The end of the world is a terrifying prospect—but watching the ultimate worst-case scenario unfold on film can be a thrilling, cathartic experience. Case in point: It’s no wonder that the pandemic drama Contagion (which claims Gwyneth Paltrow as an early victim) was everyone’s must-watch rental in 2020, as the movie helped us process the real life catastrophe. Pandemics are, in fact, a frequent theme in end-of-the-world movies, as are climate-change catastrophes, zombie hoards, aliens bent on world domination, and meteors hurling towards Earth. And yet, many of the best films about the apocalypse make their impact with quieter moments: a curious robot watches a seedling grow in an abandoned landfill; a terrified family eats a dead-silent dinner; the last pregnant woman on Earth rows a boat towards a hopeful future. For every nightmare-inducing disaster film about the end times, there’s another that finds humor or beauty in the idea that humanity’s time is up and doomsday is near. From all-ages animation to pitch-black drama, here are 25 of the best movies about the end of the world.
The dystopian future has never been more thrilling than it is in George Miller’s gorgeously shot action film. Set in a desert wasteland where survivors fight for water and gasoline in monstrous customized vehicles, it’s by far the best installment of the Mad Max saga, with a series of dazzling set pieces anchored by Charlize Theron’s towering performance as heroine Imperator Furiosa.
The directorial debut of Hustlers writer-director Lorene Scafaria begins with the news that a meteor will destroy all life on Earth in three weeks. Inspired by her own experiences after September11, Scafaria uses the imminent end of the world to explore the way people think about love and relationships, through the eyes of two strangers who are thrown together: Steve Carrell as a middle-aged man whose wife has abruptly left him, and Keira Knightley as a restless young woman desperate to reunite with her family in England.
Maybe the first sign of the end times is that your partner isn’t acting like themselves. Philip Kaufman’s effectively chilling remake of the 1956 “pod people” classic proposes a very different kind of pandemic: one in which people are slowly replaced by their identical doubles while they sleep, making it impossible to tell friends and loved ones from invaders. Younger generations will know this horror film best from the popular GIF of star
“This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but a whimper.”
Then again, what does T.S. Eliot know? As far as the movies go, the possibilities for destroying our planet or civilizations are downright infinite. Certainly, in light of several recent predictions claiming that the end of the world is ‘nigh (most of which have passed, mind you), the apocalypse has naturally been on a lot of peoples’ minds.
And so it goes: What’s prevalent in society’s consciousness is subsequently reflected in our pop culture. This means a surge of movies dealing with a world-ending event. Dramatic or funny; action-packed and exciting or slow and deliberate; real life or supernatural—there’s an apocalypse story for everyone.
Released in mid-summer of 2012, director Lorene Scafaria’s (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) feature film directorial debut came and went without much fanfare. To be fair, it was a hard sell. An apocalypse comedy/rom-com/road trip movie starring the likes of Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, two actors who don’t seem like they belong in the same world together let alone in a romantic pairing, the movie was never going to be a runaway hit. It’s certainly not without its flaws, with a tone that oscillates sharply between comedy and drama and a plotline that borrows heavily from a certain other movie on this list. And yet, Carell and Knightley’s combined charm and chemistry make this one end-of-the-world road trip worth checking out.
Director Bryon Haskin’s 1953 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel remains one of the most notable science fiction films of the 1950s. Today, the film stands as an essential, if somewhat dated, milestone in the evolution of special effects. In other words, unlike certain other properties, a remake was not out of the question. And who better to do so than Steven Spielberg?
The power of Spielberg’s 2005 version is how he repurposes the original’s pervading Cold War paranoia in favor of incorporating elements of post-9/11 trauma. When the Tom Cruise character, having narrowly escaped the initial alien attack, looks into the mirror and realizes he’s covered in the ashes of disintegrated civilians, it’s next to impossible not to summon up the image of debris-covered New Yorkers wandering around the aftermath of the Trade Center attack. Moreover, by sticking closer to the book’s original premise, which involved a man’s attempt to locate his wife in the ensuing chaos, Spielberg creates a disaster film that feels much more intimate and personal than the ‘50s version. Yes, the film kind of falls apart in the final reel, but by that point it’s earned more than enough goodwill to balance out the weaker areas.
Mimi Rogers plays Sharon, a Los Angeles hedonist who ends up falling in with a religious sect obsessed with the End of Times. The group warns that the biblical Rapture is near and Sharon takes the news to heart, vowing to give her life to God and live a purer lifestyle. She eventually even marries and has a daughter. As the signs of the Rapture begin appearing, however, Sharon also begins to doubt her devotion to God and his “cruel” ways. Made on a miniscule budget, the film did little business during its initial run, despite ringing endorsements from the likes of Roger Ebert. It’s not hard to see why thanks to its ham-fisted diatribe against traditional religious views of God. While such a heavy-handed approach certainly bogs the story down in parts, the film is worth seeing for Rogers’ fantastic performance alone as well as the sheer bravery of story’s final 15 minutes.
Given the content restrictions enforced on films in the pre-MPAA age, you’d think it would be next to impossible to release a film containing the kind of visceral impact as a more modern production. And well…you’d sort of be right. Leave it to Stanley Kramer then—director of such issue-heavy projects like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Inherit the Wind—to deliver a moving ensemble drama about a group of characters in denial about their eventual destruction. Set months following a devastating World War III, the film posits a world in which most of the Northern Hemisphere has been contaminated with radiation poisoning and people are moving down to Australia in order to escape the slow-moving but ever encroaching radiation dust. Boasting a cast that includes Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins and Fred Astaire, On the Beach is a must-see for any classic-film fans.
Austrian director Michael Haneke isn’t exactly known for playing it safe; rather, he seems to prefer pushing the boundaries of good taste, as if daring anyone to keep watching. This is certainly the case with his 2003 apocalyptic film Time of the Wolf. Haneke regular Isabelle Huppert plays the matriarch of a French family who travels to their home in the country only to find that an unspecified disaster has driven the world into chaos. When the family tries to find new shelter, however, they are shunned or ignored like lepers in biblical times. Here, by never revealing the cause of the apocalypse, Haneke almost seems to be making a statement not about the nature of man in times of peril but about how fragile human relationships can be and how little it takes to suck the compassion out of people. While not nearly as powerful as some of Haneke’s other works, Time of the Wolf stands as a fantastic alternative to the typical end-of-the-world fare.
There’s one scene in Almost Famous where rocker Jeff Bebe, high on his own self-importance, utters the soundbite-y phrase “rock ’n’ roll can save the world.” Never has these words been more literalized than in Yoshihiro Nakamura’s 2009 film Fish Story. The film opens on the deserted streets of Japan. Everyone is prepping for the seemingly inevitable asteroid collision that will wipe away civilization as we know it. In a still-open record shop in the middle of the city, however, a music fan holds up hope that an obscure punk single from 1975 will save the world. And, in a series of seemingly unrelated stories that trace the song’s history over the years, we see how it does just that. Relentlessly clever and fun, Fish Story manages to tackle the concept of a “hyperlink” story without any of the pretentiousness or overindulges that typically plagues projects of that ilk.
A forgotten little gem from the 1980s (recently released on Blu-Ray), Night of the Comet can easily be dismissed as nothing more than a goof of a film. Those with an open mind, however, will find an intriguing example of a film that mixed genres before such a thing was readily acceptable. The story centers on two teenage Valley Girls who, after a comet passes right near the Earth and vaporizes billions in its wake, decide to take advantage of the end-of-the-world situation by having an epic shopping spree. On the way, however, they encounter zombies, the military and countless other “totally lame” detours. A hilarious send-up of 1980s culture, Night of the Comet provides a thoroughly entertaining time capsule of the decade.
Inspired by the classic 1962 French short film La Jetée, 12 Monkeys went on to become the rare financial success in the notoriously disaster-prone career of former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam. Bruce Willis plays a mentally unstable convict from an apocalyptic future who is sent back in time to halt the release of a deadly virus that will kill billions. Featuring great performances from Willis and a decidedly un-glamorized Brad Pitt, 12 Monkeys bears that rare distinction of containing all the creative visuals and quirks that make Gilliam films great without the incoherent, scatter-brained plotting that often proves to be their downfall.
When it comes to “end-of-the-world-by-zombies” there’s no shortage of viable examples. Certainly old classics such as George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and newer classics like Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead have more than earned their place in the pantheon of great go-to films. Yet, Dawn of the Dead takes the lone spot for specific reasons. In both Night and Shaun the zombie threat is seen on a very small scale, with the action taking place in a rural house and a relatively small neighborhood respectively. Though most of its running time is confined to a massive shopping mall, Dawn’s first third effectively hits home the widespread nature of the zombie outbreak, with scenes like the apartment raid by an overzealous SWAT team visually establishing the reach of the outbreak. Furthermore, while humanity appears to be winning out or returning to normal in a good portion of zombie films, Dawn ends in a place of great ambiguity. Certain heroes survive, but how long can they survive in a world overrun by the undead with limited resources?
Last Night fades in on 6 p.m. of what we soon discover will be the last day before the complete obliteration of the planet (a specific reason is never given though the film does draw attention to the fact that night has not existed for some time). In six hours’ time, the world as we know it will be gone. Written and directed by Canadian actor/filmmaker Don McKellar, the film hops between several loosely interlocked stories, exploring how different people chose to spend their last night. Stranded on the street after her car is stolen and demolished, Sandra (Sandra Oh) tries desperately to get to her husband in time so that they can commit suicide together, recruiting a depressed loner named Patrick (McKellar) to help her out. Patrick’s friend Craig (Callum Keith Rennie) decides to spend the time recruiting women to enact all the sexual fantasies he’s ever had.
Sticking the perfect balance between sincere drama and laugh-out-loud comedy, Last Night builds to an incredible crescendo that will both haunt you and bring a sad smile to your face.
Inspired by the same source material and released within a year of each other, Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe provide an incredible side-by-side comparison for how the same plot can result in two widely different, though equally successful films. That being said, Strangelove, with its demented, ahead-of-its-time dark humor, will always be first in most people’s hearts. While attempting to adapt Peter George’s novel Red Alert for the big screen, director Stanley Kubrick found that he kept needing to cut out certain real-life details about the emergency nuclear bomb procedures because they were simply too absurd to work in a serious drama. Deciding to rewrite the project as a dark comedy, he recruited renowned satirist Terry Southern to help pen the script. From there, it’s all history. To this day, Peter Sellers’ three very different (and very funny) performances remain a feat by which few actors have matched (with possibly the exception of Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets. Moreover, the image of Slim Pickens riding the bomb to its destination as well as the final montage of destruction set to the wistful “We’ll Meet Again” are the stuff of movie legend. Worldwide Armageddon has never been so hilarious.
Of course, at the same time, director Sidney Lumet was developing a more serious take on the “what if?” of nuclear war. Intimidated by the amount of talent involved in Fail-Safe, Kubrick filed a lawsuit asserting that the plotline had been plagiarized from George’s Red Alert, which Kubrick owned the rights to. The lawsuit was eventually settled but it had the desired effect. Kubrick’s movie came out eight months prior to Fail-Safe. It’s a shame because Fail-Safe is nearly as dramatically effective as Strangelove is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau are fantastic in their roles and Lumet’s camerawork and editing beautifully pounds home the escalating tension.
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