“… and wait for this all to blow over.”
In these uncertain times, you may find yourself thinking about the apocalypse more often than usual. That’s not to say the world is ending, but a global pandemic will, uh, change how you think about things pretty quickly. And while some may find that the kinds of movies they want to watch right now are comfort films or adventure movies—something to take their mind off the day-to-day—some may want to go the opposite direction. Just immerse themselves in cinema that reflects the world we’re living in right now, or one we’re heading towards.
To that end, we here at Collider put our heads together to come up with the definitive list of the best apocalypse movies ever made. These films may offer a glimpse at what’s ahead, they may be full of pointers for how to navigate society after a global catastrophe, and more often than not they’re an exaggerated look at what would happen if the world just went to hell. But we can guarantee one thing: they’re all worth watching.
Our criteria for selecting “apocalypse” movies were films in which the world has gone through some sort of catastrophic event. So this ranges from the extreme of Mad Max: Fury Road to a more subtly changed world (if we could’ve put The Leftovers on here, we would have).
But all of these films have something to say not just about the world we could be living in, but the one we’re living in now—pandemic or no. So peruse our list of the best apocalypse movies below, and get to preppin’.
Mad Max: Fury Road
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Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nico Lathouris
Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Whiteley
You might think it’s crazier than a chromed-out War Boy to call Mad Max: Fury Road—set in a future where the human race nuked itself to shit and the world is controlled by a brutal overlord—a “comfort watch” in these trying times. But man, Fury Road is pure high-octane cathartic release. George Miller, possibly insane director of the first three Mad Max films and also Happy Feet, just took a bunch of 18-wheelers and rally cars out into the desert and blew them up for real. Charlize Theron plays a one-armed warrior woman who batters a despot’s regime to pieces. Tom Hardy gets straight-up thrown around for the entire ride. Watching Mad Max: Fury Road one time is the equivalent, heart rate-wise, of jumping a go-kart over a gorge, which is helpful when you can’t actually go outside. A perfect film. Watch it immediately. Have a lovely day. –Vinnie Mancuso
Snowpiercer
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Image via The Weinstein Company
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Writer: Bong Joon Ho, Kelly Masterson
Cast: Chris Evans, Song Kang Ho, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer
At this point I should only have to tell you that Bong Joon Ho directed Snowpiercer and that should immediately bump it up to the top of your must-watch list. Just like Parasite was a favorite film of 2019, Snowpiercer snagged a spot on my personal top ten list back in 2014. The movie is an adaptation of the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige and takes place in 2031 aboard a train with no final destination. It just circles the globe, shielding survivors from the results of a disastrous attempt to stop global warming. Similar to Parasite, Snowpiercer addresses a slew of socioeconomic concerns through a taut thriller that successfully juggles a variety of tones and genres. While the wealthy are living in luxurious, vibrant cars at the front of the train, Curtis (Chris Evans) and the others confined to the tail end are forced to make due with dreary accommodations and a questionable food source while living in constant fear of being targeted by violent train staffers. But now, enough is enough. Curtis decides it’s time to lead a revolution and make his way to the front of the train, taking the viewer from the dreariness and horrors of the back, to an all-out brawl, to a serene greenhouse, to a disturbingly cheery classroom and beyond, all while balancing a mix of sheer terror and satire, challenging you to think twice about familiar social constructs and exactly what it means to be a leader. – Perri Nemiroff
This Is the End
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Image via Columbia Pictures
Writer/Directors: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Cast: Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson
Are you still just like, really, really annoyed by the idea of celebrities “helping” during a pandemic by singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” from the comfort of their mega-homes? Then the balm you need is This Is the End, the pitch-perfect horror-comedy directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg that satirizes how Hollywood’s biggest names would react to the literal apocalypse. The answer, as in real life, is: “Very Poorly”. Playing themselves, Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson find themselves holed up in Franco’s L.A. mansion as demons rise from the Earth and the end of days arrives. If it’s one thing we’ve for sure learned during this pandemic it’s that celebrities are not “just like us”, but at least This Is the End is pretty dang funny about the whole thing. — Vinnie Mancuso
12 Monkeys
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Image via Universal Pictures
Director: Terry Gilliam
Writers: David Peoples and Janet Peoples
Cast: Bruce Willis Madeline Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer
To say Terry Gilliam’s vision of the future in 12 Monkeys is bleak is to say the sky is blue. And it’s the thematic bleakness that really comes through. The future part of the story is set in 2035, where a prisoner living in an underground compound (Bruce Willis) is selected to be trained to go back in time and stop a deadly virus from wiping out almost all of humanity in 1996. Why are prisoners used? Because time travel is dangerous, of course, and they’re expendable. Willis’ character goes on a pretty gonzo trip once in 1996, and past, present and future begin to blend together as we barrel towards a humdinger of an ending. Along the way, he crosses paths with a mental patient and radical environmentalist played by Brad Pitt, in a role that would earn Pitt his first-ever Oscar nomination. This movie is nuts, and kind of a “worst case scenario” for a viral pandemic. – Adam Chitwood.
WALL-E
Director: Andrew Stanton
Writers: Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon
Cast: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, and Sigourney Weaver
If you’re in the mood for an apocalypse movie that has an optimistic bent, WALL-E is your best bet. Pixar’s 2008 masterpiece envisions a future in which humans have entirely left planet Earth behind on account of the buildup of garbage, trash, and waste everywhere. Humans now live on a giant cruise ship out in space, but have forgotten their roots—the only lives they remember are the ones they lead now, in which computers program their every moment and their muscles have atrophied from lack of use. WALL-E is actually probably more accurate than we care to admit, but the charm of the film is that at its root it’s a love story between two robots, who eventually work together to remind humans where they came from. Even when things look darkest, there’s still hope. Assuming you’ve got some kind robots to help nudge you in the right direction. – Adam Chitwood
The Day After Tomorrow
Director: Roland Emmerich
Writers: Roland Emmerich and Jeffrey Nachmanoff
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, and Sela Ward
If you like your apocalypse movies with a hefty dose of bombast, Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow ain’t bad. Notably we’re not putting Emmerich’s 2012 on this list—that movie is bad bad. But while The Day After Tomorrow is a little cheesy and inelegant at times, it ultimately works. The film is a $125 million warning sign about the effects of climate change. Tt follows an American paleoclimatologist (Dennis Quaid) and his colleagues and son as they attempt to warn government officials of an impending disruption to the North Atlantic Ocean circulation. The government officials don’t listen, what the scientists said would happen happens, and the world welcomes a new Ice Age. The visual effects here are pretty stunning, and Emmerich does a swell job of holding tension while showing what a catastrophic weather event would do to New York City. You know, in case you needed a reminder of another major world-changing event destined to happen in addition to this whole pandemic thing. – Adam Chitwood
