My Personal Ranking of Post-Apocalypse Movies (Patreon)

Yep, I'm giving my personal rankings of movies again, because my 1979 Scifi Movies Rankings and 1980s Fantasy Movies Rankings were popular.

Yep, I'm giving my personal rankings of movies again, pretty much just because my 1979 Scifi Movies Rankings and 1980s Fantasy Movies Rankings proved popular. But this time I am going to tackle an entire genre, and one of my favorites, post-apocalypse movies.

I'm establishing some largely-arbitrary rules on what does and doesn't qualify for this list. That does mean I am skipping some great movies, but I have to cut back the total volume of things to rank somehow. As an objective requirement, only movies that got English-language theatrical releases are considered (limited releases count, festival-only screenings do not).

I'm also making some subjective requirements. The movie need to be primarily about events after the apocalypse, so movies about the apocalypse occurring and the immediate aftermath (Dawn of the Dead, Day After Tomorrow, Mad Max, or A Quiet Place: Day One for example) are excluded. Movies where a new large-scale ongoing civilization has risen from the ashes and the primary plot is not about apocalyptic settings, events, or themes (such as Judge Dredd) are also out of consideration. Movies where the apocalypse is in a limited area that's clearly a small part of the world (28 Days/Weeks/Years Later, Doomsday) won't be listed. And I'm not going to include movies with a post-apocalyptic section that isn't the main location of most of the action (12 Monkeys, The Time Traveler).

If you don't like where I draw the line on those judgement calls, let me know! I tried to play fair, but I have my favorites and I admit it.

I also can't rank movies I haven't seen. So I plan to rank Arcadian at some point, but I haven't caught it yet.

Also, a note on quality and content. I happily acknowledge that just because I like a film better doesn't mean it's a better movie. The Road is a very well done movie of high quality. I don't much like it.

Also, post-apocalypse movies often have a lot of unpleasant actions in them -- sexual assault, mistreatment of animals, torture, and so on. I recommend checking doesthedogdie.com for content warnings if there are things you don't want to watch. I do so often. This article is not covered by the OGL. All posters are shown for editorial purposes.

From most to least liked:

Mad Max: Fury Road

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Wizards

The Blood of Heroes

(The Blood of Heroes is my favorite post-apocalypse coming-of-age sports underdog romance movie... but the poster doesn't really tell you ANY of that. Poster presumed (c) whoever owns the rights to this movie now.)

The Girl With All The Gifts

The Quiet Earth 

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Mad Max II: The Road Warrior

In the Lost Lands

A Quiet Place

Zombieland

The Book of Eli

Bird Box

[First dividing line. I consider all the movies above this point to be great films. I know a lot of people don't agree with me, and that's fine. But given how much I adore a lot of objectively B-Movie and worse post-apocalypse films, it seemed worth calling out that my favorites are also, IMHO, great movies.]

Fist of the North Star (1986)

The Domestics 

Six-String Samurai

Hell Comes to Frogtown

Afterburn (2025)

9 

Day of the Dead (1985)

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

(I don't consider the original or remake Planet of the Apes, or Escape from or Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, or Rise of the Planet of the Apes to qualify for this. The first two are not stories about the post-apocalypse, they are stories about a human in an alien world that only turns out to be our world at the end. Rise is a pre-apocalypse movie, and a great one, but again doesn't count here. Beneath and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes DO belong here, and Kingdom is found lower on the list. Battle for, Dawn of, and War for are all cusp cases, and in the end I did not include them because there's already Planet of the Apes representation on the list.)

I Think We're Alone Now

The Ultimate Warrior

The Omega Man

Resident Evil: Extinction

Priest

Damnation Alley

Night of the Comet

(An argument can be made that Night of the Comet doesn't meet my criteria. Go ahead, feel free to make that argument! This is one of the post-apocalypse movies that has posters that seem embarrassed to tell you what the movie is about. Poster presumed (c) whoever owns the rights to this movie now.)

A Quiet Place Part II

Zombieland: Double Tap

Love and Monsters

The Survivalist

Here Alone

Steel Dawn

Warm Bodies

Snowpiercer

Die Alone

World Without End

On The Beach

I Am Legend

Land of the Dead

A Boy and His Dog

Slipstream

Blue World Order

Warriors of the Wind

(Warriors of the Wind was the name of the heavily-edited English-dubbed version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind that got an English-language theatrical release. This ranking is just for that edited version. The real Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind doesn't qualify for this list, but if it did it would be much, much higher.)

She

Reign of Fire

Terminator: Salvation

Warlords of the 21st Century

Radioactive Dreams

Stake Land

Diary of the Dead

The World, the Flesh and the Devil

The Last Man On Earth

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Cherry 2000

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Beyond the Time Barrier

Def-Con 4

(Def-Con 4 is definitely one of the movies where the poster promised a lot the movie did NOT deliver on! Poster presumed (c) whoever owns the rights to this movie now.)

Survival of the Dead

Turbo Kid

Light of My Life

Mortal Engines

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

Rapture-Palooza

It Comes At Night

Waterworld

Day the World Ended

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Oblivion

Into the Forest

The Last Survivors

Extinction

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

What Still Remains

Captive Women

Warriors of the Wasteland

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

(The first live-action Resident Evil movie doesn't qualify for this list because the situation is in much too limited an area. But eventually the franchise goes full global apocalypse, and as silly as those movies are, I do... mostly... enjoy them for what they are. Poster presumed (c) whoever owns the rights to this movie now.)

Scorched Earth

The End

Air

The Colony

1990: The Bronx Warriors

After the Fall of New York

Homestead

Glen and Randa

2067

The Battery

Tooth and Nail

The Day

Cyborg 2

The Rover 

Young Ones

(To be very clear, we are NOT talking about the British sitcom 'The Young Ones.' Poster presumed (c) whoever owns the rights to this movie now.)

Extinction (The 2015 film)

[With the exception of The Road, films below this point are, in my opinion, objectively bad films. A lot of movies ABOVE this line are also objectively bad, but I enjoyed them to one degree or another anyway. Not so from here down.]

Cyborg

Escape from the Bronx

Robot Jox

Patient Zero

Gas-s-s-s

Exterminators of the Year 3000

America 3000

Quintet

The Bedsitting Room

The Divide

The Postman

The Road

[Below this line, I feel the films are objectively TERRIBLE.]

Cell

Wheels of Fire

The Day

No Blade of Grass

Five

Robot Monster

( Yes, the famously panned film truly is the very worst post-apocalypse film. I wanted Robot Monster to be so-bad-it's good... and it's not. Not even close. Poster presumed (c) whoever owns the rights to this movie now.)

Disagree with my rankings? Tell me what movies ought to be higher or lower on the list!

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