The difficulty of making a clean list of notable post-apocalyptic movies

I’ve been a fan of post-apocalyptic movies since seeing the original “Planet of the Apes” movie as a child. And back in 2019, I started to compile a list of such movies. But it hasn’t been easy.
The main reason why is the different ways that people define post-apocalyptic settings.
Many lists you find on Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and Letterboxd are cluttered with movies that take place before or during apocalyptic events. They also add movies that occur in dystopian futures where there may have been a world war or other cataclysm many years before but society has recovered to a large degree.
I think of post-apocalyptic movies as those depicting people struggling to survive after Earth has been devastated by world-altering events. That includes environmental disasters, nuclear war, pandemics, alien invasions, flesh-eating zombies and more.
With some movies, it is hard to tell if the events are isolated to a region or are worldwide in nature.
On my list, I leave out movies that take place in space or in post-apocalyptic settings on other planets. I also ignore those that take place in fantasy worlds.
I focus on full-length, live-action movies. So I don’t include short films or animated movies.
A list of post-apocalyptic movies would be easier to compile if it focused solely on U.S. theatrical films. But with the rise of streaming video services, consumers have access to many more productions. That includes made-for-TV movies, international films and those produced for streaming services like Netflix.
A lot of those movies are little-seen or poorly reviewed. Some cheapo productions, mostly rip-offs of the Mad Max franchise, have their cult followings. But many are just plain awful.
My main list of notable post-apocalyptic movies currently includes 250 titles. (See below.) Even among those, some are questionable. I focused on those notable enough to have reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or Wikipedia pages.
However, I’ve tallied 556 other movies that didn’t meet my qualifications of post-apocalyptic cinema. A lot of those are junky films that clutter up Amazon Prime Video and other streaming services.

Related articles:

The complete post-apocalyptic movie list (Updated Dec. 3, 2025)

Photos: A selection of little-known post-apocalyptic movies: “Road Wars - Max Fury” (2024), “Mad Sheila” (2016, China) and “Apocalypse Z - The Beginning of the End” (2024, Spain).