. And someone else jumps on you to scare you.”

This movie is super cheap but in a kind of endearing way. There’s a scene where I don’t think they used microphones, for example. It’s shot handheld, and it kind of looks like 28 Days Later but it’s difficult to tell if that’s a choice or a necessity.

The first half of the movie is about a Ouija board and a voodoo doll and a guy’s birthday party and it’s pretty boring, but then halfway through they go to an escape room and it kinda turns into a Rob Zombie-esque blood and guts showcase set to heavy metal.

This movie is not very good, but I liked seeing Russian buildings and clothes on film.

No Escape Room (2018, dir. Alex Mirkin)

This one is on Netflix so I gave it a watch and then forgot everything about it by the time I sat down to write this.

It’s about a father and daughter and is the escape room movie where the dad gets high from special tea and hallucinates. This is as much as I can recall.

Escape Room (2019, dir. Adam Robitel)

I think this is the popular one, but I’ve not seen it because it’s not streaming for free any more. I watched some reviews of it though and it’s the one where people get black boxes to participate in an escape room for a $10,000 prize.

Escape: Puzzle of Fear (2020, dir. J. Jones)

This is the one with Omar Gooding in it. That’s how you remember it.

Another free stream on Tubi! The whole movie kinda looks like an Unsolved Mysteries reenactment and kind of has a plot reminiscent of that too.

It’s maybe more of a thriller than a horror movie? There are sex swingers in it too. It’s the one with Omar Gooding and sex swingers.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021, dir. Adam Robitel)

The sequel to the other one. Again, I didn’t see it anywhere for free so I just watched some review videos and they all said it’s pretty similar to the original.

Escape Room: La Pel-lícula (2022, dir. Héctor Claramunt)

Another Spanish movie, but this one looks like the fun one. I watched an un-subtitled trailer and it appears to be a comedy that takes place in a Nazi laboratory themed escape room. It looks fun but I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Recommend If You Like pays all our writers. Some of that comes from our Patreon. If you've enjoyed anything we've done, cool. We have a Patreon. We promise that once we're bought by a billionaire or millionaire looking for a fun new vanity project, we'll stop asking for money. Until then, please consider the Patreon. If you can't afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It's free and we're asking here instead of a pop-up.