Flatliners

Flatliners

Year: 2017

Runtime: 109 min

Language: English

Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Echo Score: 30

Budget: $19M

Sci-FiDramaThrillerHorror

Driven by a fascination with death, five medical students embark on a dangerous experiment. They take turns pushing their bodies to the brink of dying, recording their experiences and confronting the boundaries of life and death. However, as they repeatedly induce near-death states, they unknowingly awaken vengeful forces, and their suppressed secrets and guilt begin to manifest as terrifying visions and threatening consequences.

Flatliners (2017) – Spoiler-Free Movie Summary & Plot Overview

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In the sterile hallways of a prestigious medical school, a handful of ambitious students chase a question that sits at the edge of science and the supernatural: what lies beyond the final heartbeat? Their curiosity is fueled by late‑night lectures, a demanding mentor, and an unspoken promise that knowledge can be pushed past any boundary. The campus becomes a quiet arena where ambition hums louder than the fluorescent lights, and every lab bench feels like a launch pad for something both exhilarating and forbidden.

Courtney Holmes leads the group, a driven young doctor whose personal loss has sharpened her resolve to understand the afterlife. Around her gather Marlo, a fiercely intelligent peer whose confidence masks deeper anxieties; Ray, the skeptical yet ever‑supportive friend who balances science with empathy; Sophia, an eager scholar weighed down by family expectations; and Jamie, whose curiosity borders on recklessness. Together they devise an audacious experiment: temporarily stopping their hearts while recording each other’s brain activity, hoping to glimpse whatever lies on the other side. The plan is steeped in scientific rigor, yet the atmosphere crackles with a restless, almost ritualistic energy, as if each participant is daring fate to answer a question that has haunted them for years.

The film’s tone weaves between clinical precision and a creeping dread, a psychological thriller that treats the operating room as both sanctuary and stage. As the students prepare for their daring foray into the unknown, a palpable tension lingers—personal secrets, unspoken regrets, and the thin veil between life and death hang in the balance. Their camaraderie deepens, but an undercurrent of unease suggests that probing the ultimate frontier may awaken forces far beyond what textbooks can explain, leaving the audience to wonder just how far curiosity can safely travel.

Last Updated: August 10, 2025 at 03:02

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Movies about guilt and supernatural consequences like Flatliners

Characters face terrifying manifestations of their own buried past sins and trauma.If you liked the way Flatliners uses supernatural visions to force its characters to face their past mistakes, you'll find similar movies here. These stories often involve characters being haunted, literally or figuratively, by the consequences of their actions, blending psychological drama with thriller or horror elements.

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Narrative Summary

The narrative pattern typically begins with a character or group engaging in an act that awakens a past wrongdoing. This leads to escalating, often supernatural, repercussions that directly reflect their guilt. The story unfolds as a process of confronting and atoning for these past sins, with survival often tied to emotional acceptance and redemption.

Why These Movies?

These films are grouped together because they share a core theme of guilt as a tangible, threatening force. They combine high emotional weight with tense, often horror-inflected atmospheres, creating a consistent feel of psychological unease and moral reckoning.

Movies about dangerous scientific experiments like Flatliners

Driven by curiosity, characters push boundaries with reckless experiments that unleash unforeseen horrors.Fans of Flatliners who enjoyed the high-stakes tension of medical students testing the limits of life and death will appreciate these films. This selection features similar stories of scientific hubris, where groundbreaking experiments spiral out of control with chilling and often deadly results.

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Narrative Summary

The narrative follows a predictable arc of discovery, risk, and consequence. Intelligent but often arrogant characters initiate an experiment that challenges natural laws. Initial success quickly gives way to unintended and escalating dangers, forcing them to confront the catastrophic fallout of their actions in a race for survival or containment.

Why These Movies?

These movies share a focus on the thrilling and frightening aspects of unchecked scientific ambition. They typically feature a steady pacing that builds tension, high intensity scenarios, and a tone that mixes suspense with dire warnings about the price of knowledge.

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Flatliners Summary

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Flatliners Timeline

Characters, Settings & Themes in Flatliners

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Characters, Settings & Themes in Flatliners

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