Dystopian and Apocalyptic Movies on Netflix

If the End of the World Is Your Thing, Check Out These Apocalyptic Thrillers on Netflix

Although it might feel like it's the end of the world every time you read the news, technically our planet is still spinning as usual. But for the characters in the following 17 films, the apocalypse has actually come to pass. There are zombie outbreaks, invisible suicide monsters, cannibals, and toxic gas out the wazoo, so I hope you're not easily scared. (If so, I suggest checking out these movies, instead.) If you think you're ready to face a bleak, uncertain future, though, by all means, take your pick of Netflix's top dystopian films, ahead.

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1. Into the Forest

Evan Rachel Wood and Ellen Page play two sisters who decide to wait out an apocalyptic blackout in their remote, sprawling home in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, despite having barely any gas or water. Matters become even more complicated when threatening strangers discover where they are.

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2. Here Alone

"Zombie drama" is now a film genre that exists, and Here Alone is a perfect example. The movie stars Lucy Walters as a woman who's been living alone in the wilderness for years after the death of her husband and child, both of whom passed due to a brutal, inexplicable zombie virus. That makes her extremely wary upon encountering two uninfected people passing through. Will she learn to open up to them and rebuild her capacity for human connection, or live out the rest of her days in solitude?

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3. Children of Men

Alfonso Cuarón's critically acclaimed 2006 drama is a veritable dystopian masterpiece, introducing us to a bleak, grey world in which infertility has threatened mankind with extinction. When the last child born dies, the world descends into chaos, and it's up to a disillusioned bureaucrat (Clive Owen) to save humanity by protecting a young, pregnant girl on a dangerous journey to safety.

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4. How It Ends

As usual, the apocalypse strikes at the most inopportune time for Will (Theo James), who finds himself extremely far from home and his vulnerable, pregnant fiancée when chaos strikes. As he travels thousands of miles to reach her with the help of her father, Tom (Forest Whitaker), both men are forced to fight for their lives. Without spoiling anything, I'll also note that the ending of this movie is WILD.

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5. Bokeh

Like everyone you follow on Instagram, Bokeh's Jenai (Maika Monroe) and Riley (Matt O'Leary) go on a romantic holiday to Iceland. However, they wake up one morning and discover that every other person on Earth has suddenly disappeared. As they struggle to survive in unfamiliar surroundings and deal with the grief of losing their loved ones and old lives in an instant, the pair begin questioning everything they've ever known about the world.

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6. Extinction

Michael Peña is a source of nonstop laughs in Ant-Man and the Wasp, but he dramatically changes course in Netflix's original sci-fi film Extinction. He plays Peter, a working-class father who keeps having recurring nightmares of his city being decimated by an unknown alien force. Just when his wife (Lizzy Caplan) and boss (Mike Colter) start to think Peter's dreams are a sign of a serious mental issue, a brutal alien assault begins on Earth; it turns out Peter has been seeing the future all along and could be the key to saving humanity.

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7. Cargo

This Australian horror film is a slow burn, but it's worth the watch. When his wife succumbs to a zombie bite and he realises he's not long behind her, a father begins a desperate search for a safe place to leave his infant daughter in the outback before he dies.

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8. The Bad Batch

Essentially an acid trip in movie form, Ana Lily Amirpour's The Bad Batch stars Suki Waterhouse and Jason Momoa as survivors drifting through a Texas wasteland, forced to fend off cannibals and other threats.

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9. Terminator Salvation

I can watch Christian Bale in practically anything (except for Vice, I'm not a masochist), so naturally Terminator Salvation found its way onto this list. The 2009 take on the Terminator franchise stars Bale as John Connor, who crosses paths with Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger who could decide who wins the battle between humans and machines.

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10. Bushwick

First things first: no, this isn't a movie about zombie hipsters, although . . . is it wrong I would totally still watch that? Bushwick stars Brittany Snow and Dave Bautista as people trapped in the NYC neighbourhood, which is taken over by militia forces when Texas attempts to secede from the Union and claim the city as its East Coast base. A total bloodbath erupts, leaving the two strangers to lean on each other if they want any chance of surviving their strange, murderous new reality.

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11. The Titan

Sam Worthington stars in Netflix's original film set in 2048, when Earth's natural resources are all but gone and violent crimes are at an all-time high. The only hope for humanity's salvation is the possibility of living on Saturn's moon Titan. To remain on the distant planet, though, the human body will have to evolve, so one soldier and his family are relocated so he can take part in genetic experiments to kick-start the process. Because this is a sci-fi thriller, obviously things end up going horribly awry.

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12. What Happened to Monday

For any Orphan Black fans mourning the sci-fi drama's final season, Noomi Rapace's What Happened to Monday should help. She stars as identical septuplets — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — who must live in hiding in a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation. Their father (Willem Dafoe) allows them out of the house only on the day corresponding with their name, so they maintain only one public identity. The government picks up on the scam, however, and when Monday doesn't return home after her day out, her sisters have to band together to save her.

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13. The Rover

In this apocalyptic crime drama starring Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson, society is in decline and laws have all but disintegrated. When Eric (Pearce) realises his car has been stolen by a gang, he forces an injured member of the crew to help him track it down.

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14. What Still Remains

A viral outbreak has decimated the world's population, leaving remaining survivors living in constant fear that the deadly virus will return. Now, 25 years after the illness first emerged, a young woman struggling to stay alive on her own encounters a mysterious, potentially lethal community.

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15. The Ravenous

This is actually a pretty introspective and beautiful film, as far as movies in the zombie genre are concerned. That being said, watching a small group of desperate survivors attempt to navigate the aftermath of a zombie-like outbreak in rural Quebec still delivers plenty of nauseating scares. Its unique, out-of-the-box ending, however — which, for the record, I still haven't fully wrapped my head around months later — is what really solidified it as one of my under-the-radar horror favourites.

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16. Bird Box

If you're one of the few people out there who still hasn't had the singular pleasure of watching Bird Box yet, then you have a real treat ahead of you. Although the film itself is mediocre at best, it's highly entertaining and has spawned hilarious tweets and memes that I'm honestly still chuckling about weeks after its premiere. In it, Malorie (Sandra Bullock) fights for her life, as well as the lives of her two young children, in a world plagued by invisible monsters that cause anyone who lays eyes on them to immediately kill themselves. The only way Malorie and her fellow survivors are able to escape the suicidal impulses is by making their way through the world blindfolded.

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