80 years of post-apocalyptic cinema
Emma Anne James (Twitter) is a PhD researcher at the University of Leicester, writing her thesis on the critical analysis of post-apocalyptic cinema. She has written a guest post for The Knowledge website discussing the tropes and common themes, as well as the implicit assumptions within them, of these post-apocalyptic films. Here, she provides for us her exhaustive list of 78 American post-apocalyptic films released in the eighty-year period between 1933 and 2013. This includes absolute classics like On the Beach, some truly awful films like Creepozoids, and all three incarnations of The Planet of the Apes narrative (1968, 2001, 2011).
Emma’s research focuses on films released after 1968, and doesn’t include zombie flicks for various reasons including their general status as apocalyptic rather than post-apocalyptic films (see here for her definitions on this). She also includes a few films that have another type of narrative, but contain a very significant post-apocalyptic aspect in the film (for example, the last third of A.I. is significant for its iconographic and thematic use of a post-apocalyptic setting).
Here, then, is Emma’s complete list of post-apocalyptic films. How many have you already seen…?
- Deluge (dir. Felix E Feist, 1933)
It’s Great to be Alive (dir. Alfred L Werker, 1933)- Peace on Earth (Animation) (dir. Hugh Harman, 1939)
- Five (dir. Arch Oboler, 1951)
- Captive Women (dir. Stuart Gilmore, 1952)
- Good Will to Men (Animation, 1955)
- Day the World Ended (dir. Roger Corman, 1955)
- World without End (dir. Edward Bernds, 1956)
- Teenage Caveman (dir. Roger Corman, 1958)
- The World, The Flesh and The Devil (dir. Ranald McDougall, 1959)
On the Beach (dir. Stanley Krammer, 1959)- Last Woman on Earth (dir. Roger Carman, 1960)
- Panic in the Year Zero! (dir. Ray Millars, 1962)
- The Last Man On Earth (dir. Sidney Salkow, 1964)
- Planet Of the Apes (dir. Franklin S Schaffner, 1968)
- Beneath Planet Of the Apes (dir. Ted Post, 1970)
- Glen and Randa (dir. Jim McBride, 1971)
The Omega Man (dir. Boris Sagal, 1971)- Battle for Planet of the Apes (dir. J Lee Thompson, 1973)
- A Boy and his Dog (dir. L Q Jones, 1975)
- The Noah (dir. Daniel Bourla, 1975)
- The Ultimate Warrior (dir. Robert Clouse, 1975)
- Logan’s Run (dir. Michael Anderson, 1976)
- Damnation Alley (dir. Jack Smight, 1977)
Wizards (dir. Ralph Bakshi, 1977)- Deathsport3 (dir. Roger Corman, 1978)
- Quintet (dir. Robert Altman, 1979)
- Ravagers (dir. Richard Compton, 1979)
- The Aftermath (dir. Steve Barkett, 1982)
- Warlords of the 21st Century (dir. Harley Cobeliss, 1982)
- Radioactive Dreams (dir. Albert Pyun, 1985)
Def-Con 4 (dir. Paul Donovan, 1985)- Warriors of the Apocalypse (dir. Bobby A Suarez, 1985)
- City Limits (dir. Aaron Lipstadt, 1985)
- America 3000 (dir. David Engelbach, 1986)
- Land of Doom (dir. Peter Harris, 1986)
- Cherry 2000 (dir. Steve Jarnatt, 1987)
- Creepozoids (dir. David Deloteau, 1987)
Steel Dawn (dir. Lance Hool, 1987)- Warlords (dir. Fred Olen Ray, 1988)
- Hell Comes to Frogtown (dir. Donald G Jackson, 1988)
- World Gone Wild (dir. Lee H Ratzin, 1988)
- Cyborg (dir. Albert Pyun, 1989)
- Escape from Safehaven (dir. Brian Thomas Jones, 1989)
- Deadly Reactor (dir. David Heavener, 1989)
Omega Cop (dir. Paul Kyriazi, 1990)- Mindwarp (dir. Steve Barnett, 1992)
- No Escape (dir. Martin Campbell, 1994)
- Tank Girl (dir. Rachel Talda, 1995)
- Steel Frontier (dir. Paul G Volk, 1995)
- Waterworld (dir. Kevin Reynolds, 1995)
- Barb Wire (dir. David Hogan, 1996)
The Postman (dir. Kevin Costner, 1997)- Six String Samurai (dir. Lance Mungai, 1998)
- A.I. (dir. Steven Spielberg, 2001)
- Planet of the Apes (dir. Tim Burton, 2001)
- The Last Man (dir. Harry Raltson, 2002)
- The Time Machine (dir. Simon Wells, 2002)
- Reign of Fire (dir. Rob Bowman, 2002)
It’s All About Love (dir. Thomas Vintenberg, 2003)- I Am Legend (dir. Francis Lawrence, 2007)
- Tooth and Nail (dir. Mark Young, 2007)
- Wall-E (Animation) (dir. Andrew Stanton, 2008)
- 20 Years After (dir. Ron Harris, 2008)
- From Inside (dir. John Bergin, 2008)
- 9 (Animation) (dir. Shane Acker, 2009)
Carriers (dir. David Pastor, 2009)- The Road (dir. John Hillcoat, 2009
- Mutant Chronicles (dir. Simon Hunter, 2009)
- Terminator Salvation (dir. McG, 2009)
- 2084 (dir. George Blumetti, Maurice Kelly, 2009)
- The Book of Eli (dir. Hughes Brothers, 2010)
- Downstream (dir. Simone Bartesaghi, 2010)
Stake Land (dir. Jim Mickle, 2010)- Priest (dir. Scott Stewart, 2011)
- The Divide (dir. Xavier Gens, 2012)
- Oblivion (dir. Joseph Konsinski, 2013)
- After Earth (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 2013)
