10 Must-See Post-Apocalyptic Movies to Keep You Glued

Choose from our list of 10 post-apocalyptic movies; action, suspense, and drama-filled scenarios about the post-apocalypse.

In recent years, many post-apocalyptic movies have caught the attention of moviegoers. In the world we live in today, it is understandable to wonder what would happen if a collapse occurred…

There are many questions people could ask themselves when considering life after the apocalypse: What animals would survive? What food sources would still be available? Would people fight over scraps, or could they work together to rebuild civilization?

In this article, we have compiled a list of the most competent post-apocalyptic movies of recent years and will provide brief introductions to each one. Each of us has our own idea about the great apocalypse. Whether you are a fan of thrillers or enjoy the idea of watching civilization collapse, we are here with a list of movies where everyone can find something of themselves and the questions on their minds. We have compiled 10 post-apocalyptic movies that have met with audiences in the last 30 years for you.

Movie List Index

1.It Comes at Night

10 Must-See Post-Apocalyptic Movies to Keep You Glued - It Comes at Night

It Comes at Night, the second feature movie by young director Trey Edward Shults, who wrote and directed the movie, premiered at the Overlook Film Festival and was released in US theaters two months later. The post-apocalyptic movie, starring Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Riley Keough, received positive reviews from critics. It Comes at Night, which grossed $20 million, was nominated for Best Thriller at the Golden Trailer Awards.

As an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, one man’s tenuous home with his wife and son, safe in a deserted house, is put to the ultimate test when a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge. Despite the best intentions of both families, the horrors outside draw ever closer, and paranoia and distrust grow. As the father of the family, Paul learns that he must protect his family, even at the cost of his innocence and honor, something hidden and monstrous awakens within him.

Information about It Comes at Night (2017)

Director: Trey Edward Shults
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Riley Keough
Release Year: 2017
Duration: 91 minutes
Country: United States
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Language: English
Age Rating: R
Available Platforms: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video
IMDb Rating: 6.2/10
Similar Movies: The Witch (2015), A Quiet Place (2018)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: It Comes at Night on IMDb

2.This Is the End

Written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, This Is The End is a 2013 post-apocalyptic horror-comedy movie. The movie, which premiered at the historic Fox Village Theatre, tripled its $40 million budget at the box office, grossing $120 million. The movie’s soundtrack album was also released the same year. When Sony, which produced the movie, released the trailer, it was initially thought to be a trailer for the sequel to the Pineapple Express series. Although discussions about a sequel have continued for years, the response from the movie’s crew has not been very positive. The movie, which won the Best Musical Scene award from the MTV Movie & Television Awards, drew attention from critics due to its professional cast (James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera, and Emma Watson).

Instead of spending quality time with his best friend Seth Rogen, actor and stand-up comedian Jay Baruchel finds himself dragged into James Franco’s big housewarming party at his new Hollywood mansion. But as Jay tries to mingle with other celebrities like Michael Cera, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, and Craig Robinson, a series of apocalyptic events rock Los Angeles, and the housewarming party turns into Armageddon. Now trapped in James’ minimalist home, a handful of survivors must find a way to survive on rapidly dwindling food and water supplies. Can they defeat Armageddon?

Information about This Is the End (2013):

Directors: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Cast: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson
Release Year: 2013
Duration: 107 minutes
Country: United States
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
Language: English
Age Rating: R
Available Platforms: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video
IMDb Rating: 6.6/10
Similar Movies: Pineapple Express (2008), The World’s End (2013)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: This Is the End on IMDb

3.Bird Box

Birdbox, which premiered at the American Film Institute Festival, quickly became one of the most-watched movies on Netflix. Written by Eric Heisserer and directed by Susanne Bier, the movie was released in 2018 and is based on John Malerman’s novel of the same name. Earning close to $20 million, Birdbox earned Sandra Bullock the Best Horror Performance award at the MTV Movie Awards. The movie also won the Best Music award at the Golden Trailer Awards. It is rumored that a spin-off of the production will be released in the coming days.

Amidst a nightmarish new reality where an unseen, malevolent force has wiped out most of humanity, single mother Malorie and her two children embark on a life-threatening quest to find the last protected haven on Earth. However, along the way, they will face invisible demons that can kill anyone who looks at them with their eyes open, and darkness may be the only hope left. The rules of survival have changed. Will Malorie and her children survive another day?

Information about Bird Box (2018):

Director: Susanne Bier
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson
Release Year: 2018
Duration: 124 minutes
Country: United States
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Age Rating: R
Available Platforms: Netflix
IMDb Rating: 6.6/10
Similar Movies: A Quiet Place (2018), The Silence (2019)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: Bird Box on IMDb

4.The Day After

The American TV movie A Day After was watched by over a hundred million people in millions of homes during its first broadcast and broke rating records. Written by Edward Hume and directed by Nicholas Meyer, the science fiction movie won two Primetime Emmy Awards in 1983, the year it was released. The movie, which influenced the political atmosphere of the period, was about a near-future nuclear war and its effects on a group of people exposed to it.

In the mid-1980s, the Soviet leadership orders its troops to march to the West Berlin border and then decides to enter West Germany with a large number of armored tanks and army divisions. Meanwhile, in Lawrence, Kansas – on the Missouri border – a family is preparing for their eldest daughter’s wedding, and Dr. Oakes is busy with his job as chief surgeon at the small university hospital in Lawrence. As they go about their daily lives, the possibility of nuclear war is brought ever closer by the Soviets’ use of nuclear ballistic missiles on a West German city and their subsequent attack on a US warship in the Persian Gulf.

The Americans respond by shooting down a Soviet ship, and then the Soviets hit the NATO regional headquarters with a nuclear warhead! The people begin to create makeshift shelters in their basements, but many are caught off guard when nuclear missiles are launched one by one from their silos on the Kansas-Missouri border. The authorities then announce that a large number of ballistic missiles have arrived in the United States, and two of them have hit Kansas City, Missouri! Although many are killed outright, the survivors are still in danger of radioactive fallout. The characters we follow now live in a barren, devastated world (without electricity, safe drinking water, or food), a world filled with radioactivity, starvation, and disease, and are constantly in danger of radioactive fallout.

Information about The Day After (1983):

Director: Nicholas Meyer
Cast: Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum
Release Year: 1983
Duration: 127 minutes
Country: United States
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, War
Language: English
Age Rating: TV-PG
Available Platforms: Amazon Prime Video, YouTube (Rental)
IMDb Rating: 7.0/10
Similar Movies: Threads (1984), Testament (1983)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: The Day After on IMDb

5.Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer is a 2013 science fiction post-apocalyptic movie directed by Bong Joon-ho. With a budget of $40 million, it is one of the most expensive South Korean movies ever made, yet it is also the director’s first English-language movie. Snowpiercer premiered in Seoul and was the closing movie of the Berlin International Film Festival. Also streaming on Amazon Prime, Snowpiercer has won a total of 34 film awards and received 104 award nominations. The official soundtrack of the movie, which grossed close to $90 million, was released ahead of the movie‘s release.

The movie takes place in the year 2031, and the entire world, except for those on Snowpiercer, is frozen. For seventeen years, the survivors of the world have been on a train that has been hurtling around the world, creating their own economy and class system. A group of lower-class citizens living in squalor in the back of the train, led by Curtis (Chris Evans), is determined to get to the front of the train and spread the wealth around. Each section of the train holds new surprises for the group that must fight.

Information about Snowpiercer (2013):

Director: Bong Joon Ho
Cast: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Song Kang-ho
Release Year: 2013
Duration: 126 minutes
Country: South Korea, Czech Republic, United States, France
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Language: English, Korean, French, Japanese
Age Rating: R
Available Platforms: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video
IMDb Rating: 7.1/10
Similar Movies: The Road (2009), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: Snowpiercer on IMDb

6.The Road

The Road, a 2009 psychological drama movie that was nominated for many film awards, including BAFTA and Saturn awards, is a powerful production with a budget of $25 million. Shot in Pennsylvania, the movie premiered at the 66th Venice International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion and Silver Lion awards, and was also shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by John Hillcoat, the movie‘s cast includes Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron, Molly Parker, and Garret Dillahunt.

In 2929 Productions’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s thrilling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road, a father (Viggo Mortensen) and a son embark on a long journey across the post-apocalyptic United States in hopes of finding civilization in a world filled with nomadic cannibal tribes.

Information about The Road (2009):

Director: John Hillcoat
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall
Release Year: 2009
Duration: 111 minutes
Country: United States, Australia
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Language: English
Age Rating: R
Available Platforms: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu
IMDb Rating: 7.2/10
Similar Movies: The Book of Eli (2010), Children of Men (2006)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: The Road on IMDb

7.Children of Men

Written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón Orozco, the director of Prisoner of Azkaban, which is considered the most artistically compelling movie in the Harry Potter series, Children of Men is a very expensive movie with a budget exceeding $75 million and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards. Children of Men, which ranked 13th on the BBC’s list of the 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century, prepared with the recommendations of 117 film critics, stars Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Charlie Hunnam. The movie also won BAFTA and Saturn awards for Best Cinematography and Screenplay.

This sci-fi story imagines a future in which humanity is plunged into emptiness after learning that it is infertile, in a population that is facing the possibility of self-destruction. Set against the backdrop of a London torn apart by violence, the movie follows an unlikely hero amidst the world’s struggle to survive: Theo (Owen), a disillusioned former activist and bureaucrat who takes it upon himself to confront his own demons and protect the planet’s last remaining hope: the next generation.

Information about Children of Men (2006):

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Release Year: 2006
Duration: 109 minutes
Country: United Kingdom, United States
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Age Rating: R
Available Platforms: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
Similar Movies: The Road (2009), Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: Children of Men on IMDb

8.Threads

Threads, which won 4 BAFTA awards for its powerful dramatic performance, is an example of a post-apocalyptic movie in the 1984 drama genre. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, the movie was a TV production with a budget of only $400,000. Focusing on two families living in a city in England and a world on the brink of nuclear war, the movie was produced and distributed by the BBC. The subject of Threads, which is considered the scariest of post-apocalyptic movies and cinematic works, is as follows:

While ordinary people in Sheffield are going about their lives, the television news reports that tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union have been escalating following the Soviet invasion of Iran. In general, these events are not issues that people pay much attention to until they realize that a nuclear attack could occur and affect humanity.

Information about Threads (1984):

Director: Mick Jackson
Cast: David Brierley, Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale, Rita May
Release Year: 1984
Duration: 112 minutes
Country: United Kingdom
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, War
Language: English
Age Rating: TV-MA
Available Platforms: Amazon Prime Video, YouTube (Rental)
IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
Similar Movies: The Day After (1983), Testament (1983)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: Threads on IMDb

9.12 Monkeys

With a cast including Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer, the 1995 post-apocalyptic science fiction movie 12 Monkeys is directed by veteran director Terry Gilliam. 12 Monkeys, which made five times its $30 million budget with its box office performance, is an expanded and detailed adaptation of the 1960s short movie La Jetée. The movie, which earned Brad Pitt an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, also won the Oscar for Best Costume Design. The movie is currently available to watch on Netflix.

Claiming to be a time traveler from the distant 2035, James Cole is also a delusional patient hospitalized in a mental hospital in 1990. James’s greatest desire is to fulfill a mission: to save the world from a destructive, murderous agent capable of destroying billions. However, Cole’s psychiatrist, Dr. Kathryn Railly, senses that there is more to James than meets the eye, and he has a fateful encounter with another inmate, the ruthless Jeffrey Goines. Now, all clues point to the extreme activist group known only as the Army of the Twelve Monkeys; however, is the reality that Cole so eloquently describes really true, or merely a disturbing but subjective hallucination?

Information about 12 Monkeys (1995):

Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Gary Oldman, James Cromwell
Release Year: 1995
Duration: 129 minutes
Country: United States
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Language: English
Age Rating: R
Available Platforms: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu
IMDb Rating: 8.0/10
Similar Movies: The Fifth Element (1997), Donnie Darko (2001)
Trailer: Watch the Trailer on YouTube
IMDb Link: 12 Monkeys on IMDb

10.Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth movie in the world-famous Mad Max series and the last member of our post-apocalyptic movie list, is one of the most expensive productions of all time, with a budget of over $150 million. It is also among the top 100 highest-grossing movies, with revenue of nearly $400 million. Fury Road, whose sequel is expected to be released in 2024, also released a soundtrack album simultaneously with the release of the movie. Written and directed by George Miller, the movie stars Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee, and Courtney Eaton. The movie, which won 6 Oscars, also received awards and nominations at the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards. The production, which has a total of nearly 250 film awards, is considered one of the best movies of the 2010s.

This movie is an apocalyptic tale set in the far corners of our planet, in a desolate desert landscape where humanity has been torn apart, and almost everyone has gone mad fighting for the necessities of life. In this world, there are two fugitive rebels who can restore order. One is Max, a man of action and few words, who seeks peace after his wife and child are lost in the chaos. The other is Furiosa, a woman of action, who believes she can make it through the desert and survive to return to her homeland.