If you’re easily misled by large groups of people on the internet and happen to be a colossal idiot you’ll be under the impression that this week will mark the end of the world as you, we and popular American alt-rock band R.E.M. knows it.
Just for you, then, we present a list of films that may comfort you as the Earth enters its final moments and prepare you for any number of doomsday scenarios that may lie ahead. We’ve tried to assemble a broad range of movies featuring apocalyptic situations that cover annihilation by aliens, disease, nuclear war, the exhaustion of the world’s oil supplies, giant space rocks and even giant monsters.
Please don’t pitch a fit if you feel we neglected some obvious candidates. All we remember about The Day After Tomorrow was Jake Gyllenhaal outrunning cold. Like cold, as in the temperature. Cold was trying to catch him and he ran faster than it.
And all we remember about 2012 is that it was awful.
Ah, Independence Day. The sci fi blockbuster that made us proud to be American even if we weren't. With its stirring Presidential speeches, quip-spouting heroes and Jeff Goldblum being so quintessentially Jeff Goldblum, it was impossible not to love. Independence Day also taught us that if giant-headed aliens were to invade the Earth, the only people we can rely on to save us are IT nerds. Give your friendly neighbourhood one a hug today.
"Welcome to Earf!"
Maybe mankind won't perish in a flash. Maybe we'll be forced to ride out our ultimate demise for several decades, like 2006's Children of Men. In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left most of the world in a state of chaos and war. It's actually a little difficult to make jokes about this movie thanks to how completely depressing it is.
To everybody aside from Michael Caine, who's currently having a total blast.
Nobody really wants to watch grim apocalyptic features while eating Spam from the faux-safety of their '50s fallout shelters, so here's a comedy to lighten the load. Mars Attacks!, made in '96 by Tim Burton, promises that an alien invasion could actually be a heck of a lot of over-the-top, campy fun, provided Jack Nicholson is finally made President. The film also carries a message pertinent to any non-invasion time period: don't trust big-breasted women with immovable faces, or hippies.
"Die by my comic timing!"
If you’re reading this article from a country where cheese comes in a can you might know this film as The Road Warrior, but either way this 1981 cult classic should be great training should you survive the apocalypse and find yourself living in what’s commonly known as the post-apocalypse. In a world ravaged by war and crippled by the decimation of the Earth’s oil supplies, former highway patrol officer Max Rockatansky cruises the Australian outback wasteland. His only companions? An Australian Cattle Dog, a sawn-off and his supercharged Pursuit Special – the last of the V8 interceptors.
Not pictured: 27 different types of deadly snakes and spiders.
In 1995, director Wolfgang Peterson presented us with a chilling scenario: the end of the world could come via Ross' pet monkey from Friends! Outbreak is one of those fairly graphic epidemic movies that had every germaphobe who watched it turn just that little bit more Howard Hughes. Fortunately, this and the similarly themed Contagion have taught us that any friendly pig, bat or primate could usher in our imminent doom, and thus we must wash our hands after touching them.
It was the fashion at the time.
If you haven't seen The Cabin in the Woods yet, stop reading this now and go and see it. Don't argue! Shut up! For all the rest of you, how good is The Cabin in the Woods? At the risk of spoiling the film for those who have stubbornly refused to listen to our advice, this is a hugely entertaining and subversive comedy-horror which may or may not have an apocalyptic themes. But you already know that, don't you?
"Is that... the Red Dawn remake?"
In 1964, this terrific Stanley Kubrick flick helped America face its fear of nuclear attack with a large serving of black comedy, and it's still a pertinent satire today. Sterling Heyden plays a maniacal general intent on launching a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, while Peter Sellers is priceless in three roles, including the titular Strangelove. Lines such as, "The auto-destruct mechanism destroyed itself" and, "You can't fight in the War Room!" will inject any onlooking youngster with a healthy distrust for authority.
Possibly not as fun as it looks.
In the future a rogue artificial intelligence known as Skynet will become self-aware and initiate a nuclear war on "Judgment Day". It will devastate mankind and kill billions, but Skynet will not stop there. It will go on to create an army of machines that will hunt down the survivors. Humanity’s only hope is John Connor, the leader of the resistance after Judgement Day, so Skynet sends a Terminator back to 1995 to... wait. Do we really need to summarise the plot of T2 for you? Like, really? Could anyone who hasn’t seen T2 please raise your hands? We need to know who to turn away from the fallout shelters.
“We’ve consulted the minigun and he insists you’re not welcome.”
Did you ever have that dream when you were a child that your parents or siblings were replaced with alien creatures who merely looked like your parents or siblings? '78's Invasion of the Body Snatchers makes that dream an awesome realisation, complete with the terrifying idea that said aliens will emit a piercing scream when they sense a human amongst them. Plus, an ending that will leave you feeling bleaker than the prospect of a Christmas with your non-alien extended family.
"You liked the last Twilight movie!"
Cruising around a barren, post-apocalyptic world with naught but a dog and a sweet Ford is not exclusively the domain of Mad Max. In I Am Legend Smith plays virologist Robert Neville, one of mankind's last survivors of a custom virus originally engineered to cure cancer. He works to create a cure by day while defending himself against the vampire zombies created by the virus at night. There are actually two endings for this movie – there’s the good one, and then there’s the one they actually used.
"Hey, woah, woah, woah!"
Hey, maybe the end of the world will be our fault. But maybe, instead of a disease, we'll just fill the world with so much garbage we'll just have to straight up leave. You know, like in WALL-E? You haven't seen WALL-E? It's kind of like the opposite of The Terminator.
As in, all the robots are adorable and we suck.
Armageddon opened in cinemas just two-and-a-half months after Deep Impact. It performed slightly better at the box office but, on the whole, critics hated it a fraction more than they hated Deep Impact. When a world-ending asteroid is detected, Billy-Bob Thornton turns Bruce Willis and several of his friends into astronauts and sends them into space to blow it up. The team succeeds, but not before Steve Buscemi comes down with a severe case of space dementia.
It’s the worst kind of dementia.
Lucy O'Brien and Luke Reilly are editors at IGN AU. They'll both probably spend the end of the world watching Ghostbusters. Talk to Lucy here and Luke here, or meet them and the rest of the Australian team at the IGN AU Facebook community.
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