My co-worker Jachin has started a blog called Survive The Apocalypse, and when it came to our attention today that he had not seen The Road Warrior, we set out to make a list of MUST WATCH movies for him as “research” for his project.
It turns out that there is already a wikipedia page for Listing Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic fiction, and that was a good place to start, but it would probably be hard to wade through all those movies, so here is my (much shorter and much less definitive) list of the ones that I highly recommend, specifically in relation to apocalypse survival:
- The Road Warrior (1981)
- Children of Men (2006)
- 12 Monkeys (1995)
- Fido (2006)*
- Shaun of the Dead (2004)*
- Six String Samurai (1998)
- The Postman (1997)
- District B-13 (2004)
- A Boy and His Dog (1975)
- Escape from New York (1981)
- 28 Days Later (2002)*
- Night of the Living Dead (1968)*, Dawn of the Dead (1978)* (Honestly, I haven’t yet seen Day of the Dead (1985)*, Land of the Dead (2005)*, or Diary of the Dead (2008).)
- Waterworld (1995)
Two that get nods even though they are far-future, in a world nearly unrecognizable (and, coincidentally, both animated), and because they both rate highly on my list of favorite films of all time:
- Nausicaa, Valley of the Wind (1984)
- Wizards (1977)
Note that the *s indicates zombies present in the film. While researching, I also found this awesome Wikipedia page for zombie comedy films. Also interesting to note that City of Ember is on the first wikipedia list. I haven’t read the book (although I understand it’s young-adult), and have been meaning to catch it before it leaves the theaters.
Update: It occurs to me that I should take this moment to plug the comic book series The Walking Dead, which I have only just recently read to date. (It’s still coming out, and is full of super good zombie excitement.) Also, I just read The Road, a novel by Cormac McCarthy, which is being turned into a movie of the same name that will be released late November (next month). The Road doesn’t have zombies in it, but it’s solidly post-apocalypse.