So you might have heard that our remaining days on Earth are numbered. Like, to one. At least that's how a group of fundamentalist Christian doomsday prophets are calling it, prompting followers and skeptics alike to come to grips with the enduring resonance of life after the apocalypse. But filmmakers have never needed an excuse to genuflect when it comes to the End of the World. With this in mind, consider these entertaining and/or potentially instructive movies for your post-apocalyptic viewing pleasure:
On the Beach (1959)
Stanley Kramer's adaptation of the Nevil Shute novel was the first real Hollywood treatment of Cold War nuclear paranoia, complete with an all-star cast including Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins. What transpired remains arguably the most bleakly romantic apocalypse film ever, wherein Earth's only survivors of a nuclear holocaust come together in Australia -- at least until the radiation gets them. The climax below culminates in a wasteland tableau that still kind of shocks viewers and influences the doomsday genre to this day.
Panic in Year Zero (1962)
Oscar-winner Ray Milland directed and starred in this D-movie about a family seeking refuge from a society turned upside-down with nuclear fallout, roaming hooligans and sweeping destruction. I love it for its collision of post-Eisenhower earnestness with the mortal terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis era, all bundled up in one solipsistic ball of class-conscious white-flight crisis. Kidding! I love it because I never get tired of seeing Milland order Frankie Avalon -- playing his son (!) Ricky (!!) -- to shoot people.
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
To the extent Stanley Kubrick used comedy to parse the impending apocalypse in Dr. Strangelove, director L.Q. Jones had a campy, tongue-in-cheek look at the aftermath with this curio. The results are neither good nor bad, but rather an ironic, over-the-top application of swingin' '70s culture to the glum genre nihilism that commenced with On the Beach.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Word on the street is that those left behind following the rapture will have zombies to contend with, or will become zombies, or are destined to fall to zombies, or something. (Kirk Cameron, will you clear this up for me?) Anyway, just in case a related scenario transpires, here is George Romero's indelible taste of what to expect from the media and your local law enforcement once the apocalypse is underway. Hint: Don't go near the malls!
The Road Warrior (1982)
Director George Miller and star Mel Gibson broke the doomsday genre wide open with their 1979 muscle-car/revenge thriller Mad Max, but this sequel did something even more intriguing by defining a certain post-apocalyptic lifestyle. From Gibson's cocky, brooding wasteland chic to Miller's wide-angle landscapes choked with garbage, cars, smoke and savages, The Road Warrior plays like some kind of aspirational adventure for cynics -- the anti-Indiana Jones, really, for young men coming of age in the last decade of the Cold War.
The Day After (1983)
In the instance that zombies don't spark tomorrow's rapture panic, prepare for a more organic freakout with this TV movie -- the chaotic, hyperrealistic depiction of a nuclear event hitting America, and still pretty harrowing stuff in the long shadow of 9/11. That guy whose car's electrical system fails him, prompting him to sprint desperately away to anywhere -- even though nowhere is safe -- gets me every time.
Tank Girl (1994)
Water is scarce in the decade after a comet strikes Earth, decimating its population and leaving one monolithic, malevolent corporation in power. Enter Rebecca (Lori Petty), abducted and enlisted by the company's chief (Malcolm McDowell) to help retrieve an underground store of water, only to create the spunky postmodern heroine known as Tank Girl. This one's a total mess, to be sure, but its wry feminist overtones, young Naomi Watts presence and Ice-T as a kangaroo-human warrior hybrid will take your mind off the horrors of vanquished civilization for at least a little while.
I Am Legend (2007)
Richard Matheson's famous novel about a man adrift following a vampire pandemic had been adapted twice prior to this Will Smith blockbuster, but neither Last Man on Earth (1964) nor The Omega Man (1971) came close to approaching the look, sound, and feel of urban devastation as evocatively as I Am Legend. On the one hand, sure: The ending is a joke. On the other, when Manhattan goes weedy and wild after tomorrow, this is the hunting tutorial for the 21st century.
2012 (2009)
From Roland Emmerich, reigning Bard of the Doomsday Genre, came what was instantly -- and shall forever remain -- the greatest apocalypse film in Hollywood history. May we all hear the babe's joyful wail of "No more pull-ups!" when our own doomsday misadventures are complete.