Movies about the end of the world
December 25, 2023 6:37 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for recommendations for movies about the impending end of the world. Not action movies about people trying to save the planet or kill each other. In the vein of Last Night or Seeking a Friend for the End of the World or Melancholia. About how people spend their last days and deal with accepting their fate.
Not a movie, but Carol and the End of the World is an animated mini-series about this.
posted by justkevin at 6:52 AM on December 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by justkevin at 6:52 AM on December 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Miracle Mile is a terrific 80s movie about love in an L.A. on the brink of nuclear holocaust.
posted by johngoren at 6:54 AM on December 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by johngoren at 6:54 AM on December 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
Leave The World Behind - - just out this month on Netflix with Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, and Ethan Hawke.
I loved the final scene, in the spirit of your criteria.
posted by fairmettle at 7:10 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I loved the final scene, in the spirit of your criteria.
posted by fairmettle at 7:10 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
How it Ends is absurd, funny, and sweet.
posted by theotherdurassister at 7:33 AM on December 25, 2023
posted by theotherdurassister at 7:33 AM on December 25, 2023
If you can find it, The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) is worth a watch and not just for the usual kitsch value of films of that vintage.
posted by zadcat at 7:58 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by zadcat at 7:58 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Knowing, with Nic Cage
Don’t Look Up
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:04 AM on December 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Don’t Look Up
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:04 AM on December 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Agree that film version of On the Beach is a very good match to what you're describing. Also, all-star cast and director for the time (Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Tony Perkins; Stanley Kramer as director). Highly recommended.
posted by gimonca at 8:05 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by gimonca at 8:05 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
2nding How it Ends, but a warning: the end of the movie is relatively open-ended, which apparently blew a lot of minds and some people could. Just. NOT. Deal with it.
Also recommending These Final Hours.
posted by gakiko at 8:06 AM on December 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also recommending These Final Hours.
posted by gakiko at 8:06 AM on December 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
The World's End. Directed by Edgar Wright, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
posted by SPrintF at 8:26 AM on December 25, 2023
posted by SPrintF at 8:26 AM on December 25, 2023
Threads (1984) several families deal with the events leading up to and following a nuclear attack in the United Kingdom (and presumably worldwide). The ending is left up to interpretation.
Without Warning (1994) television coverage of of asteroid strikes occurring simultaneously in the U.S.A., China and France. This script does include a military intervention.
posted by TrishaU at 8:41 AM on December 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
Without Warning (1994) television coverage of of asteroid strikes occurring simultaneously in the U.S.A., China and France. This script does include a military intervention.
posted by TrishaU at 8:41 AM on December 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am not sure whether you mean people dealing with literally the end of the world (i.e. planet destroyed, actual end of all human life, etc.) or a major disaster (much of humanity wiped out, social collapse in progress, etc.). Some of the films already listed ("Leave The World Behind" for instance) fall into the latter but not the former category.
If you mean the former, one I have not yet seen mentioned is 4:44: Last Day on Earth.
I think "The Road" is on the cusp between the two categories. "The Rapture" fits into the former in its set-up, but we don't know till the end whether the impending end of the world is real or not.
posted by virve at 8:43 AM on December 25, 2023
If you mean the former, one I have not yet seen mentioned is 4:44: Last Day on Earth.
I think "The Road" is on the cusp between the two categories. "The Rapture" fits into the former in its set-up, but we don't know till the end whether the impending end of the world is real or not.
posted by virve at 8:43 AM on December 25, 2023
Children of Men is a delightfully grim slow-motion apocalypse where the birth rate has dropped to zero, and the youngest person was born about eighteen years ago.
posted by june_dodecahedron at 8:54 AM on December 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by june_dodecahedron at 8:54 AM on December 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
White Noise (Don DeLillo), both book and movie, are excellent.
posted by uncaken at 8:55 AM on December 25, 2023
posted by uncaken at 8:55 AM on December 25, 2023
Don't Look Up is marketed as a comedy - and it is hilarious - but it's also pretty grim as the end comes nearer.
posted by unsettledink at 9:15 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by unsettledink at 9:15 AM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not the end of the world, but in a similar vein: She Dies Tomorrow deals with the contagious conviction that the character’s life ends tomorrow, and what people do with that belief.
posted by K0dama at 11:14 AM on December 25, 2023
posted by K0dama at 11:14 AM on December 25, 2023
Nthing The Quiet Earth (heartbreaking) and Last Night!
For when the world ended in the 1950s/1960s edition (those are more about people deciding what to do as the world is ending than people deciding what to do just before the world ends):
The day the world ended
The last man on Earth (with Vincent Price)
The last woman on Earth
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 12:49 PM on December 25, 2023
For when the world ended in the 1950s/1960s edition (those are more about people deciding what to do as the world is ending than people deciding what to do just before the world ends):
The day the world ended
The last man on Earth (with Vincent Price)
The last woman on Earth
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 12:49 PM on December 25, 2023
Downsizing though that is kind of a spoiler.
posted by credulous at 4:17 PM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by credulous at 4:17 PM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
One Night Stand, 1984 Australian film in which four teenagers face the possible end of the world.
posted by goo at 5:56 PM on December 25, 2023
posted by goo at 5:56 PM on December 25, 2023
It would be difficult to find a sounder attitude toward accepting fate than that portrayed in Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em (1988).
posted by flabdablet at 4:26 AM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 4:26 AM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
A Walk with Love and Death might fit the bill for you, although it is set in 1358 during a famine and peasant revolt. Having no realistic expectation of survival a young couple attempt to walk to the sea before they die.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:37 AM on December 26, 2023
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:37 AM on December 26, 2023
The 2009 Japanese comedy Fish Story starts with an impending apocalypse (an asteroid is about to destroy Earth) and turns into a series of interconnected flashbacks detailing the unlikely relationship between a nearly forgotten Japanese punk record and humanity's possible salvation.
It's frustratingly hard to find on American streaming, but if you have access to a VPN you may have better luck finding it on UK services; There is also a blessedly region-free Blu-ray release from Third Window.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:12 AM on December 26, 2023
It's frustratingly hard to find on American streaming, but if you have access to a VPN you may have better luck finding it on UK services; There is also a blessedly region-free Blu-ray release from Third Window.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:12 AM on December 26, 2023
A one season TV series rather than a movie: Three Moons Over Milford.
posted by gudrun at 1:03 PM on December 26, 2023
posted by gudrun at 1:03 PM on December 26, 2023
Doesn't quite fit your criteria, but Station Eleven (book and HBO series) is about the lead-up and aftermath of a pandemic that kills the vast majority of the world's population.
posted by Leontine at 1:47 PM on December 27, 2023
posted by Leontine at 1:47 PM on December 27, 2023
You might have to special-order it from the library, but World Gone Wild is a good read and a good place to find out about post-apocalypic movies, both in the "Road Warrior" and "End of the World" genres. (It covers and gives good reviews to Last Night and Smoke 'em If You Got 'Em, so that should be a good sign).
posted by gtrwolf at 11:03 PM on December 27, 2023
posted by gtrwolf at 11:03 PM on December 27, 2023
When the Wind Blows was gut-wrenching.
Strongly seconding Carol at the End of the World.
posted by canine epigram at 8:16 PM on December 28, 2023
Strongly seconding Carol at the End of the World.
posted by canine epigram at 8:16 PM on December 28, 2023
Ooops, now I see that there are two movies named How it Ends. I was talking about this one. I wasn't aware of the newer one that theotherdurassister linked to. My fault for not clicking on links!
posted by gakiko at 12:16 PM on December 29, 2023
posted by gakiko at 12:16 PM on December 29, 2023
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posted by akk2014 at 6:42 AM on December 25, 2023 [11 favorites]