My favourite apocalyptic movies

Threads

This is a rare one and quite hard to find. I’d never heard of it and was lucky to see it at a festival called Offscreen in Brussels, Belgium. One of the themes of the festival was apocalyptic movies. I saw about eight movies about the end of the world that week! My kinda fest! Threads was projected from an original 35mm print which added to the mood. It really takes you by surprise. Towards the end of the first half it get’s into a mood that is devastatingly sad and dark. At the end you just can’t even talk anymore. Im not sure if I can watch it again.

Stalker

This is such an amazing film. I haven’t watched it in ages. I have it on DVD though so maybe it is time. To me Tarkovsky is one of the all time greatest film makers along with Bergman and Kubrick. There are a lot of great film makers but to have such a strong body of work. A little known fact that I just learned last weekend is that Tarkovsky shot this movie twice! The first time they shot it at a desert in Russia but all of the film was ruined in a laboratory accident. So the entire film was shot again with a different cinematographer and apparently all the scenes are different from the first shoot.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Almost all Ghibli studio movies are amazing but especially Hayao Miyazakis movies are close to my heart. This is just such a beautiful film. It ends my top three list with a hopeful ending!

Here’s a handy list from wikipedia if you’re thinking of an apocalyptic movie marathon weekend ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction#Film

And a quite interesting read if you want to get deeper into the academics of the subject: http://www.westga.edu/~psydept/dodson/postapoc.html

Movies that require a honorary mention for being super entertaining or otherwise quite good: 28 Days later, A Boy and His Dog, Children of Men, Day of the Dead, Escape From New York, The Happening, I am Legend, Mad Max, The Road, Terminator, Terminator 2.