To get some ideas about how barren and inhospitable the world might be in the future, here is a list of some of the best post-apocalyptic movies to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Light of My Life (2019)
Director : Casey Affleck
Starring : Casey Affleck, Anna Pniowsky, Tom Bower
A pre-teen Rags and her dad take on a journey through an end-of-time British Columbia, a place devoid of women. In fact, no female humans exist anywhere on Earth because a lethal plague wiped out the world’s female population a decade ago. Rags is the sole exception. Being the only woman on the planet, Rags depends on her father to keep her safe from the men-only society filled with angry, lustful, and manipulative bandits. The only way to go is forward is to go to nowhere.
Dredd (2012)
Director : Pete Travis
Starring : Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey
In a post-apocalyptic world where the United States has become a wasteland of dystopian society, justice still has to prevail somehow. Order must be maintained, the streets must remain safe, and laws must be enforced. In the ruin of an old world inhabited by 800 million people, armed cops have license to kill. A degraded society of the future has a new kind of an old problem: mind-altering drug known as SLO-MO. The jobs to take down its production and distribution along with the drug lord running the operation are best left to Dredd – the exemplary cop, judge, and executioner.
Aftermath (2014)
Director : Peter Engert
Starring : Edward Furlong, Monica Keena, Andre Royo, C.J. Thomason
Nuclear disaster is often a premise of a post-apocalyptic movie. The characters then navigate through a destroyed world, fighting for resources against each other. Aftermath (2014) doesn’t stray too far from such a mainstream idea. That said, it doesn’t tell a story in the decades or centuries following an apocalypse, but in the immediate aftermath of it. A small group of people are forced to take refuge in a shabby shelter somewhere in rural Texas. They’re struggling not only against zombie-like invaders, but also radiation poisoning and toxic air.
Scorched Earth (2018)
Director : Peter Howitt
Starring : Gina Carano, Stephanie Bennett, John Hannah
If you don’t care much about the plot and only focus on the fight scenes, Scorched Earth is a good 96-minute fun. In the film’s version of a post-apocalyptic world, the destruction of the planet started not so long ago mainly due to relentless industrialized mining and uncontrolled fossil fuel consumption. Climate change of global scale puts the Earth on the brink of total depletion, forcing everyone to revert back to the much simpler old-school barter system and the absence of internal combustion. Burning fossil fuel is against the law, which leads to a nasty battles between bounty hunters and criminals.
Night of the Living Dead HD (1968)
Director : George A. Romero
Starring : Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Marilyn Eastman
Most movies about zombies are post-apocalyptic in nature, otherwise normal human will not be outnumbered by the undead. This 1968 film remains a mainstay of the genre for its beauty in simplicity. To stay safe from the hordes of flesh-eating corpses, who have just been reanimated thanks to radiation from a space probe explosion, some ordinary Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in a farmhouse. Struggles ensue to the very end of the film. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Night of the Living Dead is the best zombie movie of all time.
The Blood of Heroes (1990)
Director : David Peoples
Starring : Rutger Hauer, Joan Chen, Vincent D’Onofrio
A war in the 20th century brought the world to its knees. Most technologies have been wiped out, and the planet is now inhabited only by small populations here and there. People scavenge for food when there are no crops to harvest and raise dogs as livestock animals. There are no laser guns, invading aliens, or smart zombies in the film. The plot revolves around the lives of six people who travell across the land to play juggers, a savage game of American football using a dog skull. The Blood of Heroes gives a different take on the post-apocalyptic theme, with a touch of Dark Ages.
Cherry 2000 (1988)
Director : Steve De Jarnatt
Starring : David Andrews, Melanie Griffith, Jennifer Balgobin
In Cherry 2000, a film released over three decades ago, post-apocalyptic future happens in 2017. A constant economic crisis has driven the United States into madness with only few civilized areas remaining. Most people have become overly bureaucratic and more importantly, hyper-sexualized. There are lawyers in brothels to help men and women handle the paperwork before they can engaged in sexual activities. To keep things simple, men take androids as wives instead. When a successful man loses an android wife following a short-circuit damage during a vigorous sex in a wet kitchen, he hires sexy tracker to find him another.
Turbo Kid (2015)
Directors : Anouk Whissell, Francois Simard, and Yoann-Karl Whissell
Starring : Munro Chambers, Laurence Lebouef, Michael Ironside
In an alternate 1997, the world has already fallen into a post-apocalyptic state. The society living in a godforsaken place known as “The Wasteland” is ruled by an evil overlord called Zeus. Nothing is off-limit for Zeus; there is no boundary as to what he will do to retain control. He even grinds people into liquid. An orphaned boy, whose parents were killed by Zeus, is on a quest to save the day. Just about everything about Turbo Kid is 1980s-retro with one-eyed villain, first love, BMX, and desert soundtrack. Some say, it is a cult classic in the waiting.
Carriers (2009)
Directors : Alex Pastor and David Pastor
Starring : Chris Pine, Piper Perabo, Lou Taylor Pucci, Christopher Meloni
Here is another typical premise: a deadly virus infected and killed most of the world’s population. The few remaining survivors are on their way to a sanctuary. While the virus-induced massive scale deaths is always the background of the narration, Carriers gracefully shifts the focus on the interpersonal conflicts among the sanctuary seekers. Their body might be healthy, but they find it difficult to make sound judgment about everything on the journey. Their survival and happiness depend on whether they should stay together or leave each other.
The Colony (2013)
Directors : Jeff Renfroe
Starring : Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton, Kevin Zegers
The world is covered in snow as if the planet has returned to Ice Age period. Survivors form colonies in various places, but they all live underground to stay away from the extreme cold temperature. Without access to healthcare facilities and farm lands, they must control diseases inside cramped bunkers and prepare for a journey to the surface for food. Some colonies have already resorted to cannibalism. There is hope when a radio broadcast delivers news of melting ice in an unknown location, but hope can be dangerous.
The Midnight After (2014)
Director : Fruit Chan
Starring : Simon Yam, Tien You Chui
A group of people take a minibus in Hong Kong to travel from Mong Kok to Tai Po. As the minibus goes through a tunnel, the world changes in an instant. The streets are empty and all places around are eerily quiet. Soon the passengers realize that they might be the only people left alive in Hong Kong. Many of them suddenly melt, become ill, or spontaneously combust. Some suggest it is a paranormal experience, and others think the strange phenomena are caused by nuclear disaster elsewhere. The Midnight After is for sure touching on the post-apocalyptic theme, but it takes the issue with a completely different perspective: comedy. As with any comedy, you watch it not for the action, but for the laugh.
The Survivalist (2015)
Director : Stephen Fingleton
Starring : Martin McCann, Mia Goth, Olwen Fouéré
In a world where most people see each other only as potential meals, no one is trustworthy. To stay away from all the killings, a man chose to live alone in a small cabin deep in the woods. When a mother and a daughter came across the cabin, his story gets complicated. The mother is willing to let him do as he pleases to her daughter in return for food and shelter. He agrees, and everything seems alright although inappropriate. However, the mother’s intention to kill him never really disappears.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Director : George Miller
Starring : Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, and Nicholas Hoult
To exclude Mad Max: Fury Road from a list of post-apocalyptic movie would be blasphemy. There is Max, a lone wanderer haunted by his troubled past; and then is also Furiosa, a female warrior longing to revisit her own past back at home. Their world is a barren desert with little humanity left. Everyone fights for survival, and a villain leader speaks like a Viking lord. A twist of fate and a common enemy bring Max and Furiosa together in a thrilling parade of outrageous car chase sprinkled with flame throwers, chainsaw, heavy metal distortion, black mud, gasoline, and mother’s milk.
