A 90-minute movie may not always be able to portray the whole scope of the apocalypse or the massive, dreadful immensity of the world’s final days.
Whatever they think will be the starting point, it’s safe to say that generation of people have shown an odd fascination with the extinction of the Earth and life as we know it.
It’s time to watch some of the best apocalyptic T.V. shows in the world if you want to really lose yourself at the end of the world.
The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018)
Director- Will Forte
Where To Watch- Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu
Storyline- There is only one man left on Earth, Phil Miller after a terrible virus has spread across the world. He used to be a regular person who enjoyed spending time with his family but hated his job.
Phil is now searching the country in his R.V. for other survivors. He has visited every town, city, and outpost in the United States, Mexico, and Canada but has not come across anyone. As he makes his way back to Tucson, his hometown, Phil has the awful conclusion that he is probably the last person to ever walk the Earth.
He only wants someone, anyone, to come across him in Tucson—preferably a woman.
The Stand (2020–2021)
Director- Josh Boone, Benjamin Cavell
Where To Watch- Hulu
Storyline- The plot revolves around a pandemic caused by mistake at a military biological research facility that lets a fatal strain of influenza escape.
After the plague nearly wipes out the entire human population, the remaining survivors are drawn to either Randall Flagg or Mother Abigail, which sets up a climactic good-vs.-evil battle. A “dark narrative of the everlasting conflict between good and evil” is how Stephen King describes the book in the dedication to his wife.
The adaptation incorporates a new final episode written by King, making it the third version of the story’s conclusion, and alters the details (gender, race, age, etc.) of a number of the key figures. It also moved the setting to the modern 21st century.
Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009)
Director- Glen A. Larson, Ronald D. Moore
Where To Watch- Peacock
Storyline- The Twelve Colonies were annihilated at the end of the second war with the Cylons. As of right now, President Laura Roslin and Commander Adama of Battlestar Galactica are in charge of a diverse fleet of refugees embarking on a quest for Earth. However, the threats they face are extensive, complicating an already tough situation.
Gaius Baltar, their former unwitting pawn, helps in the hunt for them while hiding both his own guilt and the mysterious presence that haunts his every thought. The fleet also faces an internal political battle in which the rabble-rousing character Tom Zarek is simply the most dissenting voice.
Despite these challenges, signs begin to appear that point to a greater degree of truth than anyone could have imagined in Adama’s bluff about discovering Earth.
Wayward Pines (2015–2016)
Director- Chad Hodge
Where To Watch- Hulu
Storyline- Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke, one of Seattle’s top agents, sets out to find two federal agents who go missing in Wayward Pines, Idaho. Ethan’s ex-girlfriend Kate, with whom he had an affair that nearly ruined his marriage, is one of the missing agents.
After being involved in a car accident soon after arriving in the seemingly-perfect town, Ethan ends up at a hospital without his purse, I.D., or money and is unable to find a working phone to link him to home. After learning of his absence, his wife and their teenage son undertake an investigation, but it only brings more suspicions.
See (2019–2022)
Director- Steven Knight
Where To Watch- Apple T.V.
Storyline- A virus in the twenty-first century killed most of the human race. Less than two million people manage to live, and all of their children are blind.
The events in See take place several centuries later, by which time society has learned new strategies for socializing, building, hunting, and surviving without eyesight, but at a much lower economic level, and humanity has reverted to medieval and tribal hunter-gatherer societies.
Materials like metal, concrete, and plastic are thought to have been produced supernaturally by gods; knowledge of the earlier, sighted world has either been lost or corrupted. The concept of eyesight has become a myth, and any reference to it is considered sinful.
Zoo (2015–2017)
Director: André Nemec, Josh Appelbaum, Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner
Where To Watch- Prime Video, Vudu, Apple T.V.
Storyline- Jackson Oz, a renegade American zoologist in charge of safaris in Africa, is represented by James Wolk in this thrilling drama that is based on James Patterson’s best-selling novel of the same title. As he begins to notice abnormal behavior in animals, attacks on humans begin to occur all around the world.
The vicious attacks pick up speed and seem to be clever — and organized. Before there is nowhere left for people to hide, Jackson races to solve the truth behind the pandemic and put an end to it.
Jeremiah (2002–2004)
Director- J. Michael Straczynski
Where To Watch- Prime Video, Apple T.V.
Storyline- The world of Jeremiah is a post-apocalyptic future where, over ten years earlier, a lethal virus only spared kids who hadn’t hit puberty.
Jeremiah and the whimsical but cynical Kurdy are the oldest pandemic survivors, who are now in their 20s. Jeremiah is on a personal mission to relocate to the legendary Valhalla, which his father thinks might offer some hope for the living.
As Jeremiah and Kurdy, who are hesitant partners, explore new areas, they come across other groups of young people who are split into opposing social categories. When Jeremiah comes across a group of extremely well-organized survivors who want to work with him to negotiate a truce between the warring parties during the first episode of the season, his little personal goal is repurposed.
Life After People: The Series (2009–2010)
Director- James Lurie
Where To Watch- HISTORY, The Roku Channel, HISTORY VAULT, Philo, Apple T.V.
Storyline- The program makes no predictions about how humanity could vanish, only that it has and that it did so unexpectedly, leaving everything behind, including domestic pets and livestock, to care for themselves.
The hypothetical scenario is based on studies showing what happens when people suddenly leave an area, leaving buildings and other urban infrastructure in degradation.
Thematically, the episodes of the series provide illustrations of biological and urban decline. The focus is on specific places like skyscrapers, religious icons, railroads and dams, and government structures, as well as the fate of certain associated things like artifacts, documents, and human remains. Also mentioned is what will happen to various species of flora and fauna.
In addition, each episode includes a portion where specialists investigate actual places where people have left their homes, such as ghost towns and other eroding places, where the decay has been brought on by similar events to those portrayed in the episode.
Helix (2014–2015)
Director- Cameron Porsandeh
Where To Watch- Hulu, Apple T.V., Prime Video, Vudu
Storyline- In the drama Helix, a group of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control visits a cutting-edge research facility in the Arctic to look into a dangerous disease outbreak. However, they get caught in a horrific battle for survival that could control the fate of humanity. The deadly threat is only the start; as the virus spreads, the terrifying reality starts to become clear.
At first, it’s unclear if the objective is to create a bioweapon or alter humanity in some way. There are two types of the virus, Narvik-A, and Narvik-B, which have been discovered to exist. The first, Narvik-A, is fatal and incurable; the second, Narvik-B, transforms victims into dangerous, violent, zombie-like vectors who spread the infection.
Dollhouse (2009–2010)
Director- Joss Whedon
Where To Watch- Hulu
Storyline- Mind-wiped people, formally called “actives” and commonly known as “dolls,” are hired by a shady company to perform a variety of activities for paying customers. When they are not on missions, they reside in an underground “Dollhouse,” a building that protects them and meets all of their needs, including meals, training, and sleeping pods that are barely larger than coffins.
One of the dolls, a young woman named Echo by her keepers, is gradually becoming aware of herself and what is happening. In the meantime, at least two different people are trying to destroy the Dollhouse from the outside, one by finding Echo and the other by using her.
The Leftovers (2014–2017)
Director- Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta
Where To Watch- Disney+ Hotstar
Storyline- The “Sudden Departure” on October 14, 2011, when 140 million individuals, or 2% of the world’s population, strangely and instantly vanished, was a major global event that took place three years prior.
In the aftermath of that incident, mainstream religions collapsed, and a number of cults sprouted. One of the most prominent is the Guilty Remnant, a group of white-clad. They are chain-smoking nihilists. Another one is a cult led by Holy Wayne, a man who sees himself as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The Garvey family and their friends are central to the first season in a fictitious portrayal of the town of Mapleton, New York. The lives of these characters are intertwined and tied as they are caught up in an ongoing conflict between the Guilty Remnant and the residents of Mapleton.
Mapleton is replaced in the second season by the made-up town of Jarden, Texas, where not a single resident is lost in the Sudden Departure.
Resident Evil (2022)
Director- Grégory Reveret
Where To Watch- Netflix
Storyline- Jade Wesker battles for survival in a world overrun by infected monsters fourteen years after a terrible virus triggered a worldwide apocalypse while being tormented by her past, her dad, and what happened to her sister, Billie.
Over two timelines, the story is told. The first of these concerns the 14-year-old Wesker sisters moving to New Raccoon City. They come to the conclusion that their father might be hiding dark secrets that could harm the entire planet.
In the second timeline, which takes place more than ten years in the future and in which just 15 million people are still alive, the T-virus has infected almost 6 billion individuals and animals. It follows Jade, who is now thirty, as she tries to make it through this world.
Last Resort (2012–2013)
Director- Karl Gajdusek, Shawn Ryan
Where To Watch- Prime Video, Vudu, Apple T.V.
Storyline- The U.S. nuclear missile submarine Colorado gets orders 500 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. They get orders to launch nuclear bombs at Pakistan using a radio channel that was only intended to be activated in the event that their home country had been annihilated.
Captain Marcus Chaplin requests confirmation of the orders, only to be discharged of duty promptly by the White House. The same difficult choice is presented to XO Sam Kendal, who has been given instant leadership of the submarine.
Colorado is targeted, shot at, and hit when he likewise declines to fire before receiving confirmation of the orders. The submarine and its crew are crippled on the ocean below, having been branded deviant enemies of their own nation.
Now, with nowhere else to turn, Chaplin and Kendall take the submarine on the run and evacuate the people of Colorado to a far-off island. Even as they struggle to clear their names and return home, they will find refuge, passion, and a fresh start here.
Earth 2 (1994–1995)
Director- Michael Duggan, Carol Flint, Mark Levin
Where To Watch- HBO Max
Storyline- Two centuries from now, when pollution has driven people to leave Earth in front of crowded space stations, scientist Devon Adair scoops up a spacecraft and embarks on a journey with a group of followers in hunt of another planet that would provide a better, more normal future for kids like her son, Ulysses.
The mechanic John Danziger and his daughter True, the team doctor Julia Heller, who has her own secret goal, the pilot Alonzo Solace, the cyborg Yale, and the craven government agent Morgan and his wife Bess all join Devon and Ulysses.
The explorers find their planet, but their ship crashes on the wrong side of the planet, forcing them to try a difficult and perilous walk to their end destination, New Pacifica.
Aftermath (2016)
Director- Glenn Davis, William Laurin
Where To Watch- Prime Video
Storyline- The Copeland family, a couple, and their three young adult children are the main characters of the series. They battle to survive as natural disasters, followed by the advent of supernatural beings, bring humanity to an end.
The Copelands set out on their voyage in an R.V. from North Pasco, Washington, to Yakima in order to avoid bad weather, greedy people, and supernatural creatures that are believed to exist in the area.
The Tribe (1999–2003)
Director- Harry Duffin, Raymond Thompson
Where To Watch- Tubi, PlutoTV, Freevee (Via Prime Video),
Storyline- All of the adults in a post-apocalyptic city have died from a mysterious epidemic, leaving the kids and teens to live in a state of anarchy.
There are now a number of social groups, or tribes, one of which being the “Locos,” a chaotic tribe that rules the city and is commanded by Zoot, who is later accidentally killed. A new tribe known as the “Mallrats” is created when Amber and Dal lead a bunch of kids off the streets into an abandoned mall where they find shelter.
Bray and Trudy, who is pregnant, are welcomed to the group; Zoot, Bray’s brother, is the father. The tribe learns how to deal with problems like a lack of food and water. The city is hit by the virus’ second wave as the tribe looks for an antidote. They fly to Eagle Mountain, a base, where a pre-recorded message reveals the Antidote’s existence.
You, Me and the Apocalypse (2015–2022)
Director- Iain Hollands
Where To Watch- Roku Channel, Prime Video, Vudu, Apple T.V.
Storyline- A comedy-drama about the end of humanity. Jamie (Mathew Baynton), a mild-mannered Slough bank manager, is buried in sadness over his missing wife while being in a very organized routine.
All of that quickly changes once he is imprisoned on suspicion of cyberterrorism and learns that his mother Paula (Pauline Quirke) must make a very hard statement since he must somehow be an identical twin.
In New Mexico, half a world away, quiet librarian Rhonda (Jenna Fischer) enters a maximum-security jail for a crime she did not commit and grudgingly falls under the wing of deranged white supremacist Leanne (Megan Mullally).
These are just a few of the different and, at first glance, random people whose lives will begin to intertwine in the most unforeseen ways as word spreads that a meteor is on a crash course with Earth and will crash in just 34 days.
Y: The Last Man (2021)
Director- Pia Guerra, Brian K. Vaughan, Tian Jun Gu, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Eliza Clark
Where To Watch- Hulu
Storyline- The thriller “Y: The Last Man,” which is based on the acclaimed D.C. Comics story by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where every mammal with a Y chromosome has been wiped out except for one cisgender man and his beloved monkey.
The series follows the survivors as they attempt to rebuild what was lost and create something better in this new world.
Curfew (2019)
Director- Matthew Read
Where To Watch- Spectrum T.V.
Storyline- This eight-part, action-packed drama series stars Billy Zane, Sean Bean, and Miranda Richardson, in addition to many other well-known names. When day turns to night in a world where curfews are tightly enforced, people from all walks of life engage in a risky and illegal street race to avoid the curfew and start a new, free life outside the city.
As people risk everything to win the race, alliances and friendships are formed and broken during this frantic search for freedom.
Creamerie (2021)
Director- JJ Fong, Perlina Lau, Roseanne Liang
Where To Watch- Hulu
Storyline- Eight years after all men on Earth died from a strange epidemic, Alex, Jaime, and Pip are three friends who live on a dairy farm in New Zealand. Using sperm stored from previous sperm banks, a group called Wellness now rules the community and regulates repopulation by a lottery.
When the friends meet a man they believe to be the world’s only survivor, their lives are turned upside down. They ultimately come upon a very unsettling lab where some of the very few remaining males are being held hostage, chained to chairs, gagged, and naked, with pumping devices being linked to their genitals, sexually abusing and milking them to store their sperm for extremely limited human reproduction.
Hard Sun (2018)
Director- Neil Cross
Where To Watch- Hulu
Storyline- The criminal drama Hard Sun is set in modern-day London and is pre-apocalyptic.
The protagonists are two non-matching police officers, Charlie Hicks and Elaine Renko, who discover evidence that a mysterious cosmic phenomenon will destroy the Earth in five years, a truth the government is trying to keep hidden to avoid total anarchy.
MI5 agents are chasing the duo in an effort to permanently muzzle them.
The Pact (2022)
Director- Gareth Brookes, Bobby Barbacioru
Where To Watch- Roku Channel
Storyline- Humanity is put on the path to self-destruction by a horrific revelation. For a group of people united only by hope, it was a harrowing voyage into the unknown.
A post-apocalyptic world puts family members under extreme strain as they join other survivors in searching for a cure for the Miasma, a mist that turns its victims insane.
Anna (2021)
Director- Niccolò Ammaniti
Where To Watch- Amazon Prime T.V.
Storyline- A determined and courageous little girl sets out to find her kidnapped brother.
Anna will rely on a journal her mother left her with the survival instructions as she travels through charred fields and strange woods, through the ruins of shopping malls and abandoned cities, and through the vast, lonely areas of an island that nature and wild tribes of survivors have managed to recoup.
Day after day, she comes to the realization that the old rules are no longer valid and that she must create new ones.
Calls (2021)
Director- Fede Alvarez
Where To Watch- Apple T.V.
Storyline- A couple calls each other on the phone, Tim in Los Angeles and Sara in New York. It’s not working for them to be together so far away. In an effort to end their relationship, Tim has found someone else. She is scared that someone is attempting to break into the house. Sara phones 911 since the invader does not appear to be human. When Tim and Camilla, his new partner, also have an encounter that is difficult to explain, the situation worsens.
On the other hand, a young man leaves to go for a drive to clear his head after finding that his partner is pregnant. However, as he travels, phone call after phone contact informs him that he has been traveling for far longer than he believes. All these strange incidents put a start to this series.
The Dead Lands (2020)
Director- Glenn Standring
Where To Watch- Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Vudu
Storyline- Glenn Standring’s new T.V. series is based on his film The Dead Lands (2014). An undead warrior and a young tribeswoman link together in ancient Maori times to figure out how to prevent the evil dead from rising.
Waka Nuku Rau, a dishonored warrior, is called back from the afterlife to seek forgiveness. Together with Mehe, he learns that the forces of the dead have transformed their world.
S.O.Z. Soldiers o Zombies (2021)
Director- Rigoberto Castañeda
Where To Watch- Amazon Prime Video
Storyline- The plot of Narcos vs. Zombies centers on infamous drug lord Alonso Marroquin (Peris-Mencheta), who escapes from a high-security Mexican jail with his son Lucas (Nery Arredondo) and seeks refuge in hiding at Paradiso, a remote drug treatment center on the American side of the border.
In the meantime, test subjects from a bungled American military experiment meant to turn wounded troops into killing machines are left for dead close to the border only to resurrect as vicious mutant zombies. The Mexican SWAT force is bitten by the newly-created zombies while chasing the fugitive Marroquins, turning them into their own zombie army.
The U.S. Army sets out on a mission to wipe them after being alerted of the imminent crisis that this new species brings to humanity.
Dark Angel (2000–2002)
Director- James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee
Where To Watch- Disney+
Storyline- Max is a genetically mutated superhuman prototype who escaped as a kid from a classified government military facility with 11 other children who were all being bred and prepared to be super-soldiers.
Max, now an adult, teams up with the idealistic cyberjournalist Logan to fight corruption in post-apocalyptic America while he continuously tries to avoid being caught by law enforcement.
In the midst of everything, Max looks for her genetically modified brothers, who were all split after their attempt to flee.
The Last Train (1999)
Director- Matthew Graham
Where To Watch- Amazon Prime Video
Storyline- When the train crashes inside a tunnel, and a passenger’s gas canister is released in their carriage, a random group of passengers on a train running between London and Sheffield is cryogenically frozen.
The U.K. is in ruins when they awaken from their frozen state. They had no idea 52 years had passed. They wrongly believe that weeks, months, and even 14 years have passed while they have been frozen in time before learning the awful truth.
They are some of the lone survivors of a catastrophic asteroid that hit humankind and are now wandering the British countryside by themselves. It turns out that Harriet Ambrose, played by Nicola Walker, was traveling to the top-secret government project known as Ark while aware of the upcoming asteroid strike.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981)
Director- Douglas Adams, Eoin Colfer, Thomas Tidholm
Where To Watch- Hulu
Storyline- When Arthur Dent wakes up one morning, he discovers that his home is about to be bulldozed. However, for Arthur, this is just the beginning.
He tells Arthur that his quirky friend Ford Prefect is an extraterrestrial from the planet Betelgeuse and a researcher for the electronic book “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and that he is not a human. When the Vogan civilization destroys Earth to start constructing a new hyperspace bypass, Ford takes action to save Arthur.
With the help of Ford’s cousin, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed hippie and former President of the Galaxy, the brilliant and attractive Trillian, and Marvin, a depressed paranoid android, Arthur and Ford embark on a cosmic odyssey that leads them to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and the true purpose for the creation of Earth, as well as the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Logan’s Run (1977–1978)
Director- William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson, & David Zelag Goodman
Where To Watch- Prime Video, Vudu, Apple T.V.
Storyline- A tv show based on the film of the same name, in which the entire globe is ravaged by a nuclear holocaust, and various communities grow everywhere in the 23rd century, blissfully unaware of each other.
One of these settlements is the City of Domes, where residents enjoy ultimate bliss but are executed at an event called Carousel, where they are informed they might be revived in a different form due to a lack of resources and space. Dissidents today don’t accept the claims that nuclear radiation makes the outside world still inhabitable.
Additionally, they believe in a sanctuary where they can live peacefully. These people are known as Runners, and they are chased by guys known as Sandmen. Logan is one of these men who wonders if they really do get replenished and if the outer world is livable.
When he is asked to find three runners, one of them, Jessica, who is aware of Logan’s doubts, supports them with what she knows. Logan then decides to follow Jessica, and the two of them leave the city in search of Sanctuary. Logan’s sidekick, Francis, is tasked with tracking him down. Along the way, they meet Rem, an android who helps them find their way and teaches them about the world they have entered.
To the Lake (2019)
Director- Dmitriy Tyurin
Where To Watch- Netflix
Storyline- Moscow becomes a dead city as a result of an unknown virus. People who are still healthy are frantically fighting for food and gasoline in a situation where there is no electricity and money has lost all of its value. Sergei, the main character, lives outside of town with the woman he loves and her autistic son. There, everything is still safe.
However, he travels to Moscow to save his ex-wife and their son, despite the fact that she hates Sergei. To discover a remote hunting lodge on a lonely island, these people—who never thought they’d live together again—must put their past behind them and proceed on a long, dangerous trip north.
The Outbreak is a family story set in the midst of a global crisis. The bestselling novel Vongozero, authored by Yana Vagner and published in eleven languages, served as the inspiration for one of the first post-apocalyptic T.V. series in Russia.
Brave New World (2020)
Director- Grant Morrison, Brian Taylor, David Wiener
Where To Watch- Netflix
Storyline- Everyone belongs to everyone other in an idyllic utopia where stability and peace are based on control of monogamy, privacy, wealth, family, and history itself. Residents of New London are confined to prescribed life duties in accordance with the expectations for their bio-engineered caste and assigned a letter of the Greek alphabet from birth at the Hatchery.
Perfection is turned on its head as elite members of society and people on the fringe of society start to doubt the supposedly perfect laws of their reality. This genre-bending, science-fiction, and fantasy drama, which is based on Aldous Huxley’s prescient 1932 novel, portrays a world where holographic pleasure is the ordinary, and hedonistic values have been reinvented as selflessness for the sake of society.
Humanity is on the brink of war with forbidden romance and revolutionary upheaval in a crock pot of strait-jacketed and unrestricted conventions.
Altered Carbon (2018–2020)
Director- Laeta Kalogridis
Where To Watch- Netflix
Storyline- In a world that is more than 300 years from now, human bodies are interchangeable, and death is no longer an end.
A troop of elite galactic warriors was defeated in a revolt against the new world order, and Takeshi Kovacs was the lone survivor. His mind has been imprisoned for centuries until Laurens Bancroft, an incredibly wealthy businessman, offers him the opportunity to live again.
However, if Kovacs wishes to be revived, he will need to take action for Bancroft. Kovacs is asked by Bancroft to solve his own murder. “Altered Carbon” is based on the same-named cyberpunk noir novel by Richard K. Morgan.