The Top Five Apocalyptic Movies

One of science fiction's most popular conceits since the Cold War era has been man's struggle for survival as civilization falls. The conceit has produced some truly extraordinary films, including...

The Mad Max Trilogy

The Mad Max trilogy set the standard for all post-apocalyptic movies told since. While at its heart less a science fiction series than a group of extravagant action flicks, the combination of Mel Gibson's prowess as an action hero in the middle of an extremely engrossing and desolate backdrop, still top most post-apocalyptic films that have followed in their wake.

I Am Legend

The film's setting - a deserted New York City - is just as much a character as Will Smith, his dog and the survivors he winds up befriending. The action is gripping and without affectation. And the acting...Will Smith's performance, particularly those scenes in which he is forced to deal with his loneliness, make this film far more noteworthy than just another Hollywood blockbuster.

12 Monkeys

Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis are the unlikely stars of an intricately plotted, high concept science fiction film in which ex-convicts are sent back in time to arrest the genesis of a virus that wipes out mankind. Through a heavy use of flashbacks and symbology, the film creates a hallucinatory atmosphere that even makes the pre-apocalyptic scenes seem surreal. It's dense and layered and meaty, with insightful commentary on the nature and role of memory; beyond that it's simply a great film.

Children of Men

Children of Men gets nearly as many points for verisimilitude as it does for the top-notch performances of its talented cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, and of course the star Clive Owen. The film deftly handles the political implications of those living in a society as other societies around them crumble. Both the refugee camps and the military scenes are as gripping and frightening as any film made directly about either subject.

The Matrix

Lest the numerous shoot em ups and kung-fu action scenes make you forget, The Matrix takes place on a world whose surface is barely inhabitable, the result of a war against sentient machines. The machines thrive on solar power; the humans in their efforts to subdue the machines cut off their access to solar power by blanketing the atmosphere with thick black clouds. So the machines feed off of the energy of humans they keep in pods, ensuring their docility via an artificial reality, dubbed by the free as "the Matrix." And against that backdrop one of the richest and most intriguing science fiction stories of the past ten years is told.