31 Best Apocalyptic Movies Of All Time Ranked

If the horror genre allows moviegoers to stare death in the face, its more existential cousin, the apocalypse movie, offers a way to contend with world-ending scenarios from the comfort of the couch. Apocalypse films blur genre lines: Dark comedies, melodramas, and action thrillers all fall under this umbrella. Accordingly, they're infinitely imaginative in their attempts to predict how humanity will meet its end. We'd say the sky's the limit as far as these visions go, but in movies about the apocalypse, the sky is rarely a welcoming place: It's so often full of dire omens, swirling storm clouds, and incoming meteorites. 

In praise of this spectacular sub-genre, we've decided to assemble a ranked list of films that represent the best of apocalyptic cinema. Some have endings that will make you want to weep. Others offer a sliver of hope that mankind will always adapt and overcome. A few make the bold claim that humanity's demise might not be the worst thing that could happen. Spanning decades, tones, and countries of origin, these are the 31 best apocalyptic movies of all time, ranked from the merely enthralling to the absolutely superb.

This loose adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic novel follows scientist Robert Neville who is, as far as he can tell, one of the last human beings on Earth. Thanks to an attempt to cure cancer that mutated into a deadly virus, most humans have become pallid, vampiric creatures. Balancing mind-numbing loneliness with his attempts to survive and develop a cure, Neville soon finds that he is far less alone than he initially suspected. Grounded by a heartfelt performance by Will Smith and featuring more action than the vast majority of films on this list, "I Am Legend" is a punchy, big-budget take on an apocalyptic ur-text.

• Starring: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Dash Mihok
• Director: Francis Lawrence
• Year: 2007
• Runtime: 101 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68%

Ralph Burton is a miner who is trapped underground while a nuclear holocaust wipes out all of humanity. Emerging to find New York City deserted, Ralph assumes he's the last man on Earth, and starts acting like it. Then Ralph meets Sarah, a fellow survivor. But their dynamic is soon disturbed by the arrival of another survivor. Starring the trailblazing screen star and activist Harry Belafonte, "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil" feels like a lost "Twilight Zone" episode filtered through the lens of Richard Matheson. Tackling its societal themes head-on and highlighting Belafonte's undeniable screen presence, this film is an unmissable and decidedly more optimistic entry in apocalyptic cinema.

• Starring: Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens, Mel Ferrer
• Director: Ranald MacDougall
• Year: 1959
• Runtime: 95 minutes
• Rating: NR
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70% (Audience Score)

This sci-fi survival horror film (and not-so-covert "Cloverfield" sequel) follows Michelle, a young woman who wakes up in an underground bunker after a violent roadside accident. Unsettled by her domineering savior-captor Howard, who claims the air outside is toxic and she cannot leave under any circumstances, resourceful Michelle sets about plotting her escape. This economically paced and wildly tense single-location thriller boasts numerous top-shelf performances and a claustrophobic sense of unease. If the world ended and you were trapped underground with an overbearing psycho, what would you do?

• Starring: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr.
• Director: Dan Trachtenberg
• Year: 2016
• Runtime: 104 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Adapted from the 1962 French film "La Jetée," "12 Monkeys" follows James Cole, a convict from the year 2035 sent through time to find a solution to the world's dark fate. In 1996, a deadly virus of unknown origin eradicates almost all life on Earth, forcing those who survive underground. The plan is to send Cole back to the day of the outbreak to learn how it all went down. But when he's accidentally transported too far back, his warnings of the end of days land him in a mental hospital. Boasting evocative production design and expectation-subverting performances from its two male leads, "12 Monkeys" is a frantic, doom-filled ride with both style and substance.

• Starring: Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt
• Director: Terry Gilliam
• Year: 1995
• Runtime: 129 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

If you shook your fists at those who held super-spreader house parties during the COVID-19 pandemic, boy have we got the film for you! A top-shelf product of Roger Corman and Vincent Price's yen for Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, "The Masque of the Red Death" follows Prince Prospero, a hedonistic Satanist who has resolved to lock himself (and his party guests) in his enormous castle to stave off the terrible plague known as the Red Death. Full of cruelty, scene-chewing, and gorgeous production design realized in jaw-dropping Technicolor, "The Masque of the Red Death" is a sumptuous visual feast of gothic delights that overcomes its budgetary limitations to deliver one of the most striking products of Corman's career.

• Starring: Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher
• Director: Roger Corman
• Year: 1964
• Runtime: 90 minutes
• Rating: NR
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

In the aftermath of a top-secret experiment designed to create a global energy source, a scientist named Zac Hobson awakens to find that he is the last person alive on Earth — or so he thinks. Soon, Hobson happens upon two other survivors. As the trio discovers the common cause behind their survival, their emerging love triangle takes a backseat to Hobson's revelation that the full extent of the experiment's pernicious effects have yet to reveal themselves. Overwhelmingly cryptic and appropriately lonely, "The Quiet Earth" is a gorgeously photographed low-budget gem grounded by three soul-wrenching lead performances.

• Starring: Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge, Peter Smith
• Director: Geoff Murphy
• Year: 1985
• Runtime: 91 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%

This iconic film may not initially read as apocalyptic fiction. But — brace yourself for a 60-year-old spoiler — when the plot's larger context is ultimately revealed, its qualification as "end of days" cinema becomes painfully, ironically obvious. This film follows George Taylor, an astronaut stranded on a strange planet dominated by sentient ape-like creatures who use human captives for sport and scientific experiments. Still one of the bleakest (and campiest) films to come out of Hollywood, "Planet of the Apes" features a grounded performance from Roddy McDowall as the benevolent chimp Dr. Cornelius and one of the most infamous (and gut-wrenching) final shots in all of cinema.

• Starring: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter
• Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
• Year: 1968
• Runtime: 112 minutes
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

Just as Harry is preparing to go on his first date with his dream girl, he accidentally receives a chilling tip-off that nuclear missiles are going to destroy Los Angeles in less than an hour. While Harry initially laughs off the information as a cruel joke or the ravings of a madman, he soon learns that the threat is very real and very imminent. Balancing endearingly unrelenting romantic idealism with an undeniable sense of hopelessness, this Tangerine Dream-scored neon-lit terror trip is a love story for the end times.

• Starring: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar
• Director: Steve De Jarnatt
• Year: 1988
• Runtime: 87 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Directed by the Australian auteur Peter Weir, "The Last Wave" follows David Burton, a taxation lawyer who is hired to act as the defense in a murder case involving the death of an Aboriginal man during a freak rainstorm. When Burton begins to experience bizarre, watery dreams, he starts to agree with the accused: The strange weather patterns are a sign of an incoming apocalypse. Ambiguous and lyrical, "The Last Wave" is steeped in otherworldly strangeness as reality refuses to sit still.

• Starring: Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, David Gulpilil
• Director: Peter Weir
• Year: 1977
• Runtime: 106 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

When a pair of bumbling, underpaid employees at a top-secret military supply warehouse accidentally unleash a deadly gas, the malignant vapors begin to raise the dead. Did we mention the warehouse's neighbors are a cemetery and a crematorium? This is sure to end well. As the dead wrench themselves back into the land of the living, they only have one thing on their minds: braaaains. One of the most confident directorial debuts in horror history, "The Return of the Living Dead" is a rare breed: A horror-comedy that truly delivers on the horror, both in the gore department and the existential probability that mankind is going to pratfall into its own destruction.

• Starring: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa
• Director: Dan O'Bannon
• Year: 1985
• Runtime: 91 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

Based on Michael Crichton's 1969 novel, "The Andromeda Strain" begins with a mysterious catastrophe: The residents of a rural New Mexico town all die after the return of a satellite. The only survivors are an alcoholic man and a screaming infant. Suspecting the satellite may have brought a vicious alien organism into Earth's atmosphere, a group of scientists conduct an investigation in a top-secret lab armed to self-destruct if any infectious agent threatens to escape. Featuring science fiction harder than a diamond with a procedural bent that will satisfy those with a love of 1970s conspiracy thrillers, "The Andromeda Strain" is the cruel pinnacle of the killer virus sub-genre.

• Starring: Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olson
• Director: Robert Wise
• Year: 1971
• Runtime: 130 minutes
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 67%

Even though it's supposed to be the happiest day of her life, Justine is absolutely miserable throughout her wedding. She's doing her best, but her severe depression shows through the cracks, much to the embarrassment of her controlling sister, Claire. Meanwhile, an immense blue planet, Melancholia, is on a collision course with Earth. As the gargantuan celestial object bears down on our planet, Justine finds elation and peace in the promise of imminent destruction. Claire, on the other hand, descends further and further into anxiety and panic as her helplessness gets the better of her. Weaponizing cataclysmic destruction as a metaphor for all-consuming depressive episodes, "Melancholia" is a masterful, engulfing, necessarily draining watch.

• Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård
• Director: Lars von Trier
• Year: 2011
• Runtime: 135 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

Aliens have invaded Earth, and not as little green men, but as microscopic, gelatinous spores capable of imitating and assimilating into the populace of prospective victims. Our hero is Matthew Bennell, a lab scientist who begins to grow wise to the extraterrestrial conspiracy as the signs of subversive takeover peek through the cracks. The question is, will he be able to alert the powers that be before it's too late? Who can he confide in, when the enemy looks like a carbon copy of people he trusts?

• Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy
• Director: Philip Kaufman
• Year: 1978
• Runtime: 115 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

For reasons unknown (though radiation from a disintegrating space probe may be to blame), the dead are rising from their graves. A group of survivors fleeing the rotting hordes find themselves under one roof, where they're forced to steady their fragile nerves and work together to keep the flesh-hungry ghouls at bay. A groundbreaking, precedent-setting genre offering that set the stage for a litany of zombie films keenly interested in the human response to the end of days, "Night of the Living Dead" refuses to show its age, packing one heck of a punch over 50 years past its release.

• Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman
• Director: George A. Romero
• Year: 1968
• Runtime: 96 minutes
• Rating: NR
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang, but with miscommunication and politicians fighting in the war room. (There is also a bang, for good measure). Simultaneously one of the scariest and funniest films ever made, Stanley Kubrick's satirical masterpiece focuses on a gaggle of politicians, generals, and diplomats attempting to thwart an unintended nuclear holocaust instigated by an American general maddened by conspiracy theories. Horrifyingly plausible and undeniably hilarious, "Dr. Strangelove" is a classic for a reason.

• Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Keenan Wynn
• Director: Stanley Kubrick
• Year: 1964
• Runtime: 94 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%