Think of the gritty heroes and anti-heroes who navigate through the rubble, their stories a mix of despair, hope, and the unyielding human spirit.
1. "Stalker" (1979)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
In a post-apocalyptic world, a guide known as the Stalker leads two men into a mysterious and forbidden area called "The Zone" to find a room that grants wishes.
2. "Threads" (1984)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
A British television drama that depicts the effects of a nuclear war on the city of Sheffield, England, showing the devastating impact on society and the long-term environmental and health consequences.
3. "Snowpiercer" (2013)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
In a future where a failed climate-change experiment has killed all life except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, a class system emerges onboard.
4. "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" (1981)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Max, a drifter and former police officer, helps a small, gasoline-rich community escape a band of marauders.
5. "Children of Men" (2006)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
In a future where humans have become infertile and society is on the brink of collapse, a cynical bureaucrat is tasked with protecting a miraculously pregnant woman.
6. "Delicatessen" (1991)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
In a dilapidated apartment building in a post-apocalyptic France, the butcher sells meat of dubious origin, and a new tenant becomes involved in the lives of the bizarre residents.
7. "12 Monkeys" (1995)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%
A convict is sent back in time to gather information about a man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population.
8. "It Comes at Night" (2017)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%
Two families are forced together in an uneasy alliance to keep the outside evil at bay, only to find that the true horror may come from within.
9. "The Day After" (1983)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
This film portrays the immediate aftermath of a nuclear war on the residents of a Kansas town, highlighting the harrowing effects of nuclear fallout and the struggle for survival.
10. "These Final Hours" (2013)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 85%
As the end of the world approaches, a self-obsessed young man makes his way to the party-to-end-all-parties, but along the way, he saves the life of a little girl searching for her father.
11. "The Last Man on Earth" (1964)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 81%
Based on Richard Matheson's novel, this film follows the life of a scientist who is the last human survivor of a plague that has turned the rest of humanity into vampires.
12. "The Battery" (2012)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 80%
Two former baseball players navigate their way through the rural back roads of a post-zombie-apocalypse New England teeming with the undead.
13. "A Boy and His Dog" (1975)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 78%
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a young man and his telepathic dog struggle for survival and encounter an underground society.
14. "On the Beach" (1959)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 78%
After a global nuclear war, the residents of Australia must come to terms with the fact that all life will be destroyed in a matter of months.
15. "Z for Zachariah" (2015)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 78%
In the wake of a disaster that wipes out most of civilization, two men and a young woman find themselves in an emotionally charged love triangle as the last known survivors.
16. "The Road" (2009)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 74%
A father and son journey through a post-apocalyptic world, facing moral dilemmas and threats from other survivors, as they head to the coast in hope of finding a better life.
17. "The Quiet Earth" (1985)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 71%
A scientist wakes up to find himself apparently the only survivor in a world where humanity has vanished, leading him to explore the reasons behind this mysterious apocalypse.
18. "Le Dernier Combat" (also known as "The Last Battle") (1983)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 71%
In a future where humanity has lost the ability to speak, the few remaining humans struggle for resources and survival in a barren landscape.
19. "The Omega Man" (1971)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 65%
A survivor of a global pandemic battles nocturnal mutants as he tries to find a cure for the virus in a deserted Los Angeles.
20. "Carriers" (2009)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 64%
Four friends fleeing a viral pandemic soon learn they are more dangerous than any virus when they attempt to elude the disease.
21. "The Book of Eli" (2010)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 47%
In a post-apocalyptic world, a lone man fights his way across America to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humanity.
22. "Hell" (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 35%
After the sun has turned the entire world into a scorched and barren wasteland, survivors in the German countryside struggle to fight off marauders and search for food and supplies.
23. "The Day" (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 31%
A group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic landscape must survive a world overrun by cannibals in this intense psychological thriller.
24. "The Divide" (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 26%
Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.
25. "The Postman" (1997)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 10%
In post-apocalyptic America, a drifter dons a postman's uniform and mailbag to bring hope to survivors by delivering letters.