The Best Movies and TV Shows Like I Know What You Did Last Summer

The coastal town of Southport is forever scarred when four inseparable teenagers—Julie, Ray, Helen, and Barry—accidentally strike and kill a pedestrian while driving along a winding, fog-drenched road. Terrified of ruining their promising futures, they collectively decide to dump the man’s body into the ocean, swearing a solemn pact of silence. They believe their secret is buried beneath the waves, but one year later, the trauma resurfaces when Julie receives a chilling, anonymous note: "I know what you did last summer."As the group reunites, their fragile lives begin to unravel under the pressure of paranoia. The mysterious antagonist, revealed to be a fisherman wielding a lethal, hook-handed weapon, begins systematically stalking them. Julie, driven by intense guilt and fear, attempts to investigate the victim's identity, uncovering a dark history involving a man named Ben Willis who died under suspicious circumstances years prior. Meanwhile, the killer targets the group with surgical precision. Barry is brutally attacked in his car, and Helen, whose fame as a local beauty queen makes her a public target, faces a harrowing pursuit through her family's department store.The tension escalates as the friends realize their pact was not just a secret, but a death sentence. The killer is not a supernatural entity, but a vengeful human seeking retribution for the accident they tried to erase. As the body count rises, the survivors are forced to confront their own moral failings. The narrative builds to a claustrophobic climax aboard a fishing boat, where Julie must outwit her tormentor. She discovers that the fisherman is indeed seeking vengeance for the hit-and-run, fueled by the cold indifference the teenagers displayed toward his life. In a desperate struggle for survival, Julie manages to neutralize the threat, seemingly ending the nightmare. However, the film concludes on a haunting note: as Julie enters her freshman year of college, she finds a new message in a steamy bathroom mirror, proving that while she survived the summer, the sins of the past are impossible to outrun. The cycle of terror remains poised to strike again, leaving the survivors forever looking over their shoulders.