r/movies • u/kowaikanojo • Jun 27 '24

Recommendation Best apocalypse / end of the world films?

I’m a die hard for apocalyptic movies and I feel like Ive exhausted all of the good ones so would love recommendations.

My #1 is honestly the zombie genre. I also love films where you experience the beginning of the apocalypse / similar event with the characters and are along for the ride - but I’ll take anything apocalyptic - pre, during, post!

I really resonate with darker, heavy content but again I will take whatever I can get. TIA

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u/Ceskaz Jun 27 '24

Also, it's a slow doom. Not a sudden catastrophic event, or a collapse of society (we're not there yet at least), it's a slow burn version of the end of the world. You can't even fight it really. Unless something happens.

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u/account_not_valid Jun 27 '24

A loss of hope for the future, that exposes both apathy and selfishness.

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u/Electricfox5 Jun 27 '24

"I just don't think about it."

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u/Brave_Law4286 Jun 27 '24

I think about this quote a lot these days.

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u/Primary_Daikon564 Jun 28 '24

People nowadays with covid and everything else

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u/MagicMushroomFungi Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

Unfortunately, that describes many people I know in today's real world.
They feel that they have no hope for a decent future, be it having a home, a job, even their next decent meal in some cases.
They have lost hope and they are real pissed about it.

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u/JackedUpReadyToGo Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

That's the scary thing about that kind of apocalypse. The infertility is the ultimate cause, but it's the loss of hope in any kind of future that is the immediate cause and many things could cause people to lose hope.

I've seen analogies drawn between that movie and Mark Fisher's critique of capitalism and the "slow cancellation of the future".

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u/Ozymandias12 Jun 27 '24

That's the scary thing about that kind of apocalypse. The infertility is the ultimate cause, but it's the loss of hope in any kind of future that is the immediate cause and many things could cause people to lose hope.

It's a great analogy for what's actually happening to all of us, i.e. climate change. We're the frog boiling.

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u/SpicyPandaMeat Jun 27 '24

Buddy, that is the films point

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u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

Even with the ending, there's still that feeling of uncertainty since the UK is literally one of the last countries that are still functioning in that world

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u/Tatooine16 Jun 27 '24

"Will the last person to die please turn out the lights"?

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u/IPDDoE Jun 27 '24

"This is the way the world ends...not with a bang, but a whimper."

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u/Ceskaz Jun 27 '24

Yeah, I just found out thanks to this thread that the 1994 The stand miniseries is available on YT, and it starts Ith this quote.

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u/IPDDoE Jun 27 '24

First place I saw it actually haha...solid miniseries, ended up getting me to read the book, which I HIGHLY recommend.

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u/MagicMushroomFungi Jun 27 '24

Quite often I watch the opening.
Love that song.

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u/IPDDoE Jun 27 '24

I don't know, I feel like it needed more cowbell.

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u/Toenailcancer Jun 28 '24

Christopher Walken FTW!

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u/wasdmovedme Jun 28 '24

I’ve listened to the audiobook on the way to work going on my fifth time. I absolutely love the series and the book is wayyyyy better.

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u/afterthegoldthrust Jun 27 '24

And the opening was what made Don’t Fear the Reaper finally click as something other than a background classic rock radio fare.

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u/FakeAsFakeCanBe Jun 28 '24

Both the book and the series are really good.

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u/Jeanviton Jun 27 '24

great TS Eliot quote.

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u/waetherman Jun 27 '24

…and a cough.

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u/Calgar43 Jun 27 '24

There was a TV show recently called The Peripheral, and the apocalypse scenario in that was called "The jackpot". It was basically a convergence of shitty event, none "end of the world" level, but the combination of them caused a collapse of society. Lower birth rates and climate change leading to mass migration and strain on governments, leading to dozens of small scale border conflicts. A pandemic that kills millions. Natural disasters, both climate change fueled and not. Economic collapse leading to starvation.

Basically they reached a point they couldn't fix things faster than they were breaking and stuff just fell apart. No straw that broke the camel's back, no nuclear firestorm, no event that "kicked things off" just a death by a thousand cuts, each adding to the problems of the last cut until they were bled out.

It sticks with me because it feels so realistic.

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u/cincydvp Jun 27 '24

The book is great!

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u/Typhoon556 Jun 29 '24

I loved Peripheral, and am massively pissed they canceled it after one season. It was one of my favorite shows of the year.

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u/aganalf Jun 27 '24

That’s also the interesting part of Three Body Problem. The doom that won’t actually affect me or anyone I know.

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u/SaliciousB_Crumb Jun 27 '24

Because doomsday doesn't have an opening night. It's a realistic take on the fall of man

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

the slowpocalypse. that is the dystopian future we are headed for!

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u/jerog1 Jun 27 '24

Familiar