Apocalypse: 73

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) is an American science fiction film, serving as a remake of the 1951 film with the same title, which was originally based on the 1940 short story Farewell to the Master. Way back in 1928, a lone mountaineer exploring the Karakoram mountains in India comes across a glowing sphere. After losing consciousness, he wakes up with a scar on his hand and finds that the sphere has vanished. Fast forward to present day, an unidentified object is spotted heading towards Earth from Jupiter’s orbit with potential to wipe out all life. In response, the U.S. government hastily enlists a team of scientists, including Helen Benson ...

The Happening (2008) is a science fiction thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. In New York City’s Central Park, a series of suicides occur among the people. The cause is believed to be a bio-terrorist attack using an airborne neurotoxin, which quickly spreads throughout the Northeastern United States. High school science teacher Elliot Moore and his wife Alma are joined by Elliot’s mathematician colleague Julian and his daughter Jess on a train out of Philadelphia. As they journey, they discover that Boston and Philadelphia have also been affected. Their communication is cut ...

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) is an action horror film directed by Russell Mulcahy and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. In the movie, a cloned Alice awakens in a mansion and navigates her way through its corridors, being forced to escape multiple security traps along the way. However, she ultimately meets her demise when she sets off a bounding mine hidden on the floor. Her body is then disposed of into a pit filled with numerous other Alice clones, who serve as failed experiments for Umbrella Corporation’s Project Alice. Fast forward five years from ...

I Am Legend (2007) is an American post-apocalyptic action thriller film directed by Francis Lawrence and written by Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich. The film depicts a world in which a measles virus, intended to cure cancer, instead becomes lethal and spreads rapidly, infecting 99% of the population and turning them into vampiric, albino, cannibalistic mutants known as Darkseekers. These creatures are vulnerable to sunlight and prey on the small number of people who are naturally immune. Three years have passed since ...

28 Weeks Later (2007), a post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, follows the story of Don and his wife Alice, along with four other survivors, as they take refuge in a cottage on the outskirts of London during the initial outbreak of the Rage Virus. However, their safety is short-lived when they hear a terrified boy pounding at their door and Don makes the decision to let him in. Unfortunately, this leads to the infected following the boy to their location. Despite Don’s attempt to convince Alice to leave the boy behind, she refuses and he ultimately abandons them, escaping on a boat ...

George A. Romero wrote and directed Diary of the Dead (2007), a found footage horror film. The movie follows a news crew as they capture an immigrant man killing his wife and son before taking his own life. The wife and son then turn into zombies, attacking and killing medical personnel and police officers, leaving only a medic and a reporter bitten before being killed themselves. Debra, the narrator, explains that most of the disturbing footage recorded by the cameraman was never aired. Meanwhile, in a different setting, students from the University of Pittsburgh’s film studies program, led by their faculty ...

Written and directed by Richard Kelly, Southland Tales (2006) is a dystopian black comedy thriller film. In an alternate reality of the United States on July 4, 2005, twin nuclear attacks destroyed two Texas towns (El Paso and Abilene) causing mass destruction and loss of life. This triggered a catastrophic chain of events that threw the country into chaos and panic, leading to a Third World War (based on the effects of the War on Terror). As a result, the draft was reinstated by the government, while US-IDent, a new agency with extended powers under the PATRIOT Act, constantly monitors citizens’ activities ...

Æon Flux (2005), an American science fiction action film, is based on the animated TV series of the same name created by Peter Chung. In 2011, a deadly pathogenic virus wiped out 99% of humanity, forcing the survivors to scatter and regroup across Earth. Eventually, five million humans settled in Bregna, a walled futuristic city ruled by scientists. Though Bregna may seem like an idyllic place compared to the destroyed Earth, people still go missing and suffer from nightmares. Æon Flux is a skilled warrior and part of the Monicans, an underground rebel group led by the Handler that uses telepathy technology to ...

Land of the Dead (2005) is a post-apocalyptic horror film written and directed by George A. Romero. Following the zombie apocalypse, human civilization has reorganized and established a chain of protected city-states across America. One such sanctuary is located within the triangular peninsula of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal-like government governs its citizens. Surrounded on two sides by rivers and barricaded on the third with an electrified fence guarded by a militia, this city provides relative security for its inhabitants. Beyond its borders lies a desolate landscape with abandoned suburbs and ...

War of the Worlds (2005), an American science fiction action-thriller, was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. Based on H. G. Wells’ famous 1898 novel of the same name, the film opens with a narrator describing the threat of extraterrestrial beings who are envious of humanity’s dominance over Earth. The story follows Ray Ferrier, a divorced longshoreman working as a crane operator in Brooklyn, New York. He is estranged from ...

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) is an action horror film directed by Alexander Witt and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. In the previous installment, Alice (a former security operative) and Matt Addison (an environmental activist) joined forces to escape from the Hive – an underground genetic research facility responsible for a zombie outbreak. Their mission was to expose the illegal experiments being conducted by pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation. However, their efforts were thwarted as they were both captured and separated by Umbrella. Meanwhile, a team ...

Dawn of the Dead (2004), an action horror film, marked Zack Snyder’s first foray into feature directing. The screenplay was written by James Gunn, as it was a remake of George A. Romero’s 1978 film with the same title. After completing her shift as a nurse, Ana returns home to her suburban neighborhood and her husband, Luis. Despite having planned a date night together, they are unaware of an emergency news broadcast. The next morning, their neighbor Vivian suddenly appears in their bedroom and kills Luis. Wh is immediately turned into a zombie and attacks Ana. She manages to escape in her car but ends up ...

The American disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow (2004), was co-created and directed by Roland Emmerich. Inspired by the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, the film follows Jack Hall, an American paleoclimatologist. Together with his colleagues Frank and Jason, they are conducting ice-core sampling in the Larsen Ice Shelf for NOAA. During their research, the ice shelf breaks off into the ocean. At a UN conference in New Delhi, Jack presents his findings on how climate change ...

Directed by Jon Amiel, The Core (2003) is an American science fiction disaster film. A series of diverse incidents involving the Earth’s magnetic field prompts geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes and his colleagues, Dr. Serge Leveque and Dr. Conrad Zimsky, to conclude that the rotation of the Earth’s molten core has ceased. If not reactivated, this would result in the collapse of the field within months, leaving the surface vulnerable to harmful solar radiation exposure. To address this crisis, the U.S. government initiates a covert project to construct a vessel capable of drilling into the core and deploying ...

Resident Evil (2002) is a thrilling action horror film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. The story takes place in Raccoon City, where the sinister Umbrella Corporation owns a genetic research facility known as the Hive. When a thief steals the powerful T-virus and unleashes it inside the facility, the Hive’s AI system, called the Red Queen, responds by sealing off the building and executing all its inhabitants. Alice wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she got there, finding herself in an empty mansion. She quickly gets dressed and explores the mansion, but her search is abruptly interrupted ...

Reign of Fire (2002) is a post-apocalyptic science fantasy film directed by Rob Bowman. During one of his visits to a London Underground construction site, Quinn Abercromby witnesses the awakening of a massive dragon from its dormant state. Tragically, most of the workers are killed by its fiery breath, leaving Quinn as the sole survivor. His mother Karen, who was also working on the project, sacrifices her life to protect him. After emerging from the Underground, the dragon is soon joined by others and humanity finds itself on the brink of extinction. Despite numerous attempts by military forces to stop their spread ...

28 Days Later (2002) is a British post-apocalyptic horror film helmed by Danny Boyle and penned by Alex Garland. The cause of chaos is a highly contagious virus known as the ‘rage virus’, which is set loose in Great Britain when an infected chimpanzee escapes from its confinement at a laboratory in Cambridge, thanks to animal rights activists. One of the activists succumbs to the virus moments after freeing the enraged chimp, quickly spreading it to another individual. As hours and days pass, the illness spreads like wildfire and plunges society into utter ...

In 3028, an American animated sci-fi film called Titan A.E. (2000) was directed by Don Bluth. The cutting-edge ‘Titan Project’ angers the Drej, a violent species of energy beings who see humans as a potential adversary. With the goal of eliminating humanity, the Drej launch a massive attack on Earth, forcing people to flee in search of safety. As Professor Sam Tucker leaves his son Cale in the care of his alien friend Tek and escapes on the spaceship Titan, he gives Cale a gold ring and assures him that there is still hope for their kind. After Earth is destroyed by the Drej, surviving humans become refugees ...

Armageddon (1998), an American science fiction disaster film, was both produced and directed by Michael Bay with Jerry Bruckheimer also on board. In the film, a colossal meteor shower obliterates the orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis and proceeds to pummel various cities including New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Moncton, Halifax, and Newfoundland. Later in the film, we learn that these meteors were knocked out of the asteroid belt due to a collision with a rogue comet. In addition, this same collision caused a massive asteroid – comparable in size to Texas ...

Directed by Mimi Leder, Deep Impact (1998) is an American science fiction disaster film. During a star party in Virginia, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Biederman notices an unidentified object in the night sky and sends a picture to astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf. Upon realizing it is a comet headed for Earth, Wolf rushes to warn others but tragically dies in a car accident. One year later, MSNBC journalist Jenny Lerner begins investigating Secretary of the Treasury Alan Rittenhouse for his connection with ‘Ellie’, whom she assumes to be his mistress. However, she becomes confused when she sees Rittenhouse and ...