List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
This is a list of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction works as portrayed in literature, film, television, and, comics.[1][2]
Apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural phenomena, divine judgment, climate change, resource depletion or some other general disaster. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized).
Apocalypse is a Greek word referring to the end of the world. Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end very soon, even within one's own lifetime.[3]
Apocalyptic fiction does not portray catastrophes, or disasters, or near-disasters that do not result in apocalypse. A threat of an apocalypse does not make a piece of fiction apocalyptic. For example, Armageddon and Deep Impact are considered disaster films and not apocalyptic fiction because, although earth and/or human-kind are terribly threatened, in the end they manage to avoid destruction. Apocalyptic fiction is not the same as fiction that provides visions of a dystopian future. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, for example, is dystopian fiction, not apocalyptic fiction.
Works of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Format | Year | Cause | Title | Author and notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Other | 2006 | War | The Last Broadcast (audio drama) | A War of the Worlds-esque "academic media project" produced by the history students of the University of Toronto, in Canada, featuring "simulated live radio news coverage" of a (hypothetical) 1983 invasion of West Germany that quickly escalates into an all-out, "East-versus-West" nuclear holocaust.[4] |
Radio | 1938, 1943 | Eco | Oxychloride X | An episode of Arch Oboler's popular 1930s and '40s radio horror and mystery anthology serial, Lights Out. A deranged university chemistry student creates what turns out to be an "super-dissolving substance, with the potential, among other uses, to become a doomsday chemical superweapon". |
Radio | 1972 | Aliens, disease, zombies | The Peoria Plague | Originally recorded and aired by station WUHN (now WSWT), in Peoria, Illinois[5][6] |
Television | 1982 | War | World War III | Originally broadcast on the NBC television network. The film's original director, Boris Sagal, died in a freak mishap during filming, and was replaced by his successor, David Greene. The teleplay was written by Robert L. Joseph. |
Game | 1980 | War | Missile Command | Arcade video game designed by Dave Theurer and developed by Atari, Inc. Later ported to many different home computing and gaming platforms, for many years afterward. Considered one of the most notable classic video games of all time. |
Film | 1959 | Eco, monsters | The Giant Behemoth | [7] |
Film | 2014 | Disease | Dawn of the Planet of the Apes | Directed by Matt Reeves, and based on characters created by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (premise suggested by Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle). A growing nation of genetically evolved apes is threatened by a band of human survivors of a devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier.[8] |
Game | 2012 | Disease | Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward | Visual novel adventure game released for Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. The game takes place 45 years in the future, after a calamitous virus outbreak, known as Radical-6, has exterminated almost the entire human civilization. |
Radio | 1951 | War | The Last Objective | Written by Paul Carter and adapted by Ernest Kinoy for NBC Radio's 1950-51 sci-fi anthology series, Dimension X. A military android questions its continued existence, after the last of its human comrade-counterparts dies out from the effects of a mysterious doomsday super-weapon that was unleashed at the end of a generations-long global atomic war. |
Novel | 1970 | Supernatural, war, eco, human decline | The Late, Great Planet Earth | Bestselling blockbuster Bible prophecy-based "mockumentary" novel, co-written by Hal Lindsey and Carole Carlson, and later adapted into a 1979 feature-length theatrical motion picture narrated by Orson Welles |
Game | 1992 | Sun, aliens | Epic, and its 1994 follow-up sequel Inferno | Published by Ocean Software (now Atari). A Battlestar Galactica-esque 3-D space shooter video game for MS-DOS and other contemporary (at that time) personal computing platforms. |
Game | 1980 | War | NukeWar | Published by gaming company Avalon Hill. A turn-based strategy game for many early home computing platforms, such as the Apple II, the Commodore 64, and the Atari 400/800 model home computers. |
Television | 1975-1977 | Eco (nuclear waste explosion on the moon, followed by earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, etc. on Earth, caused by loss of the moon) | Space: 1999 | Created by Gerry Anderson and wife Sylvia Anderson |
Radio | 1946 | War | The Fifth Horseman | Early (post-World War II) radio docudrama series originally aired over the now-defunct NBC Radio network. This "rare and unusual" series of shows (featuring many top Hollywood film performers of that era) was written, produced, and directed by Arnold Marquis, as part of a special postwar campaign aimed at convincing the public to place the then-newly developed technologies of nuclear energy and weaponry under United Nations control. The focal or "selling" point of this short-run summer radio serial, was a four-episode story arc (of sorts), spanning a 20-year period (1946-1966), regarding a fictional, hypothetical timeline involving a prelude and buildup to nuclear war, the war itself, and its aftermath.[9] |
Game | 2006 | War | DEFCON | Created by independent British game developer Introversion Software, and inspired (in part) by the 1983 film WarGames |
Television | 1984 | War | Countdown to Looking Glass | Canadian-produced TV movie, directed by producer Fred Barzyk, and originally premiering in the United States, on the HBO pay-cable TV network. A domestic banking crisis (the result of defaulted debts in South America) triggers a chain of events in the Persian Gulf that eventually would lead to the outbreak of nuclear World War III between the Western and Eastern Bloc Cold War superpowers. |
Television | 1994 | Aliens, impact event | Without Warning | Directed by Robert Iscove, and originally broadcast over the CBS television network |
Game | 1998 | Aliens, technology (cyberwarfare) | Red Baron 2573 | Written in QuickBASIC by amateur video game developer Adam Stanchos, for MS-DOS. In this game, the player is a 26th-century, space-faring vigilante who fights a war-like effort attempting to save Earth from xenophobic alien invasion, which would (in the event of the player's failure/demise) result in the genocidal annihilation of mankind.[10] |
Novel | 1950 | War | Shadow on the Hearth | Judith Merril; later adapted for television in 1954 |
Game | 1992 | Aliens, eco | Galactix | Backstory (featuring a satirical fake TV news story regarding the final depletion of the Amazon rain forest) and game play take place in the year 2019, in which a powerful alien attack force threatens to obliterate the Earth. Developed by Scott Host, for Cygnus Games (now Mountain King Studios).[11] |
Game | 2014 | Impact event | Ace Combat Infinity | PlayStation 3 online game depicting a new world war 20 years after a meteor strike hits much of the Earth's surface |
Game | 2013 | Disease, monsters | The Last of Us | A fungal spore infection turns most of humanity into monsters and a small band of survivors try to live on. |
Film | 2013 | Eco | The Colony | Another ice age causes survivors to move underground. |
Television | 2012–2014 | Technology collapse | Revolution | All technology ceases after a global blackout. |
Novel | 1964 | Disease | Virus | Novel by Sakyo Komatsu about a lethal supergerm that kills humanity in months; later adapted into a 1980 movie |
Novel | 2008 | Eco | Flood | The Earth is gradually submerged due to seismic activity that brings more water to the surface. |
Novel | 2011 | Technology | Wool | A multi-part series by author Hugh Howey |
Novel | 2008 | War | The Diamond of Darkhold | The fourth book in Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember series |
Novel | 2006 | War | The Prophet of Yonwood | The third book in Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember series |
Play | 2005 | War and gang violence | Mercury Fur | Philip Ridley |
Novel | 2004 | War | The People of Sparks | The second book in Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember series. |
Novel | 2000 | Eco | The Last Book in the Universe | Rodman Philbrick |
Story | 2001 | War | "Autobahn nach Poznan" | Andrzej Ziemianski |
Story | 1950 | War | "Dear Devil" | Eric Frank Russell |
Story | 1969 | War | "A Boy and His Dog" | Harlan Ellison; filmed in 1975 |
Story | 1984 | War | "Extinction is Forever" | Louise Lawrence - A scientist uses a time machine to travel to the future and film the results of a nuclear war in a bid to prevent it from happening. However, his actions could have serious repercussions for the mutated descendants of the human race. |
Novel | 1990 | Divine prophecy | Good Omens | Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett |
Story | 1949 | War | "Let the Ants Try" | Frederik Pohl under the pseudonym James MacCreigh |
Play | 1942 | War (also ice age and flood) | The Skin of Our Teeth | Thornton Wilder |
Novel | 1922 | War | Theodore Savage (vt. Lest Ye Die) | Cicely Hamilton [12] |
Story | 1941 | War | "Magic City" | Nelson S. Bond |
Story | 1953 | War | "Second Variety" | Philip K. Dick |
Story | 1949 | War | "Time to Rest" | John Wyndham - short story sequel "No Place Like Earth" |
Comic | 1985-1989 | War | Appleseed | Masamune Shirow - Japanese manga (and subsequent anime adaptations) |
Novella | 1989 | Zombies | On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks | Joe R. Lansdale |
Comic | 1990-1995 | War | Battle Angel Alita | Yukito Kishiro - manga series containing post-apocalyptic elements and taking place in a highly futuristic dystopian world |
Comic | 2000-2014 | Impact event, war | Battle Angel Alita: Last Order | Yukito Kishiro - a continuation of the former manga series containing the same elements as previous but goes into greater detail as to how the dystopia came about |
Novel | 1913 | Disease | Goslings: A World of Women[13] | J.D. Beresford - A global plague has decimated England's male population and the once-predictable Gosling family is now free to fulfill its long-frustrated desires. |
Novel | 1805 | Human decline | Le Dernier Homme | Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville - regarded as the first story of modern speculative fiction to depict the end of the world[14] |
Comic | 1997- | War | Desert Punk | Usune Masatoshi - ongoing manga series (later adapted into an anime) |
Comic | 1986-1993 | War | Ex-Mutants | Set in a post-nuclear world |
Comic | 1968- | War | Cobalt 60 | Created by Vaughn Bodé, first published in 1968 |
Comic | 2002 | War | Incredible Hulk: The End: The Last Titan | |
Comic | 2003 | War | Judge Dredd vs. Aliens | |
Comic | 1972- | War | Kamandi | Featuring the Last Boy on Earth series, first published in 1972 |
Comic | 2000-2001 | War | Saikano | Shin Takahashi - manga series |
Comic | 1990-1991 | War | The Last American | Series originally from Marvel in 1990/1991, re-released by Com.X |
Comic | 2004 | War | The Punisher: The End | |
Comic | 1992- | War | X/1999 | Clamp - ongoing manga series |
Song | 1992 | War | "April 2031" | Song by the band Warrant on the Dog Eat Dog album; depicts an Earth devastated by war where life lives on only by artificial means |
Other | 1995- | War | Ayreon | Arjen Anthony Lucassen - series of concept albums depicting the end of life on Earth in 2084 due to, among other factors, a catastrophic nuclear war |
Poem | 1956 | War | "The Horses" | Edwin Muir - deals with society's regression to pre-Industrial Revolution conditions in the wake of a nuclear war |
Poem | 1961 | War | "Your Attention Please" | Peter Porter - written in the style of a radio broadcast warning of an impending nuclear attack |
Song | 1979 | War | "Your Attention Please" | Song adaptation of the above Porter poem, written and recorded by the Scottish post-punk group the Scars |
Game | 2008 | Impact event | Advance Wars: Days of Ruin | With virtually all of humanity wiped out by a meteor strike, the game follows the exploits of an army of survivors, fighting bandit raiders and hostile armies across the planet's desolate remains. |
Other | 2004- | Impact event | Compilation of Final Fantasy VII | Includes video games, short stories, and animated features; revolves largely around the fate of a planet which is ravaged by the impact a giant meteor/asteroid, summoned by magic; published between 2004 and 2009 |
Game | 2007 | Impact event | Godzilla: Unleashed | PC video game, from Pipeworks, set in the post-apocalyptic earth in which Earth has been destroyed by crystals |
Game | 2011 | Impact event | Rage | Video game by iD Software; set after a meteor collision with the Earth |
Novel | 1997- | Aliens | Outlanders | Novel series created by Mark Ellis, aka James Axler |
Novel | 1967-1988 | Aliens | The Tripods | John Christopher - novel series, made into a TV series in the '80s |
Game | 2001- | Aliens | Halo series | An alien alliance called the Covenant begin attacking human colonies in 2525. By 2552, almost all of the human colonies are destroyed and the Covenant are attacking Earth. |
Game | 2007- | Aliens | Crysis | Crytek - A near future where an ancient alien spacecraft has been discovered beneath the ground on an island in the East Philippines sea. |
Novel | 1928, 1929 | Eco | Deluge and Dawn | S. Fowler Wright - A huge flood devastates the world; only the English Midlands survive. |
Novel | 1973, 1976 | Eco | Children of Morrow and Treasures of Morrow | H. M. Hoover - set in California several centuries after pollution has all but wiped out the human race; published in 1973 and 1976 respectively |
Novel | 2002-2004 | Eco | The Snowfall Trilogy | Mitchell Smith - novel trilogy comprising Snowfall, Kingdom River, and Moonrise. North America has retreated into hunter-gatherer societies and military kingdoms some 500 years after an apocalyptic ice age. |
Novel | 1995/2005 | Eco | The Mara and Dann novels | Doris Lessing - Mara and Dann, and sequel: Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog, are set in a future ice age. Other Lessing novels like Memoirs of a Survivor and Shikasta deal with apocalyptic themes. |
Novel | 1994-2001 | Eco | Greatwinter trilogy | Sean McMullen - trilogy comprising Souls in the Great Machine, The Miocene Arrow, and Eyes of the Calculator. The first book was originally published as two books, starting in 1994. An ancient whale species recreated through a genetic experiment turns out to have been telepathic, and the whales issue a telepathic call which cause most of humanity and other large land mammals to walk into the oceans and drown. |
Game | 2007 | Technology | Toxic | Nitrome Limited - flash game by about a character in a yellow hazmat suit attempting to free the world from a race of robots with a variety of bombs. A sequel, Toxic 2, was released in 2008. |
Radio | 2005 | Technology | Humans Are Dead | Flight of the Conchords |
Song | 1980 | Technology | "The Eighth Day" | Hazel O'Connor - hit single |
Song | 2007 | Technology | "Citizens of Tomorrow" | Tokyo Police Club - single |
Other | 2003 | Technology | The Protomen | The Protomen's self-titled album |
Film | 2003 | Human decline | Le Temps du Loup | Michael Haneke's film ("The Time of the Wolf") follows a family through the (French?) countryside after an undefined catastrophic collapse of civilization. |
Film | 2001 | Human decline | A.I. | Depicts human extinction after 2000 years |
Television | 2006 | Human decline | Korgoth of Barbaria | Cartoon Network/Adult Swim animated parody |
Television | 2003 | Human decline | Wolf's Rain | The manga/anime series, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where constant conflicts between nobles leaves whole parts of the earth uninhabited, cities in ruins, and technology rare. Only the nobles possess futuristic ships, and the richest have domed cities where the debilitated earth can still support life. Wolves are proclaimed extinct, but found a way to enchant humans. Five wolves are on a quest to find 'Paradise', along with a Flower-Maiden, who was created from a Lunar Flower by a Noble. A second apocalypse ends the series, with a presumable renewing of the planet. Four of the five characters are seen in the renewed world. |
Television | 2002 | Human decline | The Future Is Wild | Uses computer animation to simulate the sort of creatures that may evolve from present-day animals. In the world depicted in the series, the human race has left Earth to colonize the stars. The future descendants of humanity have sent probes back to Earth to record what has become of it. |
Novel | 1980-1983 | Human decline | The Book of the New Sun | Gene Wolfe - novel series |
Novel | 1953 | Human decline | Childhood's End | Arthur C. Clarke |
Novel | 1982 | Human decline | Friday | Robert A. Heinlein -human society on a future Earth is slipping into a gradual, but inevitable, collapse. |
Novel | 1985 | Human decline | Galápagos | Kurt Vonnegut - After an ambiguous eradication of the human species, several people on a cruise to the Galápagos Islands get stranded there. Much to the dismay of the only male left, the women of the island continue the human species for thousands of years where they evolve into seal-like creatures. |
Novel | 1963 | Human decline | Planet of the Apes | Pierre Boulle |
Novel | 2004-2009 | Human decline | Biomega | And followed manga NOiSE, Blame! and Net Sphere Engineer by Tsutomu Nihei. Published between 2004 and 2009 |
Novel | 1982- | Human decline | The Dark Tower Series | Stephen King. First book published in 1982 |
Story | 1956 | Human decline | To Serve The Master | Philip K. Dick |
Television | 2000-2005 | Future collapse | Andromeda | Created by Gene Roddenberry; ran between 2000 and 2005 |
Television | 1988-1999; 2009- | Future collapse | Red Dwarf | The British science-fiction sitcom; first ran between 1988 and 1999, was restarted in 2009 |
Novel | 1953 | Future collapse | Against the Fall of Night | Arthur C. Clarke |
Novel | 1956 | Future collapse | The City and the Stars | Arthur C. Clarke |
Novel | 1963 | Future collapse | The Dragon Masters | Jack Vance |
Novel | 1996 | Future collapse | Endymion | Dan Simmons - a sequel The Rise of Endymion |
Novel | 1974 | Future collapse | The Mote in God's Eye | Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle |
Novel | 1996-2008 | Future collapse | Trigun | Manga by Yasuhiro Nightow, published between 1996 and 2008 |
Novel | 1994-1996 | Future collapse | Reaches | David Drake, published between 1994 and 1996 |
Novel | 1959 | Future collapse | Transfusion | Chad Oliver |
Novel | 1970 | Future collapse | Ringworld | Larry Niven - An expedition from earth to find a futuristic planet, a ring surrounding a star, results in the members finding that a meteor puncture in the ring's floor and power failure caused the cities to break apart and civilization to collapse. |
Novel | 1979-1982 | Future collapse | Last Legionary | Series by Douglas Hill - a lone soldier fights to bring down the organisation which unleashed a deadly radiation against his planet, killing all his people and rendering the planet uninhabitable. |
Novel | 1963 | Future collapse | Space Viking | H. Beam Piper |
Novel | 1991-1995 | Future collapse | The General series | S. M. Stirling and David Drake, published between 1991 and 1995 |
Film | 1998 | Sun | Last Night | Don McKellar - follows the lives of several individuals as they cope with their final six hours on Earth before the apparent incineration of the Earth by the sun (the cause of the apocalypse is never directly stated). |
Television | 1997 | Sun | The Deconstruction of Falling Stars | The episode of Babylon 5 - written by J. Michael Straczynski |
Television | 2005 | Sun | The End of the World | The episode of the television series Doctor Who |
Novel | 1986 | Sun | Songs of Distant Earth | Arthur C. Clarke - in which the last survivors of Earth arrive at a distant colony unexpectedly. |
Poem | 1816 | Sun | Darkness | by Lord Byron describes the end of life on earth after the sun's extinction. |
Story | 1906 | Sun | Finis | Frank Lillie Pollock where a second sun's light incinerates the Earth. |
Comic | 2001-2002 | Sun | Just a Pilgrim | Limited series by Garth Ennis depicting the adventures of a man traveling on Earth's surface a few years after a solar event called The Burn. Followed by a sequel, Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden. |
Film | 2000- | Supernatural | Left Behind | Film series based on the book series, concerning the Rapture |
Television | 1998 | Supernatural | Silent Mobius | The manga and subsequent anime movies and TV series by Kia Asamiya - The story is set in a Blade Runner-style world which has been invaded by demonic beings. |
Television | 2001-2002 | Supernatural | X/1999 | The Clamp anime in which the seven Dragons of Heaven battle the Dragons of Earth to save the world |
Television | 2009-2010 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Season 4 and 5 are based around the pre-apocalyptic world in which the angels are gearing up for a battle between heaven and hell. |
Novel | 1995 | Supernatural | The End of the Age | Pat Robertson |
Novel | 1995-2007 | Supernatural | Left Behind | novel series concerning the Rapture |
Novel | 1968, 1971 | Supernatural | Black Easter | James Blish - a black magician brings about the end of the world by releasing all the demons from Hell. |
Novel | 2005-2012 | Supernatural | Power of Five | A series of fantasy and suspense novels, published between 2005 and 2012 |
Novel | 2003 | Supernatural | The Rising | Brian Keene - And its sequel City of the Dead. Rather than the zombies being an infection, as in most zombie fiction; these zombies are reanimated by demonic entities, the sisquisim, from the Old Testament. |
Novel | 2006 | Supernatural | The Conqueror Worms | Brian Keene - a Lovecraftian tale of one of the last survivors on earth. In the novel, the world floods causing several monsters appear, mainly gigantic, maneating earthworms. |
Novel | 1997 | Supernatural | Shade's Children | Garth Nix - A novel in which a group of extradimensional beings invade earth and cause all human adults over the age of 14 to vanish. |
Novel | 2004 | Supernatural | The Taking | Dean Koontz - A novel in which a malevolent demonic force kills off the majority of the human race. |
Game | 1998 | Supernatural | Tribe 8 | The role-playing game, in which sadistic demons invade (and conquer) the Earth. |
Game | 2004 | Supernatural | The Shadow of Yesterday | The role-playing game, in which the unification of all people in a fantasy world under a single, supernatural language results in the destruction of a world by what is presumed to be an asteroid that becomes that world's new moon, one that eclipses the sun for a week out of each month. |
Game | 2001 | Supernatural | Final Fantasy X | A role-playing game, in which an advanced civilization is threatened and destroyed by supernatural forces that religion is knowingly, and in some ways unknowingly, centered on. |
Novel | 1985/1987/1990 | Unspecified | Dayworld | Philip Jose Farmer - Trilogy comprising Dayworld, Dayworld Rebel, and Dayworld Breakup. The reasons for the Dayworld dystopia seems to be a combination involving overpopulation, ecological catastrophe, some sort of disaster that rendered petroleum unusable, and World War III. This is hinted at in the second book. |
Novel | 2004- | Unspecified | The Emberverse series | S. M. Stirling - Ongoing series of novels and short stories. A disaster of indeterminate cause (most speculation within the novels concerns an all-powerful outside force, often facetiously referred to as "Alien space bats") causes electricity, combustion engines, and modern explosives to cease functioning. |
Novel | 1987- | Unspecified | Wraeththu | A series of novels set in a world created by Storm Constantine - humanity is replaced as the planet's dominant species by a race of mystic hermaphrodites. War and plague ravage the human population, but no single cause is specified. |
Comic | 2006- | Unspecified | Wasteland | Ongoing comic series, which takes place roughly 100 years in the future, where North America is a dustbowl and lacking modern technology |
Novel | 13th century | Impact Event | Theologus Autodidactus | Ibn al-Nafis |
Novel | 1826 | Disease | The Last Man[15] | Shelley, Mary |
Novel | 1872 | Technology | The Book of Machines | The novel Erewhon's section The Book of Machines |
Novel | 1885 | War | After London[16] | Richard Jefferies - the nature of the catastrophe is never stated, except that apparently most of the human race quickly dies out, leaving England to revert to nature. |
Novel | 1895 | Sun | The Time Machine | H. G. Wells - Towards the end of the book The Time Traveler witnesses the Suns expansion, causing the death of all life on Earth. |
Novel | 1898 | Aliens | The War of the Worlds | H. G. Wells |
Novel | 1901 | Eco | The Purple Cloud | M.P. Shiel - A volcanic eruption floods the world with cyanide gas. |
Novel | 1908 | Supernatural | Lord of the World | Robert Hugh Benson |
Story | 1909 | Technology | The Machine Stops | E. M. Forster - A short story emphasizing machinery instead of computers |
Novel | 1912 | Disease | The Scarlet Plague | Jack London - Sixty years after an uncontrollable epidemic, the Red Death, has depopulated the planet, James Howard Smith tries to impart the value of knowledge and wisdom to his grandsons. |
Novel | 1912 | Sun | The Night Land | William Hope Hodgson - the Sun burns out and the last of humanity is sheltered in an arcology from the hostile environment and the creatures adapted for it. |
Novel | 1914 | Unspecified | Darkness and Dawn | George Allan England - two characters wake from suspended animation and find that some great disaster has torn an enormous chasm in the Earth and created a second moon. |
Novel | 1916 | War | The Lost Continent | Burroughs, Edgar Rice |
Play | 1921 | Technology | R.U.R. | Play by Karel Capek - notable for coining the term 'robot'. |
Novel | 1926 | Aliens | The Moon Men | Edgar Rice Burroughs - The series comprising The Moon Maid with the action set on the moon; The Moon Men set in 2120 after the Kalkars have invaded the earth; and The Red Hawk which jumps to 2430 and in which the Great Feud reaches its climax. |
Novel | 1926 | Technology | The Metal Giants | Edmond Hamilton |
Novel | 1929 | Technology | Automata | S. Fowler Wright |
Novel | 1931 | Technology | The War of the Giants | Fletcher Pratt |
Novel | 1932 | War | Tomorrow's Yesterday | John Gloag [17] |
Novel | 1933 | War | The Shape of Things to Come | Wells, H. G. - predicting an extended world war fought with modern scientific weapons, societal upheaval, and the beginning of space travel. Filmed as Things to Come in 1936. |
Novel | 1934 | War | Quinzinzinzili | Messac, Régis - predicting a great world war that ends with the vanishing of humanity. Only a group of children survives and forms a strange new humanity. |
Novel | 1934 | War | The Black Flame | Stanley G. Weinbaum - Comprises two novellas, Dawn of Flame and The Black Flame, with a common character, Black Margot, aka Margaret of Urbs, aka The Black Flame. |
Story | 1934 | Technology | Rex | Harl Vincent |
Novel | 1935 | Technology | Nightmare Number Three | Stephen Vincent Benet |
Film | 1936 | War | Things to Come[18] | A future second world war leads to a breakdown of civilization in most of the world, with technology returning to medieval levels by 1970. |
Novel | 1936 | War | Wild Harbour | Ian MacPherson - a war much worse than World War I leads to complete social collapse in Britain. |
Story | 1937 | War | By the Waters of Babylon | Stephen Vincent Benét |
Radio | 1938-1975 | Aliens | The War of the Worlds | The radio play, originally directed and narrated by Orson Welles, and later re-made for local broadcast by, and over station WKBW (now WWKB)-AM, in Buffalo, NY. |
Novel | 1939 | War | The Death Guard | Philip George Chadwick, when a near-invincible army of artificially created soldiers - the flesh guard - falls into the hands of an untrustworthy power, continental Europe forms an alliance and invades Britain. The resulting carnage, involving poisonous electric gas, "humanite" (atomic) bombs, and the unfeeling march of the Flesh Guard, reduces whole cities and towns in Europe to smoking rubble. |
Film | 1939 | Human decline | Peace on Earth | A cartoon short by Hugh Harman - animals rebuild a post-apocalyptic world after humanity has fought wars to the point of extinction. |
Story | 1941 | War | Nightfall | Isaac Asimov |
Novel | 1943 | War | Gather, Darkness | Fritz Leiber[19] |
Novel | 1945 | Sun | Rescue Party | Arthur C. Clarke |
Novel | 1946 | Eco | Mr. Adam | Pat Frank - Depicts a world in which a nuclear power plant explosion renders the entire male population infertile. |
Novel | 1947 | Technology | With Folded Hands | Jack Williamson |
Novel | 1948 | War | Ape and Essence | Huxley, Aldous - also screenplay. |
Novel | 1949 | Disease | Earth Abides[15] | Stewart, George R. - plague |
Story | 1949 | War | Not with a Bang | Damon Knight |
Story | 1949 | Impact Event | The Big Eye | Max Simon Ehrlich |
Novel | 1950 | War | Pebble in the Sky | Asimov, Isaac - a later book, Robots and Empire gave a different explanation. |
Story | 1950 | War | There Will Come Soft Rains | Ray Bradbury in The Martian Chronicles. |
Story | 1950 | Disease | The City | Ray Bradbury |
Film | 1951 | War | Five[20] | Arch Oboler - the film shows the aftermath of a nuclear war, centered on a group of five survivors.[21][22] |
Story | 1951 | Disease | The Visitor | Ray Bradbury - short story in The Illustrated Man |
Film | 1951 | Impact Event | When Worlds Collide (1951 film) | Scientists discover a star named Bellus is on a collision course with Earth. |
Novel | 1951 | Social Collapse | The Day of the Triffids | John Wyndham - Initially thought to be a blinding meteor shower, but later suggested to be a manmade satellite based weapon accidentally discharged, allowing the bioengineered Triffid plants to dominate. |
Novel | 1951 | Aliens | The Puppet Masters | Robert A. Heinlein |
Story | 1951 | Technology | The Last Revolution | Lord Dunsany |
Novel | 1951 | Social Collapse | Foundation | Asimov, Isaac - Mathematician Hari Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way. |
Film | 1952 | War | Captive Women[23] | A new primitive society emerges long after a nuclear war. The film portrays tribes called the "Norms", the "Upriver People", and the "Mutates" fighting in the remains of New York City.[24][25] |
Film | 1952 | War | Invasion USA | |
Novel | 1952 | War | Star Man's Son[15] | Norton, Andre Also published as Daybreak: 2250 A.D. and Star Man's Son 2250 A.D. |
Story | 1952 | Eco | The Birds | Daphne du Maurier - survival horror. The 1952 short story The Birds by Daphne du Maurier - made into the 1963 film The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock - in which birds begin launching spontaneous mass attacks against humanity |
Story | 1944 | Eco | The Great Fog | Gerald Heard; a mildrew-generated fog appears to undermine
civilization.[26] |
Novel | 1952 | Human decline | City | Clifford D. Simak |
Film | 1953 | Aliens | The War of the Worlds | Based on the novel of the same name. |
Novel | 1953 | Aliens | The Kraken Wakes | John Wyndham |
Story | 1953 | Supernatural | The Nine Billion Names of God | Arthur C. Clarke - A short story taken from the short story collection of the same name |
Novel | 1954 | War | Tomorrow! | Wylie, Philip - Cautionary (for its time), civil defense-themed "tale of two cities": One (fictional) American city is ready for nuclear World War III, while the other isn't. |
Play | 1954 | War | The Offshore Island | Play by Marghanita Laski |
Novel | 1954 | Disease | I Am Legend | Richard Matheson - A vampire apocalypse novel, adapted to film as The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007) |
Novel | 1954 | Disease | Some Will Not Die | Budrys, Algis |
Story | 1954 | Technology | Slaves To The Metal Horde | Milton Lesser |
Story | 1954 | Technology | Answer | Fredric Brown |
Story | 1954 | Social Collapse | The Last of the Masters | Philip K. Dick - short story (novelette) by Dick, Philip K. - 200 years after a global anarchist revolution, society has stagnated due to the loss of scientific knowledge during the revolt. Elsewhere, the last government, a highly centralized and efficient society, is in hiding from the Anarchist League, a global militia preventing the recreation of any government. |
Film | 1955 | War | Day the World Ended[20] | [27][28] |
Novel | 1955 | War | The Chrysalids | John Wyndham - U.S. title: Re-Birth. The aftermath of a nuclear war in a rural Canadian community. |
Novel | 1955 | War | The Long Tomorrow[29] | Brackett, Leigh - in the aftermath of a nuclear war scientific knowledge is feared and restricted. |
Film | 1956 | War | World Without End[23] | Edward Bernd, starring Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor - Robust 20th Century men—narrowly escaping the ubiquitous "time warp"—kill giant spiders, help pale nerds and their beautiful women emerge from underground, and retake the post World War III surface from troglodyte mutants. |
Novel | 1956 | War | The World Jones Made | Dick, Philip K. |
Story | 1956 | War | The Last Word | Damon Knight |
Story | 1956 | Impact Event | A Pail of Air | Fritz Leiber - A small family struggles to survive at near-zero temperatures after Earth is ripped from its solar orbit. |
Film | 1956 | Aliens | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney |
Novel | 1956 | Eco | The Death of Grass | John Christopher - A virus that destroys plants causes massive famine and the breakdown of society. Made into the film No Blade of Grass |
Novel | 1957 | War | On the Beach | Nevil Shute - also the films based on the book. |
Novel | 1957 | Social Collapse | Atlas Shrugged | Rand, Ayn - American society slowly collapses after the country's leading industrialists mysteriously disappear. |
Film | 1958 | War | Teenage Cave Man[20] | |
Novel | 1958 | Eco | The Year When Stardust Fell | Raymond F. Jones, The world's machinery grinds to a halt after comet dust arrives. |
Film | 1958 | War | Terror from the Year 5000 | [30][31][32] |
Television | 1958 | War | Doomsday For Dyson | A made-for-television play by J. B. Priestley.[33] Tom Dyson is suddenly caught up in the chaos of a nuclear war. Several of the issues brought up in the programme were discussed in an hour-long debate following its conclusion. |
Television | 1958 | War | Underground | A group of survivors from an atomic war become trapped in an underground station - During the play, broadcast live on Armchair Theatre, one of the actors (Gareth Jones) actually died whilst the show was on the air. |
Novel | 1958 | War | Red Alert | George, Peter - filmed as Dr. Strangelove by Stanley Kubrick |
Poem | 1958–1970 | Human decline | Bedtime Story | The poem from Collected Poems 1958–1970 by George Macbeth |
Film | 1959 | War | On the Beach[34] | Stanley Kramer - starring Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins and Ava Gardner - The crew of an American submarine finds temporary safety from the fallout in Australia after the nuclear holocaust (from the 1957 novel by Nevil Shute). |
Film | 1959 | War | The World, the Flesh and the Devil[20] | Adapted from M.P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud. |
Television | 1959 | War | The Offshore Island | A TV adaptation of a play by Marghanita Laski.[35] |
Novel | 1959 | War | Alas, Babylon | Pat Frank - the aftermath of a nuclear war in a rural Florida community. |
Novel | 1959 | War | Level 7 | Roshwald, Mordecai |
Television | 1959–1987 | War | The Twilight Zone - numerous episodes, and its revivals | "Time Enough at Last" (1959); "Two" (1961); "The Old Man in the Cave" (1963); "A Little Peace and Quiet" (1985); "Quarantine" (1986); "Shelter Skelter" (1987); and "Voices in the Earth" (1987) |
Film | 1960 | War | Atomic War Bride | A Yugoslav science fiction drama film directed by Veljko Bulajic.[36][37] |
Film | 1960 | War | The Final War | Shigeaki Hidaka, a Japanese film about a third world war started when the US accidentally drops a nuclear bomb on South Korea (Japanese title: Dai-sanji sekai taisen: Yonju-ichi jikan no kyofu).[38][39] |
Film | 1960 | War | The Time Machine[23] | had an atomic war to explain the downfall of civilization. |
Novel | 1960 | War | A Canticle for Leibowitz | Miller, Jr, Walter M. - sequel: Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman |
Film | 1960 | Eco | The Last Woman on Earth | The Earth's oxygen levels drop suddenly, suffocating most life–survivors in an oxygen-producing jungle speculate that this happened because of "a bigger and better bomb" but the reasons are not made clear. |
Film | 1960 | Eco | Beyond the Time Barrier | X-plane arrives in future after solar radiation catastrophe |
Film | 1961 | War | The Last War | Shūe Matsubayashi - another Japanese film about World War III (Japanese title: Sekai daisenso).[40][41] |
Novel | 1961 | War | Dark Universe | Galouye, Daniel F. |
Film | 1961 | Eco | Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea | The Van Allen belt catches on fire. |
Novel | 1961 | Eco | The Wind from Nowhere | J.G. Ballard - First published novel. World destroyed by increasingly powerful winds |
Film | 1962 | War | La jetée[42] | Chris Marker |
Film | 1962 | War | Panic in Year Zero![43] | A 1962 movie about a family that escapes Los Angeles after the city is devastated by a nuclear attack. |
Film | 1962 | War | This Is Not a Test | [36][44] |
Film | 1962 | Social Collapse/Impact event | The Day of the Triffids | Loosely based on the John Wyndham novel of the same name. The film Triffids are a venomous space-borne plant, and arrive on Earth via meteorites. |
Novel | 1962 | Eco | Hothouse | Brian Aldiss - Presents a dying Earth where vegetation dominates and animal life is all but extinct. Originally published in the United States in abridged form as "The Long, Hot Afternoon of Earth." |
Novel | 1962 | Eco | The Drowned World | J.G. Ballard - Climate change causes flooding. |
Novel | 1962 | Eco | The Wanting Seed | Anthony Burgess - Global over-population and famine leads to mass chaos |
Novel | 1962 | Eco | The World in Winter (UK)/The Long Winter (US) | John Christopher - A decrease in radiation from the sun causes a new ice age. |
Novel | 1963 | War | Triumph | Wylie, Philip |
Novel | 1963 | Eco | Cat's Cradle[45] | Kurt Vonnegut - All the water on Earth becomes Ice-Nine |
Novel | 1963 | Technology | Magnus, Robot Fighter | Comic books series by Gold Key Comics |
Novel | 1963 | Unspecified | The Wall | Novel by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer. Adapted to film in 2012 by the same name. A forty-something woman while vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains discovers that a transparent wall has been placed that closes her off from the outside world; all life outside the wall appears to have died, possibly in a nuclear event. |
Novel | 2009 | War, Terrorism | The War After Armageddon | War novel by Ralph Peters. Islamic extremists launch a series of dirty bomb attacks against the West, which results in a backlash against Muslims. A radical Christian government takes over the US and sends the Army, Marines, and a National Guard full of evangelicals to invade and retake a long-nuked Israel. |
Film | 1964 | War | Dr. Strangelove[45] | Stanley Kubrick - adapting the novel Red Alert by Peter George |
Film | 1964 | Disease | The Last Man on Earth | This is the first film adaptation based on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I Am Legend |
Film | 1964 | War | The Time Travelers | [46][47] |
Film | 1964 | Eco | Crack in the World | Deep drilling project goes wrong. |
Novel | 1964 | War | Davy | Pangborn, Edgar |
Novel | 1964 | War | Farnham's Freehold | Heinlein, Robert A. |
Novel | 1964 | War | The Penultimate Truth | Dick, Philip K. |
Television | 1964 | Aliens | The Dalek Invasion of Earth | The Doctor Who serial. As well as other Alien invasions in the 1963–1989 run including in 1966 The Tenth Planet' 1968 The Web of Fear & in the same year The Invasion, in 1970 Spearhead from Space, 1971 Terror of the Autons this list is not complete but can be said to represent milestone episodes. Some examples from the relaunch are in 2006 Army of Ghosts and Doomsday, and in 2007 The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords (though it could be argued that only the Master is alien). |
Film | 1964 | Eco | The Day the Earth Caught Fire | Earth starts hurtling toward sun as a result of man's nuclear testing |
Novel | 1964 | Eco | The Drought | J.G. Ballard - A super drought evaporates all water on earth. |
Novel | 1964 | Eco | Greybeard | Brian Aldiss - The human race becomes sterile |
Novel | 1964 | Eco | Time of the Great Freeze | Robert Silverberg - Another ice-age has engulfed the earth. A group from New York travels over the ice to London in the year 2650. |
Television | 1964–2002 | War | The Outer Limits | "Soldier" (Cited as an influence on the movie The Terminator); "Bits of Love"; "The Human Factor" |
Television | 1965 | War | The War Game | Peter Watkins |
Novel | 1965 | War | Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb | Dick, Philip K. |
Game | 1965 | War | Nuclear War Card Game | Game by Flying Buffalo. A comical cataclysmic card game for 2-6 players of all ages. |
Novel | 1965 | Aliens | The Genocides | Thomas Disch - Alien flora is seeded on Earth, and quickly comes to dominate all landmasses, threatening Human extinction. |
Novel | 1965 | Eco | A Wrinkle in the Skin (The Ragged Edge(US)) | John Christopher - Civilization destroyed by massive worldwide earthquakes |
Film | 1965 | Technology | Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution | |
Television | 1966 | War | Ape and Essence | Television adaptation of the Novel of the same name |
Story | 1966 | War | I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream | Harlan Ellison |
Film | 1966 | Aliens | Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD | Based loosely on BBC Television series, but not part of the official canon. |
Novel | 1966 | Eco | The Crystal World | J.G. Ballard. The jungle in Africa starts to crystallize all life and expands outward |
Novel | 1966 | Eco | Make Room! Make Room! | Harry Harrison - Made into the 1973 film Soylent Green directed by Richard Fleischer - showing a world where humanity had become massively overpopulated, and a vague ecological disaster is creating a growing dust bowl, and the entire economy is collapsing. |
Novel | 1966 | Technology | Colossus | Dennis Feltham Jones |
Film | 1967 | War | Late August at the Hotel Ozone | Czech title: Konec srpna v Hotelu Ozon [48][49] |
Film | 1967 | War | In the Year 2889 | A remake of the 1955 Roger Corman film Day the World Ended set in the year 1977, despite the title. |
Film | 1967 | War | Journey to the Center of Time | [50][51] |
Novel | 1967 | War | Ice | Kavan, Anna - earth threatened by Nuclear winter |
Story | 1967 | Technology | I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream | Harlan Ellison |
Story | 1965 | Technology | The Cyberiad | Stanisław Lem - A collection of humorous short stories |
Novel | 1967–2005 | Technology | Berserker | Series by Fred Saberhagen |
Film | 1968 | War | Planet of the Apes[23] | Adapted from the novel La planète des singes by Pierre Boulle |
Novel | 1968 | War | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K. Dick - basis for the film Blade Runner |
Novel | 1968 | Technology | The God Machine | Martin Caidin |
Novel | 1968 | Social Collapse | Stand on Zanzibar | John Brunner - Set in a future of extreme over-population. Winner of Hugo Award, British Science Fiction award, and the French Prix Apollo. |
Film | 1969 | War | The Bed Sitting Room[52] | Absurdist comedy film set in a post-war London destroyed by a nuclear bomb in World War III. Originally based on a play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.[53][54] |
Television | 1969 | War | Salve Regina | Four people seek refuge in the basement of a department store following a nuclear explosion. |
Novel | 1969 | War | Damnation Alley | Roger Zelazny - made into a movie and a Hawkwind song 1977. |
Novel | 1969 | War | Heroes and Villains | Angela Carter |
Film | 1969 | Disease | The Seed of Man | Marco Ferreri (Italian title: Il Seme dell'uomo) [55] |
Novel | 1969 | Eco | The Ice Schooner | Michael Moorcock - Set in a new ice age on earth |
Film | 1970 | War | Beneath the Planet of the Apes[56] | The second film in the Planet of the Apes feature film series. |
Novel | 1970 | War | The Incredible Tide | Alexander Key |
Novel | 1970 | War | The Last War | Kir Bulychev - in Russian language |
Novel | 1970 | War | The Year Of The Quiet Sun | Wilson Tucker |
Film | 1970 | Eco | No Blade of Grass[57] | Based on the novel The Death of Grass |
Television | 1970 | Eco | Inferno | Volcanic apocalypse. Doctor Who serial Inferno in which attempts to tap the Earths core for power leads to a volcanic apocalypse. |
Film | 1971 | War | Glen and Randa[23] | [58][59] |
Film | 1971 | War | The Omega Man[60] | An immune survivor of a biological/nuclear war battles plague-altered quasi-vampires bent on erasing all vestiges of science and technology. The movie is based on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I Am Legend |
Novel | 1971 | War | Love in the Ruins | Walker Percy |
Novel | 1971 | War | The Overman Culture | Edmund Cooper |
Television | 1971 | Eco | Timeslip | Global warming. The 1971 TV series Timeslip The Year of the Burn Up - Terraforming causes global warming. |
Novel | 1971 | Eco | Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater | Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis. A microbe designed to eat waste plastic gets loose. |
Novel | 1971 | Technology | Moderan | Series by David R. Bunch |
Novel | 1971 | Sun | Inconstant Moon | Larry Niven |
Novel | 1972 | War | Malevil | Robert Merle |
Novel | 1972 | War | There Will Be Time | Poul Anderson |
Film | 1972 | Eco | Silent Running | |
Novel | 1972 | Eco | The Sheep Look Up | John Brunner - The United States is overwhelmed by environmental irresponsibility and authoritarianism |
Novel | 1972 | Eco | The End Of The Dream | Philip Wylie |
Film | 1972 | Supernatural | A Thief in the Night | The evangelical Christian film series, sometimes referred to as the Mark IV films. |
Film | 1972 | War | Doomsday Machine | In 1975, a crew of space travelers tries to colonize Venus after Earth is destroyed by a "doomsday device". Originally filmed in 1967, but (due to money problems) not finished and/or released until five years later. Directed by Herbert J. Leder, Lee Sholem, and producer Harry Hope. |
Film | 1973 | War | Battle for the Planet of the Apes | The fifth movie in the Planet of the Apes feature film series. |
Film | 1973 | War | Genesis II[61] | Gene Roddenberry - later remade as unsuccessful TV pilot Planet Earth |
Film | 1973 | War | Refuge of Fear | (Spanish title: El refugio del miedo)[62] |
Film | 1973 | Eco | Idaho Transfer | |
Story | 1973 | Eco | Flight of the Horse | Larry Niven - Collection of short stories |
Comic | 1973 | Eco | Violence Jack | A manga series by Go Nagai that tells the tale of a Japan devastated by a massive earthquake and mass volcanic eruption and isolated from the rest of the world, with the remnants of humanity divided between the strong and the weak. A sequel to Nagai's Devilman series. |
Story | 1973 | Technology | Trucks | Stephen King - An unknown phenomenon makes Earth's machines turn against humanity. It was later made into the movie Maximum Overdrive, which added an alien invasion subplot. |
Novel | 1973 | Human decline | The Camp of the Saints | Jean Raspail |
Television | 1973 | Unspecified | The Starlost | A Canadian-produced science fiction television series devised by writer Harlan Ellison and broadcast on CTV in Canada and on NBC in the United States. |
Television | 1973–1974 | Technology | Casshan | |
Film | 1974 | War | The Third Cry | (Swiss film, French title: Le Troisième Cri) [63][64] |
Television | 1974 | War | Planet Earth | Unsuccessful TV pilot remake of Genesis II |
Television | 1974 | War | Planet of the Apes | TV series |
Film | 1974 | Disease | Where Have All The People Gone? | Made for TV movie. A mutated virus created by a solar flare destroys virtually all of the human population. One family has survived, and endeavors to travel across America to their family home. |
Film | 1974 | Eco | Prophecies of Nostradamus | |
Film | 1974 | Human decline | Zardoz | John Boorman |
Novel | 1974 | Monsters | The Rats trilogy | James Herbert - The last two novels of The Rats trilogy show how after a nuclear war, humanity is overthrown by mutated Giant Black Rats. |
Film | 1975 | War | A Boy and His Dog[23] | A young man (Don Johnson) and his dog (Tiger, the dog actor) struggle for survival and encounter strife in a harsh, post-apocalyptic wasteland where food, water, and women are scarce. Based on the writings of Harlan Ellison.[65][66] |
Film | 1975 | War | Black Moon | Surreal French production. |
Film | 1975 | War | La città dell'ultima paura | [67] |
Film | 1975 | War | The Noah | Daniel Bourla - An American soldier becomes the sole survivor of a nuclear war. |
Television | 1975 | War | Day of the Daleks | A Doctor Who story that also features alien invasion. Guerrillas from the future explain that they are attempting to kill someone because he caused an explosion at the peace conference, starting a series of wars that left humanity vulnerable to Dalek conquest.[68] |
Television | 1975 | War | Return to the Planet of the Apes | Animated TV series |
Television | 1975 | War | Strange New World | Another unsuccessful TV pilot remake of Genesis II & Planet Earth |
Novel | 1975 | War | Caravan | Stephen Goldin |
Novel | 1975 | War | The Coming of the Horseclans | Robert Adams - followed by seventeen other books in the horseclans series. |
Novel | 1975 | War | Horseclans | Series by Robert Adams - first book 1975 |
Novel | 1975 | War | Z for Zachariah | Robert C. O'Brien |
Film | 1975 | Disease | The Ultimate Warrior | [69] |
Novel | 1975 | Disease | The Girl Who Owned a City | O. T. Nelson |
Film | 1975 | Eco | Logan's Run | Society is chased into domes by an ecological disaster, and holds a ceremonial death ritual for all citizens who reach the age of 30 to control the population. A man who formerly helped control the population flees the domed city to avoid his own ceremony. |
Novel | 1975 | Unspecified | Dhalgren | Samuel R. Delany |
Television | 1975–1977 | Disease | Survivors | BBC series about the daily struggles of British survivors of a plague which kills most of the world population. |
Film | 1976 | War | The People Who Own the Dark | Amando de Ossorio (Spanish title: Último deseo) [70][71] |
Novel | 1976 | War | Deus Irae | Philip K. Dick - in collaboration with Roger Zelazny |
Novel | 1976 | Eco | The HAB Theory | Allan W. Eckert - The stability of the Earth comes into question. |
Novel | 1976 | Eco | The Winter of the World | Poul Anderson - Civilization and a new species has emerged from a deadly Ice Age that has destroyed all previous life. |
Novel | 1976 | Sun | A World Out of Time | Larry Niven |
Television | 1976–1979 | Eco | Ark II | Pollution. The 1976–1979 TV series Ark II - pollution devastates humanity. |
Film | 1977 | War | Damnation Alley[72] | A surviving American ICBM crew sets out across the U.S. in an armored vehicle in search of survivors in Albany, New York - Based on the novel by Roger Zelazny |
Film | 1977 | War | Wizards | Ralph Bakshi - A good wizard and his evil brother battle some two millennia after Armageddon |
Novel | 1977 | Impact Event | Lucifer's Hammer | Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle - A comet impact |
Novel | 1977- | War | Shannara Series | Terry Brooks - novel series |
Comic | 1977 | War | Judge Dredd | John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Pat Mills |
Novel | 1977 | Disease | Empty World | John Christopher - A virus wipes out the weak and the old, until the planet is populated by young teenagers only. |
Novel | 1974 | Disease | The Last Canadian | William C. Heine - The planet is decimated by a virus, as told through the eyes of one survivor. |
Story | 1977 | Disease | Night Surf | Stephen King - Collected in the book Night Shift. |
Story | 1977 | Eco | The Screwfly Solution | Short story, tells the tale of a virus which turns males into female-hating psychopaths when sexually aroused |
Comic | 1977–1996 | Technology | Galaxy Express 999 | |
Film | 1978 | War | Deathsport | |
Television | 1978 | War | Future Boy Conan | An anime series by Hayao Miyazaki. Supermagnetic WMDs devastate Earth and causes virtually all land to be submerged underwater. |
Film | 1978 | Disease | Plague | Also known as Induced Syndrome (UK), M-3: The Gemini Strain (USA), or Mutation. |
Novel | 1978 | Disease | The Stand | Stephen King |
Film | 1978 | Aliens | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Another film based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney |
Novel | 1978 | Unspecified | False Dawn | Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Two humans search for a way to survive in toxic wasteland. Republished in 2001 |
Game | 1978–2010 | War | Gamma World | Game from TSR, Inc., the makers of Dungeons & Dragons |
Film | 1979 | War | Ravagers[73] | [74] |
Television | 1979 | War | Buck Rogers In The 25th Century | Mostly futuristic in appearance, but outside of the gleaming Utopian city lies apocalyptic ruins swarming with mutants. |
Novel | 1979 | War | Down to a Sunless Sea | David Graham |
Film | 1979 | Impact Event | Meteor | |
Film | 1979 | Eco | Quintet | |
Film | 1979 | Human decline | Mad Max | Australian movie; depicts a declining civilization |
Novel | 1979 | Unspecified | Engine Summer | John Crowley - Civilization transformed several millennia past an unspecified collapse of civilization. |
Novel | 1979–1992 | Aliens | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams |
Game | 1979–1998 | Technology | Choose Your Own Adventure | GamebookBy Edward Packard |
Novel | 1980 | War | The Fifth Horseman | Larry Collins, coauthor Dominique Lapierre |
Novel | 1980 | War | Riddley Walker | Russell Hoban |
Novel | 1980 | War | This Time of Darkness[75] | H.M. Hoover |
Novel | 1980 | War | The Zone | James Rouch - chronicling the conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. |
Film | 1980 | Disease | Fukkatsu no hi | Japanese film also known as Virus, directed by Kinji Fukasaku |
Novel | 1980 | Aliens | Battlefield Earth | L. Ron Hubbard |
Novel | 1980 | Aliens | The Mist | Stephen King |
Novel | 1980 | Aliens | The Visitors | Clifford D. Simak |
Novel | 1980 | Sun | The Shadow of the Torturer | Gene Wolfe - Followed by The Claw of the Conciliator (1981), The Sword of the Lictor (1981), The Citadel of the Autarch (1982), and The Urth of the New Sun (1987). |
Television | 1980–1982 | Impact Event | Thundarr the Barbarian | Events 2000 years after the disaster of 1994 |
Game | 1980–1983 | War | The Morrow Project | Game from Timeline Ltd |
Film | 1981 | War | Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior[20] | |
Film | 1981 | War | Malevil | Film version directed by Christian de Chalonge. Starring Michel Serrault, Jacques Dutronc and Jean-Louis Trintignant |
Novel | 1981 | War | The Survivalist | Jerry Ahern - Series. First book 1981, Total War |
Game | 1981 | War | Aftermath! | Game from Fantasy Games Unlimited |
Novel | 1981 | War | The Pelbar Cycle | Series of seven books by Paul O. Williams - first book 1981, The Breaking of Northwall A thousand years after a series of nuclear exchanges. Republished in 2005. |
Novel | 1981 | Eco | The Quiet Earth | Craig Harrison - Adapted into the 1985 movie of the same name. |
Television | 1981 | Social collapse | The Day of the Triffids (1981 TV series) | 1981 adaptation of The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham |
Novel | 1981 | Technology | Robot Revolt | Nicholas Fisk |
Novel | 1981 | Technology | Uncanny X-Men | Story arc, "Days of Future Past" by Chris Claremont & John Byrne |
Film | 1982 | War | 2020 Texas Gladiators[23] | Post-apocalyptic Italian film[76][77] |
Film | 1982 | War | The Aftermath[23] | Returning astronauts encounter bikers and mutants in a post-nuclear setting. Released as "Zombie Aftermath" in the UK.[78] |
Comic | 1982–1990 | War | Akira | Cyberpunk manga series by Katsuhiro Otomo published by Dark Horse Comics - about a group of young bikers in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo who clash with the government and psychics with incredible power. Adapted into a 1988 animated movie |
Film | 1982 | War | Human Highway | |
Film | 1982 | War | She[79] | A low-budget B-movie - an extremely loose adaptation of the novel She by H. Rider Haggard, starring Sandahl Bergman as a post-civilization warrior. |
Film | 1982 | War | Warriors of the Wasteland[23] | |
Television | 1982 | War | Whoops Apocalypse | |
Novel | 1982 | Disease | The White Plague | Frank Herbert |
Game | 1982 | Technology | Robotron: 2084 | Created by Williams |
Television | 1982–1983 | Aliens | The Super Dimension Fortress Macross | The anime series and its sequels (rewritten and combined with The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada to create Robotech', which dealt similarly with post-apocalyptic themes). |
Film | 1983 | War | 2019, After the Fall of New York[23] | An Italian film set in 2019 featuring a mercenary out to rescue the last fertile woman on Earth. |
Film | 1983 | War | Endgame[23] | [80] |
Film | 1983 | War | Exterminators of the Year 3000 | [81][82][83] |
Film | 1983 | War | Le Dernier Combat[84] | Luc Besson |
Film | 1983 | War | Stryker[23] | [85][86] |
Film | 1983 | War | Testament[34] | |
Film | 1983 | War | Warrior of the Lost World[23] | Wanderer on a super-sonic motorcycle becomes the saviour of a society of misfits. |
Film | 1983 | War | Yor, the Hunter from the Future | [87] |
Television | 1983 | War | The Day After | The effects of nuclear war on a Kansas town. |
Novel | 1983 | War | The Amtrak Wars | Patrick Tilley - series, set at the end of the 3rd millennium |
Novel | 1983 | War | The Ashes[88] | Series by William W. Johnstone - first book 1983, Out of the Ashes |
Comic | 1983–1988 | War | Fist of the North Star | Influential shonen manga series by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara - A warrior trained in a powerful martial arts style rights wrongs and battles evil warlords in a post-apocalyptic world. Inspired the landmark anime series, a live-action film, and many games. |
Novel | 1983 | War | Hiero's Journey | Sterling E. Lanier - sequel is The Unforsaken Hiero 1985, A "metis" priest/killman quests across post-apocalyptic northeastern North America, seven thousand years in the future. |
Novel | 1983 | War | The Last Children of Schewenborn | Gudrun Pausewang - Die Letzten Kinder Von Schewenborn in German |
Novel | 1983 | War | Pulling Through | Dean Ing |
Novel | 1983 | War | Trinity's Child | William Prochnau |
Novel | 1983 | War | Vampire Hunter D | Series by Hideyuki Kikuchi - first book 1983, Novels (and later anime movies), set ten thousand years after a nuclear war occurs in 1999, |
Television | 1983–1984 | Aliens | Genesis Climber Mospeada | The anime series (see also Robotech). |
Television | 1983–1985 | Aliens | V | The television series. |
Film | 1984 | War | Dark Enemy | [89] |
Comic | 1984–1995 | Technology | Dragon Ball | In the Cell saga of Dragon Ball Z, a time traveler arrives from a post-apocalyptic future where two powerful killer androids have destroyed much of the world, and attempts to stop the same thing from happening in the main timeline. |
Film | 1984 | War | Radioactive Dreams[90] | After an atomic war Phillip Hammer and Marlowe Chandler have spent 15 years on their own in a bunker, then they find the keys to the last MX missile.[91][92] |
Film | 1984 | War | Sexmission | A Polish comedy. All men, except two who were hibernating, die after a war with the use of an M-bomb that kills only males. |
Television | 1984 | War | Threads | BBC Television Docudrama. |
Television | 1984 | War | Z for Zachariah | BBC adaptation of the 1975 novel of the same name. |
Novel | 1984 | War | Brother in the Land | Robert Swindells |
Novel | 1984 | War | Doomsday Plus Twelve | James D. Forman |
Novel | 1984 | War | Emergence | David R Palmer |
Novel | 1984 | War | Traveler | D. B. Drumm - series. First book: First, You Fight |
Novel | 1984 | War | Warday | Whitley Strieber, coauthor James Kunetka |
Novel | 1984 | Disease | Clay's Ark | Octavia Butler |
Film | 1984 | Impact Event | Night of the Comet | When a comet passes too close to earth, two girls are left amid mutants. |
Film | 1984 | Eco | Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind[93] | Hayao Miyazaki - Based on the manga of the same name |
Novel | 1984 | Eco | In the Drift | Michael Swanwick - Also an alternate history Story - the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor incident resulted in a very large release of radioactivity, devastating the Northeastern U.S. |
Television | 1984–1985 | Aliens | The Tripods | An adaptation of the first two books in the trilogy by John Christopher |
Television | 1984–1987 | War | Fist of the North Star | Landmark post-apocalyptic anime series based on the manga. |
Game | 1984–1993 | War | Twilight: 2000 | Game from Game Designer's Workshop - set in a world where a Sino-Russian war degenerates into a limited nuclear conflict that eventually drags in Europe and America. |
Film | 1984–2009 | Technology | Terminator | Series of films dealing with a future devastated by a war between humans and machines, the attempt of the machines to kill the hero of the human resistance in the past, and the attempt of the hero and others to prevent this future from ever coming to pass. |
Film | 1985 | War | Def-Con 4[23] | |
Film | 1985 | War | Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome[23] | |
Film | 1985 | War | Warriors of the Apocalypse[23] | After civilization is wiped out by nuclear war, an adventurer leads a group of wanderers on a search for the fabled Mountain of Life. |
Novel | 1985 | War | Children of the Dust | Louise Lawrence |
Novel | 1985 | War | Fiskadoro | Denis Johnson |
Novel | 1985 | War | Freeway Fighter | Ian Livingstone - part of the Fighting Fantasy Gamebook series (Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book) |
Novel | 1985 | War | The Postman | David Brin - the 1997 movie of the same name. |
Novel | 1985 | War | The Steel, the Mist and the Blazing Sun | Christopher Anvil |
Novel | 1985 | War | This is the Way the World Ends | James Morrow |
Film | 1985 | Disease | City Limits | [94] |
Novel | 1985 | Disease | Blood Music | Greg Bear |
Novel | 1985 | Disease | The Fourth Horseman | Alan E. Nourse - Follows the progression of a new outbreak of Black Plague and the struggle to survive as society collapses. |
Novel | 1985 | Aliens | Footfall | Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle - Baby elephant-like invaders hurl asteroids at earth, humans revolt. |
Novel | 1985 | Eco | The Handmaid's Tale | Margaret Atwood - Dystopia is fueled by rampant infertility caused by pollution. |
Film | 1985 | Technology | Starchaser: The Legend of Orin | |
Novel | 1985 | Technology | The Adolescence of P-1 | Thomas J. Ryan. |
Game | 1985 | Technology | The Mechanoid Invasion | GamebookAnd its source books, supplements and sequels was the first role-playing game from Palladium Books, conceived and written by Kevin Siembieda. |
Film | 1985 | Sun | The Quiet Earth | Based on the 1981 novel The Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison |
Film | 1986 | War | America 3000[95] | In Colorado, 900 years after a nuclear war in the USA, humanity is back to the stone ages.[96] |
Film | 1986 | War | Fist of the North Star | Animated Japanese film. |
Film | 1986 | War | Robot Holocaust[23] | |
Film | 1986 | War | The Sacrifice[97] | |
Film | 1986 | War | When the Wind Blows | Jimmy Murakami - adapting the graphic novel by Raymond Briggs |
Film | 1986 | War | Whoops Apocalypse | |
Novel | 1986- | War | Deathlands | James Axler - Novel series |
Novel | 1986 | War | Endworld | Series by David L. Robbins - first book 1986 |
Film | 1986 | Disease | Dead Man's Letters | Konstantin Lopushanskij |
Story | 1986 | Aliens | Maximum Overdrive | Stephen King - Aliens remotely control machines (trucks, cars and even vending machines) to kill the human population before invading. Based on the Stephen King short story Trucks |
Film | 1986 | Eco | Solarbabies | Also known as Solarwarriors |
Novel | 1986 | Eco | Nature's End | Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka. |
Story | 1986 | Eco | The End of the Whole Mess | Stephen King - 1986 short story The End of the Whole Mess a distillate of a Texas aquifer, originally harvested and distributed worldwide to reduce human propensity for violence—curses humanity with premature Alzheimer's disease and senility. |
Comic | 1986–1989 | Aliens | Outlanders | Johji Manabe - manga |
Film | 1987 | War | Cherry 2000 | |
Film | 1987 | War | Creepozoids[98] | |
Film | 1987 | War | Death Run | |
Film | 1987 | War | Hell Comes to Frogtown | |
Film | 1987 | War | Steel Dawn[99] | [100] |
Film | 1987 | War | The Survivalist | The Soviet Union blames the U.S. for a nuclear explosion, and in the ensuing chaos, the protagonist must defend his family. Based on the Jerry Ahern pulp novel series.[101] |
Film | 1987 | War | Survivor | [102] |
Film | 1987 | War | Urban Warriors | Three technicians working in an underground laboratory discover that a nuclear war has destroyed most of the above ground world. |
Television | 1987 | War | Knights of God | |
Novel | 1987 | War | Fire Brats | Series by Scott Siegel - first book 1987, co-author Barbera Siegel, Grade 8-10 |
Novel | 1987 | War | Obernewtyn Chronicles | Series by Isobelle Carmody - first book 1987 |
Novel | 1987 | War | Swan Song | Robert R. McCammon |
Game | 1987 | War | Crystalis | Game from SNK |
Novel | 1987 | Aliens | The Forge of God | Greg Bear |
Novel | 1987 | Eco | Wolf In Shadow | David Gemmell - The world is devastated by huge tsunamis. Most of the technology left in the world is on par with the mid to late 1800s but there are some newer weapons around. |
Song | 1987 | Technology | Twilight of The Gods | Helloween |
Novel | 1987 | Unspecified | In the Country of Last Things | Paul Auster |
Television | 1987–1988 | Technology | Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future | After a war against the machines in which the humans lost, a small group of resistance fighters must keep humanity alive against the evil forces of Lord Dread. |
Film | 1988 | War | Akira | Groundbreaking anime movie based on the manga of the same name |
Film | 1988 | War | Miracle Mile | |
Film | 1988 | War | She-Wolves of the Wasteland | |
Film | 1988 | War | World Gone Wild | [103][104] |
Novel | 1988 | War | Freeway Warrior | Series by Joe Dever - first book 1988 |
Novel | 1988 | War | The Gate to Women's Country | Sheri S. Tepper |
Novel | 1988 | War | The Last Ship | William Brinkley |
Novel | 1988 | War | Time Capsule[105] | Mitch Berman |
Film | 1988 | Aliens | They Live | Part science fiction thriller and part black comedy. |
Game | 1988 | Aliens | Manhunter | The computer game. |
Game | 1988 | Technology | Wasteland | PCPost-Apocalyptic RPG, main story features a rogue AI that not only caused a nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union, but also is attempting to eradicate any humans that survived. |
Novel | 1988 | Human decline | At Winter's End | Robert Silverberg |
Game | 1988 | Social Collapse | Dark Future | Miniature wargamingMiniature wargame by Games Workshop - A role-playing game franchise composed of the game and associated novels and short-story anthologies set within the Dark Future universe. |
Novel | 1988 | Unspecified | Tea from an Empty Cup | Pat Cadigan - A novel set in a cyberpunk world following a vaguely described natural cataclysm. |
Television | 1988–1990 | Aliens | War of the Worlds: The Second Invasion | The second season of this television spin-off from the 1953 movie was set after a successful alien invasion. |
Film | 1989 | War | The Blood of Heroes[23] | Australian film written and directed by David Webb Peoples |
Film | 1989 | War | Cyborg[106] | |
Film | 1989 | War | Empire of Ash II | |
Film | 1989 | War | Empire of Ash III | |
Novel | 1989 | War | Folk of the Fringe | Orson Scott Card - novella "West," plus several short stories. |
Game | 1989 | War | Badlands | Game by Atari Games |
Novel | 1989 | Disease | Plague 99 | Jean Ure - Sequels Come Lucky April and Watchers at the Shrine |
Film | 1989 | Eco | Millennium | |
Film | 1989 | Eco | Slipstream | |
Novel | 1989 | Eco | Stark | Ben Elton |
Film | 1989 | Technology | Gunhed | |
Film | 1989 | Technology | Moontrap | |
Novel | 1989 | Monsters | Moonbane | Al Sarrantonio - About a worldwide uprising of werewolves |
Novel | 1989 | Supernatural | The Dead | Mark E. Rogers - Combines themes of the rapture and zombies. |
Short Story | 1989 | Disease | On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks | Story by Joe R. Lansdale. Bacteria causes the dead to rise. Bounty Hunter chases quarry and encounters evil cult. |
Film | 1990 | War | The Handmaid's Tale[107] | |
Film | 1990 | War | Hardware[23] | |
Film | 1990 | War | Robot Jox | |
Television | 1990 | War | The Girl from Tomorrow | Australian children's drama in which a girl from the 31st century (after the Northern Hemisphere has been destroyed in the Great Disaster, later revealed to be a nuclear holocaust) becomes stranded in the 20th century. In the sequel, Tomorrow's End (1993), she and her friends fight to prevent history from being changed in such a way that the Southern Hemisphere is destroyed as well. |
Novel | 1990 | War | Nightfall | Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg (extension written by Silverberg of the Asimov story of the same name) |
Game | 1990 | War | Mad Max | Game |
Game | 1990 | War | Rifts | A nuclear exchange triggers the return of Ley Lines and Interdimensional Rifts or portals. These Ley Lines and Portals subsequently cause several natural and supernatural disasters. |
Film | 1990 | Disease | A Wind Named Amnesia | A mysterious plague has swept over the entire world, causing everyone to suffer from amnesia, leading to the collapse of civilization. Based on a novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi |
Television | 1990 | Disease | Not with a Bang | ITV show, about 3 people who lived after everyone else in England was turned to dust by a chemical that was accidentally released by a television presenter. |
Novel | 1990 | Disease | The City, Not Long After | Pat Murphy - In the wake of a devastating worldwide plague, a handful of artists transform the City of San Francisco, and fend off marauders with a touch of magic. |
Novel | 1990 | Disease | A Gift Upon the Shore | M. K. Wren |
Film | 1990 | Aliens | I Come in Peace | Also known as Dark Angel, directed by Craig R. Baxley |
Novel | 1990 | Aliens | The Madness Season | Celia S. Friedman |
Film | 1990 | Eco | Mindwarp | Taking place in the year 2037, the loss of the ozone layer has left most of the planet a desolate wasteland scattered with highly radioactive Death Zones. |
Film | 1990 | Eco | Omega Cop | After an environmental holocaust, a lone cop battles a gang of rampaging marauders. |
Novel | 1990 | Social Collapse | Wolf and Iron | Gordon R. Dickson - A man and a wolf band together to survive in an America devastated by financial collapse. |
Television | 1990–1991 | Technology | Bucky O'Hare | |
Television | 1990–1992 | Eco | Captain Planet | Environment disaster. The Captain Planet two-parter Two Futures, in which the character Wheeler gets a glimpse of what could happen if damage to the environment was allowed to continue unchecked |
Novel | 1990–1994 | War | Gan Moondark | Donald E. McQuinn - trilogy Warrior, Wanderer, & Witch, set in the Pacific Northwest, generations after World War III. |
Film | 1991 | War | Delicatessen[108] | Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro |
Novel | 1991 | War | Yellow Peril | Wang Lixiong - in the Chinese under the pseudonym Bao Mi, about a nuclear civil war in the People's Republic of China |
Game | 1991 | War | Armour-Geddon | Game from Psygnosis |
Novel | 1991 | Eco | Fallen Angels | Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn - Space-based civilization exists despite the government's wishes during an ice age. |
Game | 1991 | Eco | Dark Sun | A Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting by TSR, Inc. - focusing on a world that has been turned into an inhospitable desert by overuse of magic that destroyed the surrounding vegetation. |
Film | 1991 | Supernatural | The Rapture | |
Television | 1992 | War | woops! | Short-lived sitcom about the survivors of a nuclear war. |
Game | 1992 | War | Outlander | Game Mad Max inspired driving game from 1992/93 for Snes and Genesis |
Novel | 1992 | Disease | The Children of Men | P. D. James |
Film | 1992 | Technology | American Cyborg: Steel Warrior | |
Novel | 1992 | Monsters | Skeletons | Al Sarrantonio - The galaxy passes through a 'cloud' in space, which causes all previously expired creatures on Earth to return to life as bloodthirsty skeletons shrouded in ghostly mirages of their former selves |
Film | 1993 | War | Cyborg 2 | |
Film | 1993 | War | Robot Wars | Sequel to Robot Jox |
Novel | 1993 | Disease | Doomsday Book | Connie Willis |
Film | 1993 | Aliens | Body Snatchers | Another film based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney |
Game | 1993 | Aliens | X-COM: UFO Defense and subsequent follow-ups | The computer game. |
Novel | 1993 | Parable of the Sower | Octavia E. Butler | |
Film | 1993 | Eco | The Last Border - Viimeisellä Rajalla | One man's quest for revenge in a world where toxic waste has driven the remains of civilization into the Arctic Circle. |
Novel | 1993 | Eco | The Fifth Sacred Thing | Starhawk |
Novel | 1993 | Eco | Deus X | Norman Spinrad - The results of global warming |
Novel | 1993 | Eco | This Other Eden | Ben Elton - The Earth's population is forced to live in Biodomes for 50 years while the environment recovers from humanity's actions. |
Game | 1993 | Eco | Secret of Mana | Takes place long after a time of environmental collapse that destroyed the world's older advanced civilizations. |
Novel | 1993 | Technology | Computer One | Warwick Collins |
Novel | 1993 | Technology | The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect | Roger Williams |
Game | 1993 | Technology | RayForce | Multia Japanese scrolling shooter arcade game. |
Television | 1993 | Monsters | Cadillacs and Dinosaurs | Animated TV series. In which dinosaurs reclaim the earth. Based upon the comic series "Xenozoic Tales" |
Game | 1993–present | Technology | Mega Man X series | A video game series created by Capcom |
Game | 1993–present | Supernatural | Doom series | A computer game series created by id Software - about a demonic invasion of human colonies on the moons of Mars. The sequel to the original game, Doom II: Hell on Earth, sees the demons invading Earth itself. |
Television | 1994 | War | Knight Rider 2010 | Made for TV movie that was designed to be a pilot for a post- Apocalyptic spin-off from the original Knight Rider |
Television | 1994 | Disease | The Stand | miniseries |
Television | 1994 | Impact Event | Highlander: The Animated Series | |
Game | 1994 | Impact Event | Illusion of Gaia | A Super NES game were a comet passes next to Earth, which is a malicious being whose light turns humans into monsters. The story takes place in an altered reality, where to approaching comet already changed timeline and reality. |
Game | 1994 | Supernatural | Final Fantasy VI | Titled Final Fantasy III in its initial American launch, this RPG features a plot twist in where villain Kefka moves magical statues out of their intended alignment, which in turn causes the balanced fictional world to fall into ruin, and for Kefka to become its new god while protected by the powers of the same statues. |
Game | 1994 | Technology | Earthsiege | And sequels, from Sierra Entertainment |
Game | 1994 | Technology | Rise of the Robots | MultiDeveloped by Mirage Studios. A fighting game. |
Game | 1994 | Technology | System Shock | Looking Glass Technologies - incorporates elements from Alien invasion theory. |
Novel | 1994 | Unspecified | Vanishing Point | Michaela Roessner - Life in Silicon Valley 30 years after the mysterious and spontaneous disappearance of 90% of the world's population. The Winchester Mystery House ("The House") serves as a focal point for parallel universes and inexplicable energies that are changing the world and its post-Vanishing children. |
Comic | 1994–2006 | Eco | Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko | The Japanese manga series, set in a peaceful post-cataclysmic Japan, after an untold environmental disaster. |
Film | 1995 | War | Fist of the North Star | Live-action martial arts film. |
Film | 1995 | War | Judge Dredd[20] | |
Film | 1995 | Disease | Twelve Monkeys[109] | Directed by Terry Gilliam - Based on La jetée (see above). |
Film | 1995 | Impact Event | Tank Girl | Loosely based on the comic by Jamie Hewlett |
Game | 1995 | Aliens | Chrono Trigger | The console game, where modern civilization is at risk of being destroyed by an alien parasite in 1999 AD |
Film | 1995 | Eco | Waterworld[109] | Global Warming has caused all landmasses on Earth to be covered by the sea. The remnants of humanity survive on "atolls," mechanical floating cities that are constantly attacked by pirates with steam-driven ships. Some humans have evolved to become amphibious to live among the old wreckage beneath the waves. Many people live in hope of finding the mythical "Dryland," the place safe from the seas (which turns out to be the Himalayan Mountains). |
Novel | 1995 | Eco | Mother of Storms | John Barnes - A tactical nuclear strike in the North Pacific releases massive amounts of methane, spawning worldwide super hurricanes. |
Novel | 1995 | Eco | Ill Wind | Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason - A microbe consumes all materials based on petroleum. |
Film | 1995 | Technology | Screamers | |
Comic | 1995 | Technology | Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith | Comics, great Droid Revolution |
Television | 1995 | Technology | Space: Above and Beyond | A subplot involves humanity fighting a race of cyborgs called Silicates. |
Game | 1995 | Technology | I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream | From Cyberdreams |
Game | 1995 | Technology | Vertical Force | A vertical shoot-em-up scroller game, with two layers for Nintendo's Virtual Boy video game system. |
Game | 1995 | Technology | Red Alarm | Nintendo |
Television | 1995 | Supernatural | Neon Genesis Evangelion | Humanity's unearthing of a being known as Adam brings about Second Impact, a catastrophic shockwave which destroys Antarctica and subsequently leads to the extinction of thousands of organisms, the destruction of much of the civilized world, and the deaths of billions. Millions more die from the social and economic troubles which follow this impact and the ensuing wars. |
Novel | 1995 | Supernatural | The Third Millennium | Paul Meier - Also 1996's The Fourth Millennium. |
Game | 1995 | Supernatural | Mortal Kombat 3 | The third installment of the Mortal Kombat series. Supernatural warlord Shao Kahn has taken over the realm of Earth, taking the souls of much of the populace. Extermination squads roam the land in search of the few surviving Kombatants that oppose him. |
Game | 1995–present | Eco | Command & Conquer: Tiberian series | A radioactive, self-replicating alien crystal known as Tiberium crashes on Earth in 1995 and gradually renders most of the Earth's surface uninhabitable over the next several decades. |
Film | 1996 | Eco | Escape from L.A.[23] | The sequel to Escape From New York, the film is set in an America that has become a theocratic dictatorship. Central to the plot is Los Angeles Island, the remains of what was once the city of Los Angeles after "The Big One," where those who break the government's new laws are deported to. |
Film | 1996 | War | Star Trek: First Contact | A late-21st century Earth is devastated by nuclear conflict. |
Novel | 1996 | War | Arc Light | Eric L. Harry - limited nuclear war between the United States and Russia. |
Film | 1996 | Aliens | Independence Day | A fleet of alien warships appear over several Earth cities and lay waste to them. |
Film | 1996 | Aliens | Mars Attacks! | Based on the trading card series Mars Attacks (1962). |
Novel | 1996 | Aliens | The Killing Star | Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski - Aliens conduct a preemptive strike against humanity with relativistic missiles. |
Story | 1996 | Aliens | War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches | Kevin J. Anderson - Edited by Kevin J. Anderson is an anthology of short stories set during the events of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells |
Film | 1996 | Technology | Omega Doom | |
Novel | 1996 | Technology | Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88 | Kevin J. Anderson |
Game | 1996 | Human decline | The House of the Dead | The The House of the Dead series of Sega video games. Scientist Dr. Curien finds a way to reanimate the dead, though not without disastrous results. Later in the series' timeline, Caleb Goldman uses the undead in his mission to destroy the human race and protect the Earth from further destruction by humans. |
Television | 1996, 1999 | Technology | The Outer Limits | The 1996 episode "Resurrection" and the 1999 episode "The Human Operators" |
Television | 1996–1997 | Impact Event | After War Gundam X | In the series' backstory, a brutal war sees multiple space colonies dropped on Earth, rendering much of the world uninhabitable. |
Game | 1996–present | Disease | Resident Evil | MultiVideo game series |
Film | 1997 | War | The Postman[23] | Partly based on the David Brin Novel |
Game | 1997 | Disease | POD: Planet of Death | A mining accident unleashes a virus from within the colonized moon Io. Races are held to determine the winner of the last seat in the last shuttle leaving. |
Novel | 1997 | War | Aftermath | LeVar Burton - American civilization crumbles after a civil war pitting blacks against whites and a devastating earthquake. |
Game | 1997 | Impact Event | Dark Earth | Set in an unspecified post-apocalyptic region on an Earth shrouded by an impact winter and plagued by a dangerous mutagenic substance called "Archessence" - the game centres on a technologically regressed medieval-like society. |
Game | 1997 | War | Interstate '76 | Game from Activision |
Game | 1997 | War | KKnD series | Game |
Television | 1997 | Impact Event | Asteroid | |
Novel | 1997 | Impact Event | Titan | Stephen Baxter about a manned mission to Titan while China directs an asteroid to hit Earth. |
Novel | 1997 | Aliens | The Alien Years | Robert Silverberg |
Game | 1997 | Aliens | Spellcross | Turn based strategy game on PC |
Game | 1997 | Eco | 7th Legion | PC game. The Chosen, a group consisting of a corporate- and government-determined human elect, depart a heavily polluted Earth via a fleet of starships, returning as a force to reoccupy Earth, fighting against the titular 7th Legion, a coalition of the most advanced post-apocalypse humans on Earth. |
Game | 1997 | Technology | GURPS Reign of Steel | A setting for the GURPS role playing system, where machines have taken over the world after a war with humanity that the humans lost. |
Film | 1997 | Human decline | The End of Evangelion | All humankind are reverted to a "primordial soup" and merged into a single consummate being. |
Film | 1997 | Unspecified | Alien Resurrection | Features a deleted scene (restored to the film in the Alien Quadrilogy box set) in which Ripley and the other survivors land the Auriga in a devastated Paris. The cause of the destruction is never made clear. |
Game | 1997–present | War | Fallout series | A nuclear war in 2077 devastates much of the US. Players start out in underground shelters called Vaults. |
Film | 1998 | War | Six-String Samurai[110] | |
Game | 1998 | War | BattleTanx | Vehicular combat game from The 3DO Company. Nearly all women around the world are killed in a nuclear war and few female survivors are prized by men. |
Game | 1998 | War | Vigilante 8 | Activision |
Novel | 1998 | Disease | The Transall Saga | Gary Paulsen |
Novel | 1998 | Impact Event | Moonfall | Jack McDevitt |
Film | 1998 | Aliens | The Faculty | Directed by Robert Rodriguez - Six students are about to find out their teachers really are from another planet. |
Game | 1998 | Aliens | Half-Life | The computer game and its sequel |
Other | 1998 | Aliens | Getter Robo Armageddon | The OVA, where a combination of a nuclear missile and amorphous alien Invaders results in a war with the fate of humanity at stake. |
Novel | 1998 | Eco | Aftermath | Charles Sheffield - Alpha Centauri goes supernova and causes cataclysmic climate change |
Novel | 1998 | Eco | Dust | Charles Pellegrino - All the insect species on Earth die out, and the ecology crashes as a result |
Game | 1998 | Technology | RayCrisis | MultiA prequel to RayForce |
Game | 1998 | Technology | KKND2: Krossfire | Is the sequel to KKnD, as part of its plot, Series 9 are advanced farming robots that have taken it unto themselves to destroy all life. |
Other | 1998 | Technology | Obsolete (album) | Fear Factory |
Game | 1998 | Future collapse | Xenogears | PlayStation game set in a world with two nations fight with weapons found in ancient ruins. Also human fossils are all recent in the planet. |
Film | 1998 | Supernatural | Apocalypse | Also, the series of films made in the 1990s and 2000s by Cloud Ten Pictures |
Comic | 1998 to present | Disease | Eden: It's an Endless World | Manga by Hiroki Endo |
Television | 1998–1999 | Eco | Cowboy Bebop | Disaster. The 1998–1999 anime series in which a man made disaster has caused Earth's moon to fragment, resulting in a constant rain of meteor strikes on the planet and forcing humanity to move out into the solar system. |
Television | 1999 | War | Now and Then, Here and There | An Anime series that takes place 10 billion years into the future, where humanity lusts for power, and children are forced into military duty. |
Novel | 1999 | War | Resurrection Day | Brendan DuBois - set ten years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, which escalated into nuclear war. |
Game | 1999 | War | BattleTanx: Global Assault | Game from The 3DO Company - sequel to BattleTanx |
Game | 1999 | War | Warzone 2100 | |
Television | 1999 | Disease | Crusade | A spin-off from the TV show Babylon 5 |
Game | 1999 | Disease | Abomination: The Nemesis Project | Video game |
Television | 1999 | Impact Event | The Last Train[111] | Cruel Earth in Canada. British TV six-part drama. |
Television | 1999 | Impact Event | Thunderstone | |
Game | 1999 | Aliens | Chrono Cross | The 1999 console game, where in alternate time lines modern civilization was destroyed by an alien parasite in 1999 AD |
Novel | 1999 | Eco | The Rift | Walter Jon Williams |
Game | 1999 | Technology | System Shock 2 | Sequel to System Shock |
Game | 1999 | Technology | Galerians | PlayStationDeveloped by Polygon Magic. |
Game | 1999 | Technology | Descent 3 | PCDeveloped by Outrage Entertainment, which explains that mostly mining robots attacked by an unknown virus and now attacking people. |
Television | 1999 | Human decline | The Big O | The Japanese manga and anime, where humans apparently suffered mass amnesia 40 years prior and are afraid to leave their city, Paradigm - It is a sort of mecha/apocalypse subclass of its own; the protagonist has to battle mechanical beings and other robots who are trying to destroy the remnants of the human race. |
Game | 1999 | Future collapse | Homeworld | PCDeveloper Relic Entertainment - A small human civilization on the desert planet of Kharak on the edge of the galaxy is brought to the brink of extinction for violating a forgotten 5000-year-old treaty forbidding them from developing hyperspace technology. The survivors, however, are fortunate to have the use of the recently completed Mothership - a large colony vessel meant to take them back to their ancient and forgotten homeworld near the center of the galaxy, Hiigara - The game was succeeded by sequels Homeworld: Cataclysm and Homeworld 2. |
Game | 1999–2000 | War | Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri | Game A ship leaves Earth on the eve of World War III to found a new colony orbiting Alpha Centauri |
Television | 1999–2003 | Disease | The Tribe | The New Zealand TV series, that takes place in a near-future in which all the adults have been killed by a man-made Virus and the children have to survive on their own. |
Film | 1999–2003 | Technology | The Matrix | Series of films dealing with a future where machines have trapped humanity in an illusory world, and the struggle of the surviving humans of the post-apocalyptic real world to free the rest of humanity from the illusion. |
Film | 2000 | War | On the Beach | A remake of the 1959 film. |
Game | 2000 | War | Earth 2150 | Game Also Earth 2160 The world is destroyed in 2150 and people settle on mars in 2160. |
Game | 2000 | Disease | Deus Ex | PCGame in relation to the Gray Death |
Game | 2000 | Impact Event | Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask | A Nintendo 64 game where the main character, Link, has three days to save the world of Termina from its moon that has broken from orbit. |
Film | 2000 | Aliens | Battlefield Earth | Based on the novel of the same name by L. Ron Hubbard |
Film | 2000 | Aliens | Titan A.E. | 2000 animated post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction |
Game | 2000 | Technology | Gunlok | Is a squad based action adventure computer game developed by Rebellion |
Novel | 2000 | Supernatural | Demons | John Shirley - revolves around a demonic invasion of Earth. |
Television | 2000–2002 | Social Collapse | Dark Angel | After terrorists detonate a nuclear weapon in the Earth's orbit, all computer data is destroyed, bringing about an economic collapse, but with minimal loss of life. Created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee |
Novel | 2001 | War | Mortal Engines Quartet | Series by Phillip Reeve - first book 2001, Set in the distant future after a nuclear war. Cities are turned into machines on wheels which hunt other cities and 'eat' them. The first book follows the story of two children who have fallen off a city, and are trying to find it again so they can get back on, while the dictator of their city plans on using a weapon to destroy all of the land dwellers - people who haven't upgraded their cities to be on wheels. |
Game | 2001 | War | Darwin's World | Game A role-playing game from Impressions |
Film | 2001 | Disease | Ever Since the World Ended[112][113] | |
Novel | 2001 | Disease | Idlewild | Nick Sagan |
Novel | 2001 | Disease | The Night of the Triffids | Simon Clark - Sequel to The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham |
Game | 2001 | Disease | After The Bomb | Role-play game |
Novel | 2001 | Impact Event | The Peshawar Lancers | S.M. Stirling |
Game | 2001 | Impact Event | Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies | PlayStation 2 game centered in a fictional continent years after an asteroid crashes at several locations. |
Film | 2001 | Aliens | Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within | CGI animated film about spirit-based aliens roaming Earth after an asteroid crash over 30 years before. |
Game | 2001 | Technology | Outlive | A real-time strategy. Earth created robotic lifeforms allegedly to mine Titan's resources, though in reality they were to be used as a secret army. When the plan surfaced, the World Council lost power but the robots returned and occupied the planet in the name of their creators. |
Game | 2001 | Human decline | Pikmin | And its sequel, the 2004 video game Pikmin 2, is set on an unnamed planet simply called as the planet of the Pikmin, inhabited by animals and plants. Although it is unnamed in-game, several cutscenes shows it as Earth, or at least a very Earth-like planet. Further hints is man-made objects in both games like the Abstract Masterpiece, a bottle cap, and the Remembered Old Buddy, a R.O.B., as well as the stage based on the Pikmin planet in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Distant Planet, which its data refers to as Earth. |
Film | 2001 | Monsters | Kairo | Kiyoshi Kurosawa - In which the world is overrun by Humanoid Ghosts, and everything is destroyed by them. Based on a novel of the same name. |
Game | 2001 | Sun | Tetris Worlds | Cross |
Television | 2001–2002 | Technology | Digimon Tamers | |
Film | 2002 | War | Equilibrium | After barely surviving another worldwide conflict, humanity rejects all emotion and outlaws all forms of expression which might encourage emotional response. |
Television | 2002 | War | Saikano | Anime series. |
Film | 2002 | Zombies | 28 Days Later | Ordinary citizens are forced to fight through hordes of rabid zombies after a virus ravages Britain |
Film | 2002 | Disease | Teenage Caveman | Set in the post-apocalyptic future where majority of humans die from a mysterious viral plague, the remaining humans have conformed to primitive tribalism. Directed by Larry Clark |
Television | 2002 | Disease | Smallpox | TV movie |
Novel | 2002 | Disease | The Years of Rice and Salt | Kim Stanley Robinson - Set in a world devastated by the Black Death in medieval Europe, which killed 99% of the European population before they could discover the Americas |
Game | 2002 | Disease | Soldiers of Anarchy | PCVideo game featuring a group of ex-soldiers who spent ten years underground after the Spontaneous Genome Degeneration Syndrome (SGDS), an artificially created virus raged across the globe in 2004, nearly wiping off humanity. Although the virus was released to make money with the antidote, it wasn't distributed for some reason. |
Film | 2002 | Impact Event | The Time Machine | Downfall of man caused by the Moon breaking apart and bombarding Earth with rocks after extensive lunar mining. |
Film | 2002 | Aliens | Signs | Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. |
Film | 2002 | Eco | Jason X | The tenth Friday the 13th film, Earth became a polluted wasteland by 2455 - Humanity left Earth and colonized a planet designated as Earth 2. |
Game | 2002 | Eco | The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker | Video game in which a flood has decimated the fictional world of Hyrule |
Novel | 2002 | Technology | The Butlerian Jihad | Kevin J. Anderson - Part of the Dune universe |
Film | 2002 | Monsters | Reign of Fire | Dragons wreak havoc and destroy human civilization. |
Television | 2002–2003 | War | Mobile Suit Gundam Seed | Anime Series involving a war between naturally-born humans (Naturals) and genetically enhanced humans (Coordinators). |
Television | 2002–2003 | Eco | Overman King Gainer | Anime series, which depicts humanity living in domes after an ecological disaster. |
Game | 2002–2004 | War | Neocron | Game for the Personal Computer by Reakktor Media |
Television | 2002–2004 | Disease | Jeremiah | Showtime cable television series, based on the comic of the same name. In the year 2021, 15 years after a virus kills everyone over the age of puberty, the child survivors have grown up, living on the scraps of the old world. |
Novel | 2002–2004 | Technology | Legends Of Dune trilogy | Part of the Dune universe |
Comic | 2002–2008 | Disease | Y: The Last Man | Comic series features a lone man & his monkey in a world populated only by women, series written by Brian K. Vaughan and published by Vertigo Comics |
Film | 2003 | War | Deathlands: Homeward Bound | Based on the book series Deathlands |
Film | 2003 | War | Time of the Wolf | |
Novel | 2003 | War | The City of Ember | a Jeanne DuPrau novel set in an underground city 241 years after a nuclear war. |
Novel | 2003 | War | Revelation by Lord John | Robert J. Szmidt - polish: Apokalipsa wedlug Pana Jana |
Novel | 2003 | War | The Third World War | Humphrey Hawksley |
Game | 2003 | War | Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death | Game |
Novel | 2003 | Disease | Full Circle | David Mitchell |
Story | 2003 | Impact Event | Shikari in Galveston | |
Novel | 2003 | Aliens | Vampire Earth | E. E. Knight - Series. |
Game | 2003 | Aliens | UFO: Aftermath | The computer game and its sequels UFO: Aftershock & UFO: Afterlight by Altar Games |
Film | 2003 | Eco | Dragon Head | Based on the Manga of the same name. |
Film | 2003 | Eco | It's All About Love | |
Novel | 2003 | Eco | Oryx and Crake | Margaret Atwood |
Novel | 2003 | Eco | Clade | Mark Budz |
Television | 2003 | Eco | Encrypt | Cataclysm. Set in the year 2068, the Earth's surface is in a cataclysmic upheaval, much of it transformed into wasteland by unstoppable storms (the byproduct of the destruction of the ozone layer). It was directed by Oscar Luis Costo. |
Film | 2003 | Technology | Galerians: Rion | |
Novel | 2003 | Technology | Robota | An illustrated book by Doug Chiang and Orson Scott Card |
Novel | 2003 | Technology | The Machine Crusade | Part of the Dune universe by Kevin J. Anderson |
Comic | 1999-2004 | Technology | The Matrix Comics | Originally released as webcomics. |
Game | 2003 | Technology | Neuroshima | The Polish role-playing game from Portal Publishing. |
Game | 2003 | Social Collapse | Deus Ex: Invisible War | Ion Storm Inc. (developer)Eidos Interactive(publisher). After total global economic collapse (an event known simply as "The Collapse", all religion is collected into one, which is in conflict with the new world order. Throughout the game, the player can choose to be on either side, affecting the game's outcome. |
Novel | 2003–2007 | Aliens | Legacy Trilogy | Ian Douglas |
Television | 1978–2009 | Aliens, Technology | Battlestar Galactica | A race of (alien-built (1978–80)/man-made (2003-09)) machine beings launch a devastating final assault upon the humans' original homeworlds, and chase a ragtag fleet of survivors in search of a mythical planet called Earth. |
Film | 2004 | War | Appleseed[114] | |
Film | 2004 | War, Technology | Casshern | Based on two Japanese anime series. A race of super-robots led by their leader, Black King, take over the world. |
Novel | 2004 | War | Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell - one of the six novellas is set in a post-apocalyptic future. |
Film | 2004 | Zombies | Dawn of the Dead | Individuals try and survive a zombie outbreak by securing a shopping mall. Remake of 1978 movie. |
Novel | 2004 | War | Cowl | Neal Asher |
Novel | 2004 | War | Fitzpatrick's War | Theodore Judson |
Game | 2004 | Aliens | Half-Life 2 | Game from Valve |
Novel | 2004 | Disease | A Planet for the President | Alistair Beaton |
Novel | 2004 | Disease | White Devils | Paul McAuley |
Film | 2004 | Impact Event | Post Impact | The asteroid Bay-Leder 7 was found to be powerful enough to wipe out the whole civilization. Although a top-secret experimental satellite weapon was able to cut it in two, the smaller piece impacted in West Russia, turning Europe into an ice-covered "death zone". |
Film | 2004 | Eco | The Day After Tomorrow | Based in part on the novel The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell & Whitley Strieber |
Novel | 2004 | Eco | Crache | Mark Budz |
Novel | 2004 | Eco | The Snow | Adam Roberts - The world is buried under kilometres of unnatural snow. |
Television | 2004 | Eco | Category 6: Day of Destruction | Tornado disaster. The 2004 television movie Category 6: Day of Destruction where Chicago is suffering from a series of tornadoes from numerous changes occurring in the climate. This series was followed in 2005 by Category 7: The End of the World |
Television | 2004 | Eco | 10.5 | Earthquake disaster. The 2004 mini series 10.5 and its 2006 follow-up 10.5: Apocalypse In which a series of Earthquakes tears America apart, separating the West Coast from the rest of the USA. |
Game | 2004 | Eco | The Fall: Last Days of Gaia | PC A German 3D RPG situated in a post apocalyptic future where humanity is facing its possible end. The focus of the game is the deep story and the unique characters, with living environment offering many well thought sidequests. Gameplay similar to the Fallout series, although with a more traditional RPG approach in which the player can assemble a whole party in order to improve chances in battles and include specialists with complementary skills. |
Film | 2004 | Technology | Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow | |
Novel | 2004 | Technology | The Battle of Corrin | Part of the Dune universe by Kevin J. Anderson |
Comic | 2004 | Technology | Deus Vitae | A manga series created by Takuya Fujima |
Television | 2004 | Technology | Zentrix | |
Game | 2004 | Technology | Splicers | A role-playing game set in the midst of a war between humans and a worldwide computer intelligence. |
Game | 2004 | Technology | Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet | MultiIs a Japanese post-apocalyptic visual novel. |
Film | 2004 | Human decline | Idiocracy | Takes the premise that with no natural predators to thin the population of the world, evolution simply rewards whoever can pass on their genes the fastest, who are depicted as sexually promiscuous drunken brutes. The average IQ is 80 by 2100, 60 by 2200, and 40 by 2505. |
Television | 2004–2005 | War | Desert Punk | Anime series, in future, Japan that is a wasteland. In the Great Kanto Desert, scattered humans eke out a living in the hot sand. |
Novel | 2004–2007 | Disease | The Uglies Trilogy | Scott Westerfeld - Uglies, Pretties, Specials and the companion novel, Extras, take place in a future civilization that arose after our current civilization collapsed because of an engineered bacterium that attacked not people, but oil, changing its chemical composition so that it exploded on contact with oxygen (first explained on p. 345 of Uglies). |
Television | 2005 | War | Dance Of The Dead | An episode of Masters of Horror directed by Tobe Hooper - It has a triple apocalyptic theme as it features a man made virus causing a zombie outbreak after World War 3. |
Novel | 2005 | War | The Goodness Gene | Sonia Levitin - children's book |
Novel | 2005 | War | Metro 2033 | Series by Dmitry Glukhovsky - Set in the metro tunnels of post apocalyptic Moscow. A man named Artyom journey's to the central city of the metro, Polis, to find answers about a possible threat called the Dark Ones. |
Film | 2005 | Disease | Æon Flux | Based on MTV's animated series Æon Flux |
Game | 2005 | Impact Event | Guild Wars | PCA game in which, after a tutorial area set in a "pre-Searing" time, a race of beasts called the Charr summon meteors down upon the humans, destroying nearly all of the cities and all of the life (trees, animals, etc.) |
Film | 2005 | Aliens | Alien Apocalypse | Produced by Sci Fi Channel |
Film | 2005 | Aliens | War of the Worlds | Directed by Steven Spielberg, along with the independent 2005 productions H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, all based on the H. G. Wells novel. |
Novel | 2005 | Aliens | War of the Worlds: New Millennium | Douglas Niles - Is a retelling of the original The War of the Worlds story, but displaces the events to 2005. It is not a sequel, rather it is an update. |
Novel | 2005 | Aliens | Eight Worlds | John Varley |
Game | 2005 | Aliens | Destroy All Humans! | The 2005 console game, in which the player controls a Furon alien in an attempt to overthrow humanity. |
Film | 2005 | Eco | Serenity | The Earth's resources and biosphere get used up prompting mass exodus for the stars. |
Film | 2005 | Eco | A Sound of Thunder | Peter Hyams - A group of travelers returned in the time and made changes in the past which lead to colossal alterations in the future, where they came from, and less than in a week everything in the world started changing chaotically, putting in danger the life of every living thing. |
Story | 2005 | Eco | The Garden Where My Rains Grows | Brian Keene - set in a post-apocalyptic world where it started raining one day and never stopped |
Film | 2005 | Technology | 9 | |
Novel | 2005 | Technology | How to Survive a Robot Uprising | A semi-satirical book by Daniel H. Wilson |
Novel | 2001-2005 | Monsters | Trinity Blood | Sunao Yoshida, illustrations by Thores Shibamoto - Light novel involving a war between humans and vampires. |
Television | 2005–2006 | Future collapse | Noein | This anime features several teens living in Hakodate, Hokkaido who come in contact with their future selves using time travel as a last resort to end the destruction of their world by abducting their dear friend Haruka Kaminogi from the past as a sacrifice to make the ultimate weapon against the destroyer known as Noein.[115] |
Television | 2005–2006 | Aliens | Eureka Seven | Anime series and its video games are set 10,000 years after humans had to leave the earth due to a Coralian appearing in Africa. In the current timeline, the remnants of humanity are now settled on a planet they refer to as the "Promised Land". |
Television | 2005–2006 | Eco | Zoids: Genesis | Environment disaster. Anime series where an earthquake triggers a series of worldwide natural disasters that devastate Planet Zi. |
Comic | 2005–2007 | Technology | Lego Exo-Force | Comics and books. |
Radio | 2005–present | Eco | Nebulous | Radio sitcom by Graham Duff - much of the world was destroyed by an event known as "the Withering". |
Film | 2006 | War | The Dark Hour | The eight years boy Jesús has been living in a crumbling underground facility since he was born with eight survivors of an apocalyptic war.[116] |
Television | 2006 | War | Jericho | CBS - the residents of a small Kansas town remain isolated in the aftermath of a series of nuclear attacks on America |
Novel | 2006 | War | The Book of Dave | Will Self - split between modern London and post-apocalyptic London where a new society and religion is based on the legacy of a cab driver. |
Novel | 2006 | War | Deadlands | Scott A. Johnson |
Game | 2006 | War | Auto Assault | Game While seemingly caused by aliens, it is in fact human mistakes, breakdown and war that forges Auto Assault's apocalyptic world. Similar to the Command & Conquer series where an alien event is the catalyst needed to start decline. |
Film | 2006 | Zombies | The Zombie Diaries | British made movie in which a virus creates a plague of zombies, viewed entirely from the POV of a character's video camera. This film was made and completed before George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead which was shot in a similar POV perspective. |
Novel | 2006 | Disease | Pandemia[117] | Johnathan Rand and Christopher Knight - A mutated bird flu virus wipes out everyone except the young. Set in Michigan. |
Novel | 2006 | Zombies | World War Z | Max Brooks novel about a global zombie outbreak and humanity's efforts to stop thems |
Novel | 2006 | Disease | Quarantine | Poetry by Brian Henry |
Television | 2006 | Impact Event | Three Moons Over Milford | |
Novel | 2006 | Impact Event | Life as We Knew It | Susan Beth Pfeffer - Asteroid striking the Moon and knocking it into an orbit closer to Earth, concentrating on how a family in Western Pennsylvania is affected. |
Game | 2006 | Aliens | Gears of War | The video game, which takes place on the fictional planet of Sera, humans are shown fighting a war against alien monsters that have emerged from underground. |
Film | 2006 | Eco | The World Sinks Except Japan | A parody of Japan Sinks - All the land on earth sinks into the ocean, with Japan being the last to go. |
Novel | 2006 | Eco | Small-Minded Giants | Oisín McGann |
Television | 2006 | Eco | Innocent Venus | Set after the world population and economy is devastated by simultaneous hyper-hurricanes. |
Game | 2006 | Eco | Battlefield 2142 | PC first-person shooting game about a war fought over land unaffected by a new ice age that renders most of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable. |
Television | 2006 | Eco | Ergo Proxy | Anime series by the Japanese production company Manglobe - an undefined global ecological disaster has decimated the surface of the Earth, and the small remaining human population lives in isolated, city-state dome complexes. |
Film | 2006 | Unspecified | Android Apocalypse | TV movie for Sci Fi Channel |
Television | 2006 | Technology | Lego Exo-Force | |
Film | 2006 | Human decline | Children of Men[97] | The human race has become infertile. Based on the book of the same name. |
Novel | 2006 | Zombies | Cell | Stephen King - A strange cell phone signal turns ordinary humans into killer zombies. |
Film | 2006 | Zombies | The Quick and the Undead | |
Film | 2006 | Supernatural | Pulse | And its 2009 sequel Pulse 2: Afterlife |
Film | 2006 | Social Collapse | Puzzlehead | James Bai (writer/director) - Set in what looks like Brooklyn, "after the decline", the streets are empty and there seems to be constant random killings. |
Novel | 2006 | Unspecified | Night Work | Thomas Glavinic - A novel in which a man wakes up to find that everyone else has disappeared. |
Game | 2006 | Unspecified | Mother 3 | Game BoyIn which a small group of humans escape to a post-apocalyptic utopia after the "old world" is destroyed. While the game never explains what happened to the "old world", they say that the humans were the ones that caused its destruction. |
Novel | 2006 | Unspecified | The Road | Cormac McCarthy |
Television | 2007 | War | Masters of Science Fiction | Episode, A Clean Escape |
Novel | 2007 | War | Last Light | Alex Scarrow - sudden end of oil availability leads to worldwide social collapse. |
Novel | 2007 | War | The Oblivion Society | Marcus Alexander Hart |
Novel | 2007 | War | The Pesthouse | Jim Crace |
Novel | 2007 | War | The Slynx | Tatyana Tolstaya novel |
Novel | 2007 | War | The World Ends in Hickory Hollow | Ardath Mayhar |
Film | 2007 | Zombies | 28 Weeks Later | Sequel to 28 Days Later. During the efforts to repopulate Britain, the discovery of a possible cure to the "Rage" virus may also begin the apocalypse all over again. |
Film | 2007 | Disease (zombies) | I Am Legend[97] | In an abandoned New York City set in 2012, military virologist Robert Neville tries to find a cure to a man-made virus that killed almost everyone on earth, while at the same time trying to survive against the vampiric zombies it left behind. |
Film | 2007 | Disease | I Am Omega | |
Film | 2010 | Monsters | Monsters | Written, shot and directed by Gareth Edwards. |
Film | 2009 | Disease | Autumn | Autumn on imdb |
Film | 2008 | Zombies | Zombie Wars | Directed by David A. Prior |
Film | 2007 | Unspecified | The Gene Generation | Directed by Pearry Reginald Teo |
Film | 2006 | War | 9/Tenths | About the conflict between a wealthy couple and a poor laborer after a worldwide terrorist attack isolates them in a small remote ranch. |
Film | 2006 | War | The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell | Dark comedy directed by Jonny Gillette |
Film | 2003 | Unspecified | Dream Warrior | Dream Warrior on imdb |
Film | 2007 | Zombies | Resident Evil: Extinction | |
Novel | 2007 | Disease | Plague Year | Jeff Carlson - Slated to be a trilogy |
Film | 2007 | Impact Event | Super Comet: After The Impact | A speculative documentary produced by the Discovery Channel which hypothesizes the effects on modern-day earth of a large comet impact. |
Film | 2007 | Aliens | The Invasion | Based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. A mysterious virus brought by spaceborne microbes possesses humans and renders them devoid of emotion. |
Film | 2007 | Aliens | Invasion of the Pod People | A low-budget remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers made by The Asylum to capitalise on the release of The Invasion. |
Film | 2007 | Aliens | Transformers | A race of both robotic aliens battle for humanity. |
Game | 2007 | Eco | Darkwind: War on Wheels | PC-MMOGA disastrous solar event in 2019 and 2020 leaves the world devastated, with only small pockets of human survivors scratching out a living in a bleak, irradiated world. Largely fuelled by the stockpiles of hardware left behind by a dead civilization combined with the desperation of a new world order, the gladiatorial deathsports begin, around 2035. The vast expanses of wilderness between the towns are menaced by gangs of road pirates armed with heavily armed cars and trucks, and travelled by equally well armed trade groups, making a living by carrying food, fuel, and other specialist equipment between the towns. |
Film | 2007 | Technology | Meet the Robinsons | |
Film | 2007 | Human decline | Tooth and Nail | A group of survivors, called Foragers, take cover in an old abandoned hospital where the group attempt to re build society. All we know of the apocalypse is that man "Ran out of gas", but not in the sense of oil, just that our time was up. |
Television | 2007 | Monsters | Gurren Lagann | Animated TV series in which cloned "Beastmen" fight an apocalyptic battle with humanity. |
Film | 2007 | Zombies | REC | Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza - Spanish horror film about altered humans by a Demon. |
Game | 2007 | Future collapse | Supreme Commander | PC, XboxSet at the end of a thousand-year-long war, called the infinite war, between three separate factions; the UEF (United Earth Federation), the Aeon and the Cybrans. |
Film | 2007 | Sun | Sunshine | Directed by Danny Boyle - The film follows a spaceship crew in the year 2057 who are tasked with reigniting Earth's dying sun. |
Game | 2007 | Supernatural | Hellgate: London | PCDemons and humans are in constant struggle on earth. |
Television | 2007 | Unspecified | Afterworld (TV series) | American series about a man living in a post-apocalyptic United States after an unspecified cataclysm. |
Game | 2007–2011 | Technology | Mass Effect | Adventure game. Backstory involves a race of nomadic, space traversing humanoids known as 'Quarians', who created a race (the Geth) of networked artificial intelligences. Soon, the Geth revolt against the Quarians and forced them into the vastness of space aboard a fleet of star ships without a safe refuge in the galaxy. |
Film | 2007–present | Supernatural | Rebuild of Evangelion | Remake of the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series. The first of the four films, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, debuted in 2007; the second, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, in 2009; the third, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, in 2012. The fourth is forthcoming. |
Film | 2008 | War | 20 Years After | 20 years after wars, plague, and natural disasters, a young woman follows the voice of a lone radio broadcaster and delivers the first child born in 15 years.[118] |
Film | 2008 | War | City of Ember | Based on the book by Jeanne Duprau |
Film | 2008 | War | Mutant Chronicles | Based on the Mutant Chronicles RPG |
Novel | 2008 | War | Flood | Stephen Baxter book about huge underground oceans leaking to the surface, lifting sea levels by thousands of metres over several decades. |
Novel | 2008 | War | The Hunger Games | Young adult series by Suzanne Collins about a survival tournament set in a post-apocalyptic continent. |
Novel | 2008 | War | The Valley-Westside War | Harry Turtledove |
Game | 2008 | War | Exodus (role-playing game) | Game A post-apocalyptic role-playing game from Glutton Creeper Games set after the War on Terror destroy 99% of the world's population. |
Film | 2008 | Disease | Doomsday[97] | |
Film | 2008 | Disease | Repo! The Genetic Opera | |
Film | 2008 | Disease | The Last Man | Based upon Mary Shelley's 1826 novel The Last Man |
Television | 2008 | Disease | Survivors | BBC television series a remake of the 70s series of the same name |
Novel | 2008 | Disease | The Martian General's Daughter | Collapse of global civilization caused by virus-like nanotechnology |
Game | 2008 | Zombies | Left 4 Dead | MultiFeaturing people transformed into crazed zombie-like mutants by an infection. |
Novel | 2008 | Impact Event | Dead and the Gone | Susan Beth Pfeffer - How the same event as in Life as We Knew It affects a family in New York City. |
Novel | 2008 | Aliens | The Host | Stephenie Meyer - An alien race, called Souls, take over Earth and its inhabitants. The novel follows one Soul's predicament when the mind of its human host refuses to cooperate with her takeover. |
Film | 2008 | Eco | The Happening | The movie depicts an unknown deadly neurotoxin. |
Film | 2008 | Eco | Lost City Raiders | |
Film | 2008 | Eco | WALL-E | Earth is abandoned after becoming too polluted to sustain life. A robot stays behind and cleans Earth. |
Television | 2008 | Eco | The Poison Sky | Environment disaster. The Doctor Who episode "The Poison Sky". The poisonous Sontaran gases (creating the titular "poison sky") above Sylvia and Wilfred's street ignite as the flames from the Doctor's atmospheric converter spread globally. |
Game | 2008 | Technology | Too Human | |
Film | 2008 | Zombies | Quarantine | American remake of the Spanish horror film REC |
Television | 2008 | Zombies | Dead Set | A UK television series which chronicles a zombie outbreak. |
Novel | 2008 | Supernatural | Therefore Repent! | Jim Munroe art by Salgood Sam - a post-Rapture graphic novel. |
Television | 2008 | Social Collapse | Turn Left(Doctor Who story #197) | Russell T Davies (writer). Explores an apocalyptic parallel universe in which British society has collapsed due to the death of the Doctor |
Novel | 2008 | Social Collapse | World Made By Hand | James Kunstler - Explores life in an agrarian village in upstate New York after America collapses under the combined trauma of plague, peak oil, global warming, and nuclear terrorism |
Film | 2008 | Unspecified | Life After People | A TV documentary film, and the spin-off, Life After People: The Series, document life on earth after all humans have instantly disappeared. The shows does not mention a cause of their disappearance. |
Television | 2008–2009 | Technology | Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | |
Film | 2009 | Eco | Astro Boy | Astro Boy, (a robotic reincarnation of his creator's lost son) lives in highly advanced metro city; last of its kind floating above the clouds in the skies of post-apocalyptic earth.[119] |
Film | 2009 | Disease | Carriers | A group of 4 on the road trying to find a safe haven while plague rages across the USA. |
Film | 2009 | Disease | Daybreakers | A virus changes most of the populace into vampires sometime around 2019. At the point where vampirism is considered "normal", the remaining humans attempt to escape being farmed for their blood, while also attempting to find a cure.[120] |
Film | 2009 | Zombies | La Horde | French Zombie-Apocalypse film. Directed by Benjamin Rocher. The film is set in one of French tower blocks, wherein a small group of people trying to make their way out of it thrusting through hordes of zombies. |
Novel | 2009 | Disease | The Killing Moon | Rod Glenn - Five friends struggle to survive 20 years after the collapse of civilisation. Set in northern England. |
Game | 2009 | Zombies | Left 4 Dead 2 | MultiFeaturing the same as Left 4 Dead but expanded. |
Game | 2009 | Disease | Killing Floor | PCCooperative first-person shooter video game. |
Film | 2009 | Eco | 2012 | |
Novel | 2009 | Eco | The Windup Girl (2009 novel) | Paolo Bacigalupi - In future Thailand, where calories are the most needed energy source, an unexpected girl struggles to live like as she wants. |
Television | 2009 | Eco | Earth 2100 | Time travel fiction. The 2009 ABC Special Earth 2100 explore the future if humans do not take actions to help the eco-system that can prove to be disastrous. Lucy, the speaker, explains about this world and wonders how she was one of the lucky humans to have survived. |
Film | 2009 | Technology | 9 | Adaptation of 2005 year's film 9 |
Television | 2009 | Technology | Power Rangers: RPM | The Power Rangers protect the last remnants of humanity, who are now settled in the domed city of Corinth, after the accidental release of a government created computer virus known as "Venjix". Malicious and self-aware, it leaves most of the planet in nuclear fallout, constructs an army of attack bots and begins cybernetic experiments on human prisoners. |
Novel | 2009 | Zombies | The Forest of Hands and Teeth | Carrie Ryan - Set generations after the zombie apocalypse, a girl struggles against the religious order in her village hoping for life beyond the fences protecting them from the Unconsecrated (zombies) in the surrounding forest. |
Film | 2009 | Monsters | REC 2 | Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza - The sequel to 2007's REC |
Film | 2009 | Sun | Knowing | Tells of a story where the end of the world, caused by a solar flare erupting onto the solar system, is accurately predicted. |
Novel | 2009 | Social Collapse | Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse | James Wesley Rawles - An apocalyptic survivalist novel about a total socio-economic collapse. |
Film | 2009 | Unspecified | Les derniers jours du monde | A French film. Depicts the story of a man, Robinson, who travels across France and Spain during the end of the world. |
Film | 2009 | Unspecified | The Road | A film based upon the novel "The Road", by Cormac McCarthy. |
Other | 2009 | Unspecified | Songs From The Floodplain | An album by Jon Boden |
Novel | 2009 | Technology | One Second After | |
Comic | 2009 to present | Disease | Sweet Tooth | Series written and drawn by Jeff Lemire and published by Vertigo Comics about a young hybrid human/deer, who has survived an apocalyptic plague. |
Television | 2009– | Aliens | V | Remake of the 80s Television Series. |
Television | 2009–2010 | Disease | The Colony | Reality television style drama about a group of survivors forced to live in a warehouse in the virus ravaged city of Los Angeles, California. |
Game | 2009–present | War | Fallen Earth | Game A post-apocalyptic massively multiplayer online roleplaying game from Icarus Studios and Fallen Earth LLC set in the 22nd Century after the Shiva Virus has spread all over the world. |
Television | 2009 | Eco | Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 | After a massive earthquake in Tokyo 25 km under the sea at a magnitude of 8.0, siblings Mirai and Yūki, who were visiting a robot exhibition in Odaiba at the beginning of their summer vacation, struggle to reach their parents in their house in Setagaya, assisted by a female motorcycle courier named Mari, who is striving to reach her own daughter and mother in Sangenjaya. Together, the three brave the ruined city and try their best to make it home safely. |
Television | 2010 | War | Adventure Time | The adventures of Jake the dog and Finn, the only known remaining human in the post-appocalyptic land of Ooo hundreds of years after the "Great Mushroom War". |
Film | 2010 | War | The Book of Eli | Although never directly stated, enormous craters can be seen throughout the film and characters mention an event called "the Flash". The writer, Gary Whitta, stated he wanted the audience to figure out the nuclear event slowly.[121] |
Game | 2010 | War | Metro 2033 | Game by 4A Games and THQ for the PC and Xbox 360 set in post-apocalyptic Moscow 20 years after a nuclear war |
Film | 2010 | Zombies | Resident Evil: Afterlife | |
Film | 2010 | Zombies | Survival of the Dead | Low-budget film - On an island off the coast of North America, local residents simultaneously fight a zombie epidemic while hoping for a cure to return their un-dead relatives back to their human state. Directed by George A. Romero |
Television | 2010 | Disease | After Armageddon | TV Film about a family trying to survive after a global outbreak. |
Novel | 2010 | Disease | Dog Eat Dog | David J. Rodger Ten years after a devastating global pandemic, the lives of two survivors collide in a sequence of events that threaten both their sanity and their lives. |
Novel | 2010 | Disease | The Passage[122] | Justin Cronin - A virus turns humanity into vampire-esque creatures, leading to the collapse of civilization, while survivors eke out a bleak existence. |
Film | 2010 | Impact Event | Meteor Apocalypse | A gigantic meteor enters Earth's orbit and begins to disintegrate, showering the entire planet with debris. |
Film | 2010 | Impact Event | Quantum Apocalypse | A comet makes an unexpected turn towards the earth where all life may cease to exist within days if small town heroes fail to find a solution. |
Television | 2010–2012 | Technology | Generator Rex | Rex is an evo working with the military organization Providence, to put an end to the outbreak of violent monstrous human mutations known as evos which are created when people are exposed to unsafe nanites, a nanobot technology developed to fight diseases within humans. Wars between evos and humans ensued when nanites started to get out of control.[123] |
Film | 2010 | Aliens | Skyline | Aliens invade Earth and attempt to steal the brains of its citizens. |
Film | 2010 | Aliens | Battle: Los Angeles | Depicts the attempts of US Marines to repel an alien invasion of Earth. |
Television | 2010-now | Aliens | Falling Skies | Aliens or creatures called Skitters, Mechs and Overlords attack Earth, as the series is showing the struggles six months after the initial attack on Earth. |
Novel | 2010 | Eco | Drain | Davis Schneiderman - Lake Michigan mysteriously empties of water, and an end-of-time cult occupies the lakebed, waiting for a reflooding of the zone by the power of giant Worm. |
Novel | 2010 | Supernatural | Sword of My Mouth | Jim Munroe, art by Shannon Gerard - a follow-up to Therefore Repent!. |
Novel | 2010 | Social Collapse | Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America | Decline of world civilization caused by the depletion of oil reserves. |
Novel | 2010 | Unspecified | Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down: A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse | A comedy survivalist book by Forrest Griffin |
Novel | 2010 | Unspecified | Cygnis | Vincent Gessler - A novel in which Syn the trapper and Ack, his cybernetic wolf, survive in a world covered with forests, facing robots and humans. |
Game | 2010 | Eco | A New Beginning | A video game by Daedalic Entertainment, in which climate change has made the Earth uninhabitable. |
Television | 2010- | Zombies | The Walking Dead | A US-television series featuring the world overrun by zombies. By Frank Darabont |
Game | 2010 | War | Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage | PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game by Omega Force and Tecmo Koei based on the landmark anime and manga series. |
Game | 2011 | Eco | Brink | MultiA floating self-sustaining city contains what may be the final remnants of humanity, after global warming causes sea levels to rise. |
Novel | 2011 | Technology | Robopocalypse: A Novel | A apocalyptic robot/machine uprising novel by Daniel H. Wilson |
Novel | 2011 | Social Collapse | Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse | James Wesley Rawles - An apocalyptic survivalist novel about a total socio-economic collapse. |
Film | 2011 | Disease | Perfect Sense | A worldwide pandemic of unknown origin causes every human to begin losing their five traditional senses one at a time. |
Film | 2012 | War | The Hunger Games | Set in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where the countries of North America once existed. Based on the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins. |
Film | 2012 | Impact Event | Seeking a Friend for the End of the World | An asteroid is announced to hit Earth as a man searches to find his significant other before the impact occurs. |
Novel | 2011 | Disease | Enclave | A novel by Ann Aguirre. |
Novel | 2005 | Supernatural | Restoration series | Terri Blackstock - novel series covering how people react and survive after a natural EMP blast from a distant star knocks out all electronics all over the world. |
Film | 2011 | Unknown power affecting only men | Schoolgirl Apocalypse | A Japanese schoolgirl, Sakura, finds her average life in a small town turned inside out when all the males suddenly become zombies and begin to attack and kill females.
With few skills and only her kyudo bow and an English textbook to accompany her she sets out on a journey through a dark world of murder and survival. |
Game | 2011 | Disease | Hatoful Boyfriend | A particularly virulent strain of bird flu kills a large majority of humanity, leaving birds to become the dominant class of animals. The protagonist is one of the few humans naturally resistant to the flu. |
Game | 2011 | Collapse of infrastructure, and fissures in races | MotorStorm: Apocalypse | A PlayStation 3 video game that depicts the West Coast of USA that was hit by several disasters, like tornadoes, earthquakes, rains, and thunderstorms. |
Game | 2011 | War | Wasteland Angel | A PC game that depicts the USA after World War III. |
Film | 2011 | War | The Divide | A film about the psychological unraveling of a group of survivors, who have holed up in the basement of their apartment building during a nuclear attack. |
Game | 2012 | Eco | Oil Rush | A PC strategy game, where ice caps have melted to cause global flooding. |
Game | 2012 | Unspecified | Tokyo Jungle | A PlayStation 3 video game about a futuristic Tokyo that has become deserted by humans and overrun by many types of animals. |
Web series | 2012 | War | Electric City | Animated web series created by and starring Tom Hanks. |
Comic | 2009 | Impact event | Homestuck | A webcomic where children play a game called Sburb which causes multiple meteors to hit Earth. They survive by abandoning Earth. |
Game | 1994 | Impact event | Primal Rage | A fighting-style game where a meteor hits Earth and wipes out modern technology, reducing them to several Stone Age-type tribespeople. The continents are rearranged, and seven dinosaur-like deities fight for control over the new Urth. |
Film | 2012 | Zombie Apocalypse | Christmas with the Dead | Freak lightning storm turned all who saw it into zombies. |
Film | 2013 | Aliens | Oblivion | Earth has been ravaged from war sixty years prior with the extraterrestrial "Scavengers" |
Film | 2013 | Aliens | The Host | Earth's population has been almost entirely taken over by alien parasites that created a perfect planet. |
Film | 2013 | Technology | The World's End | Human civilization is replaced by synthetic replica's that never age. When the last biological humans who are drunk from drinking too much beer confront the supreme intelligence with the possibilities that humanity might not want to be "improved", this contradiction leads to a crash in the simulant network, destroying most of the world as a result and throwing the planet into a new dark age without technology. |
Film | 2013 | Supernatural | This Is the End | The Rapture occurs during party attended by celebrities including Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson and Emma Watson. |
Film | 2010 | War | Bunraku | In the aftermath of a global war, the surviving nations introduced a ban on all firearms in an attempt to quell man's appetite for destruction. |
Television | 2012 | Impact Event | Evacuate Earth | Hypothetical docudrama concerning humanity's efforts to seek out a new home on a distant Earth-like planet, in the face of Earth's eventual destruction by an approaching neutron star. Produced by Atlas Media, for original broadcast on the National Geographic Channel. |
Television | 2014 | War | Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl | Absurdist sci-fi comedy film. The growing tension between the last two remaining superpowers - China and Google - escalates in the early 21st century, and results in the global inferno of the "Google Wars". |
Film | 2014 | War, Technology | X-Men: Days of Future Past | Machines built to identify and eliminate mutants eventually target most humans as well. With much of the world destroyed, one mutant is sent back in time to try to prevent this future from ever happening. |
Television | 2014 | Zombies | Z Nation | |
Television | 2014– | War | The 100 | |
Short Story | 2001 | Plague | After The Plague | Short story and collection by T. Coraghessan Boyle |
Television | 2015– | Disease | The Last Man on Earth | Post-apocalyptic sci-fi dark comedy TV series, created by Will Forte, who also stars in this show, now currently airing over the FOX broadcast TV network. |
Comic | 2016- | Unspecified | Liberty: Deception | Travis Vengroff. A graphic novel and podcast series set on a failed terraforming colony. The series focuses on the daily struggle to survive on a distant planet with extreme resource scarcity. |
Television | 2013 | War, Supernatural | From the New World/Shin Sekai Yori | A millennium from now, in Japan, exists a utopia. The protagonist, Saki Watanabe, lives in an idyllic village barred from the outside world. Her world is ruled by the people who possess the "gods' power" of psychokinesis. |
Novel | 2015 | Eco | The Water Knife | Novel by Paolo Bacigalupi. Southwestern United States suffer social collapse because of a water shortage. |
Song | 2003 | Unspecified | Absolution | Apocalyptic album by the band Muse. |
Song | 2015 | War, Technology | The Globalist | Song by the band Muse from the album called "Drones". |
Novel | 1990 - 1994 | Fantasy | The Death Gate Cycle | Series of books which take place after the world has been unmade and remade by magic]] |
Causes of apocalypse in apocalyptic fiction
Category | Description |
---|---|
Aliens | Alien invasion
War with alien species |
Impact event | Impact with celestial bodies (meteorites, asteroids, planets, etc.)
Near-impact knocks earth out of orbit |
Disease | Pandemic (plague) |
Zombies | Infected human beings or reanimated corpses which attack and/or consume the living. |
Eco | Ecological catastrophe
Global climate change (causing a new ice age) Global warming (melting of icecaps, global flooding) Global pollution |
Future collapse | After the fall or collapse of some future space-based civilization |
Human decline | The decline and fall of the human race |
Monsters | Monsters
Vampires Lovecraftian horror Biologically altered humans |
Sun | Expanding or dying sun |
Social collapse | Social collapse
Economic collapse Over-population |
Supernatural | Religious and supernatural apocalypse
Demons Eschatological fiction |
Technology | Apocalyptic wars between humans and technology
Cybernetic revolt—war with, or revolution, by robots, computers, etc. Cyberwarfare (computer virus or malware) attacks by humans, aliens, machines, etc. |
War | World War III
Global nuclear holocaust Other apocalyptic wars between humans |
Unspecified | After some apocalypse whose nature is not specified |
See also
Wikisource has original works on the topic: Apocalyptic fiction |
- List of apocalyptic films
- List of nuclear holocaust fiction
- List of time travel science fiction
- Nuclear holocaust
- Nuclear weapons in popular culture
- Survivalism
- Survivalism in fiction
- World War III
- World War III in popular culture
- Zombie apocalypse
References
- ↑ Brians, Paul (1987). "Nuclear Holocausts Bibliography". Nuclear holocausts : atomic war in fiction, 1895-1984. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-335-6. (Also online)
- ↑ Booker, M. Keith; Thoma, Anne-Marie (2009). The science fiction handbook. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Pub. pp. 53–64. ISBN 978-1-4051-6205-0. Includes a list of notable works.
- ↑ "Dictionary-Apocalypticism". Retrieved 2011-11-27.
- ↑ "The Last Broadcast [FULL]". YouTube.
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- ↑ "The Giant Behemoth (1959)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
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- 1 2 The Science Fiction Handbook - M. Keith Booker, Anne-Marie Thomas - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ Apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction, Film and TV at EmptyWorld. Empty-world.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- 1 2 DVD Verdict Review - Atomic War Bride / This Is Not A Test. Dvdverdict.com (2002-07-26). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
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- ↑ Dai-sanji sekai taisen: Yonju-ichi jikan no kyofu (1960). Imdb.com (1962-12-03). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
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- ↑ Apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction, Film and TV at EmptyWorld. Empty-world.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ An Introduction to Film Studies - Jill Nelmes - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. 2003-07-23. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
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- 1 2 The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 1st edition, Granada 1979, page 195
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- ↑ "Flipside: Bed Sitting Room, The: Blu ray". filmstore.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2010-08-24. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
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- ↑ The Bed Sitting Room (1969). Moria.co.nz. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ Seme dell'uomo, Il (1969). Imdb.com (2008-10-27). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 1st edition, Granada 1979, page 165
- ↑ A Companion to Michael Haneke - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
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- ↑ A Boy and His Dog at the Internet Movie Database
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- ↑ Teleport City. Teleport City. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 1st edition, Granada 1979, page 152
- ↑ Columbia Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1928-1982 - Michael R. Pitts - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. 2010-10-14. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ Ravagers (1979). Imdb.com (2003-10-29). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
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- ↑ "Cold Fusion Video Reviews: Exterminators of the Year 3000". coldfusionvideo.com. Archived from the original on 16 October 2007.
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- ↑ O'Neill, Phelim (2009-09-12). "The Luc Besson Collection". The Guardian. London.
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- ↑ Yor - The Hunter from the Future B-Movie Review. Badmovies.org. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ Johnstone, William W. (1998). Smoke from the Ashes. Pinnacle Books. ISBN 978-0-7860-0498-0. Retrieved 2009-02-15.
- ↑ Dark Enemy (1984). Imdb.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ Video Movie Guide 1996, Ballantine Books 1995, Mick Martin, Marsha Porter, page 1092
- ↑ Radioactive Dreams (1985). Imdb.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
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- ↑ Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. 2010-09-30. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088925/ and http://movies.go.com/city-limits/d823862/horror
- ↑ America 3000 at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Metal-9 (1 April 1986). "America 3000 (1986)". IMDb.
- 1 2 3 4 A Companion to Michael Haneke - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
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- ↑ Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, And The American Action Movie - Eric Lichtenfeld - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ Steel Dawn. www.post-apocalypse.co.uk. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ The Survivalist (1987). Imdb.com (2001-08-08). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ Survivor (1987). Imdb.com (2002-05-25). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ World Gone Wild (1988). Imdb.com (2003-05-01). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ • View topic - World Gone Wild (1988). Scifi.dead-donkey.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ Time Capsule by Mitch Berman. Fantasticfiction.co.uk. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, And The American Action Movie - Eric Lichtenfeld - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ "Film Notes -The Hand Maid's Tale". Albany.edu. 2011-12-29. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ New York Magazine - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. 1992-04-13. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- 1 2 Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Visions of Chaos and Revelation in Recent ... - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ Billboard - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. 1998-08-29. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ British Science Fiction Television: A Hitchhiker's Guide - John R. Cook, Peter Wright - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ Ever Since the World Ended, Review; Variety; Apr 30, 2001.
- ↑ euGenie (2 July 2015). "Ever Since the World Ended (2001)". IMDb.
- ↑ The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction - Mark BOULD: And - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ↑ Lesley Aeschliman. "Noein The Complete Series". BellaOnline. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
- ↑ The Dark Hour at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Pandemia by Johnathan Rand and Christopher Knight. Amazon.com. Retrieved on 2009-06-14.
- ↑ 20 Years After (2008). Imdb.com (2008-09-25). Retrieved on 2009-02-13.
- ↑ Andrew Pragasam. "Astro Boy". Retrieved 26 April 2012.
- ↑ Dead Man Walking at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Giroux, Jack (18 January 2010). "Interview: Part 1 Gary Whitta on 'The Book of Eli'". The Film Stage. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
- ↑ The Passage by Justin Cronin. Amazon.com. Retrieved on 2010-06-28.
- ↑ "Generator Rex | Free Videos and Online Games From the TV Show". Cartoon Network. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
External links
- Dodson, Eric (2003). Post-apocalyptic film and the post-modern apocalypse. State University of West Georgia.
- Quiet Earth - A website dedicated to post apocalyptic media
- Empty World: Apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction, Film and TV
- Surviving Armageddon: Beyond the Imagination of Disaster - article by Mick Broderick in Science Fiction Studies.
- List of songs related to World War III and nuclear war
- Post-Apocalyptic Audio Dramas - Archive.org compilation of post-apocalyptic radio shows and audio dramas in the public domain or released under a Creative Commons license