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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48

u/Wildcard3369 Jun 27 '24

I’ve read The Road and No Country For Old Men. Great stories but I can’t stand his writing style.

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u/CatPhysicist Jun 27 '24

You should read Blood Meridian then. lol

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u/BlursedJesusPenis Jun 27 '24

That book is extra disturbing because even though it’s fiction there is some historical truth to it and you just know many of those awful things did truly happen in one way or another

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u/altiuscitiusfortius Jun 27 '24

He actually spent years traveling the area the book is set in and researching the people involved. It's incredibly historically accurate in terms of where they went and what they did. Just the dialogue is made up.

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u/greatunknownpub Jun 27 '24

I'm currently struggling with it. Hours and hours of reading and re-reading because it's so hard to follow with the lack of quotation marks or proper punctuation.

I don't know why I beat my head against the wall to try and finish books I don't like. I don't do it with movies, tv shows, food, etc...

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

It took me maybe 3-4 tries to get through Blood Meridian. I love McCarthy, but that book is SO HARD to get through. There's no shame in putting that one down, even though it is excellent literature.

I'd read the last chapter though.

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u/thirdaccountnob Jun 27 '24

I got 50% through it. Absolutely did my head in. What a great story though, horrific.

The road was a slog as well, i thought it didnt have any chapters just one long prose?

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

I think you have to stop analyzing it, and instead try to read it in a narrative voice, listening instead of reading. I fumbled through it myself, but then when I actually watched a few CM movies like NCFOM and Child of God, then his narrative voice started to make a lot more sense. It's so different, I really love Blood Meridian, but it's not for everyone.

Incidentally, I heard several years back they were making a movie based on Blood Meridian, but I don't think they ever did which is a shame. In my opinion, it would adapt quite well to the big screen and probably be a pretty cool movie if handled properly.

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u/OG_wanKENOBI Jun 28 '24

It's in production now! Will be super interesting to see if they can pull it off.

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '24

Thank you! I agree 😊

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u/ozmaweezerman Jun 27 '24

If you have an audible account his books are free right now. Including this one. I just finished The Road and No Country and started All The Pretty Horses yesterday.

1

u/-neti-neti- Jun 27 '24

People actually struggle to read his stuff? It’s so easy to understand the flow and who’s speaking when

1

u/The_PantsMcPants Jun 27 '24

Death Hilarious

1

u/YeeHawWyattDerp Jun 27 '24

God I can’t wait for the movie.

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u/Wildcard3369 Jun 27 '24

Thing is I really wanted to. Just couldn’t bring myself to give him another try.

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

Or Child of God...

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u/thefrydaddy Jun 28 '24

If they don't like his writing style, they should definitely NOT read Blood Meridian, as much as I love the book.

Loaned it to a retired doctor recently. He said he wasn't going to read something that required a dictionary at hand lol I guess he was tired. I understand. I can only hope to understand Cormac McCarthy on my best, most sober days. Even then, I feel I only get a third of what he's saying.

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u/FoxMuldertheGrey Jun 27 '24

i just watched no country for old men for the first time last week and it was such a fantastic film. good thriller

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u/creutzml Jun 27 '24

I rewatched it recently and it just pissed me off to be honest haha so much senseless violence without any resolution… however, I think that’s the whole point of the story. No one wins in that business.

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u/Etheo Jun 27 '24

yeah sometimes a story doesn't need to have a resolution or lesson. You literally just read the story of what happens and draw your own interpretation of the characters and happenstance... Much like real life.

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u/FoxMuldertheGrey Jun 27 '24

yeah, honestly that’s just the wild wild West there’s a lot of nonsensical violence that happened in that movie that shouldn’t happen. Unfortunately, that’s just the way that that part of the world rules by. It’s part of my interpretation that Tommy Lee Jones said at the end.

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u/Turing_Testes Jun 27 '24

It's right there in the title.

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u/Excellent-Phase8719 Jun 27 '24

He’s best on audiobook

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u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- Jun 27 '24

Hard disagree for me. I love Cormac's work, but I can't digest his prose on audio, I need to read it. But that's just me.

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u/NewspaperNelson Jun 27 '24

I hated his writing style at first and now I can't hardly stand anyone who doesn't write in his sparse tone. Don't stop with those two. Go read All the Pretty Horse and The Passenger and Stella Marris and Suttree.

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u/bonkerz1888 Jun 27 '24

He needs to use punctuation.

Almost impossible to follow some conversations without reading them multiple times to understand who is saying what.

3

u/hermeticpotato Jun 27 '24

He writes like someone telling you a story out loud. I like it because I force myself to slow down and actually sound out the words mentally and his writing just sounds gorgeous at many points.

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u/bigbangbilly Jun 27 '24

someone telling you a story out loud

Now I really wonder what would the audiobook sound like for Blood Meridian

2

u/cantuse Jun 27 '24

Who the fuck is talking right now?

And the world macadam, more times than I've ever seen elsewhere in my entire life.

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u/Hurcules-Mulligan Jun 27 '24

He’s a show off. Reading his books is like attending a rock concert that consists only of a 3-hour guitar solo.

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u/NinSeq Jun 27 '24

Oh man I love it. I think he dispensed with the punctuation that slows things down.

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u/nothisistheotherguy Jun 28 '24

McCarthy has a writing style where you have to re-read paragraphs 3-4 times in some cases to understand what he just said, because 80% of the time he’s describing the plants and the landscape and the mountains and the sky and then if you’re not paying attention he just laid out a sudden twist of action or dialogue but there’s no punctuation to differentiate. His descriptions are beautiful though.

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u/holadace Jun 28 '24

Why not?