10 Post-Apocalyptic Films That Prove Mankind Is Doomed

8. Threads (1984)

Out of all the choices here, this might be the most horrific for its normalcy. It€™s a film that should be made compulsive viewing for the gung-ho and trigger itchy. It€™s a typical week in Sheffield City Centre with local radios monotonously reading out the football scores, an elderly couple are shopping and others are working on their allotments. This is interspersed with shots of military jets taking off overhead. When the initial megaton bomb hits, the inhabitants of the city just appear knocked off their feet. It€™s only when the other warheads begin to fall we see the true effects of this devastation. The film is then one long lurch to the finish line; the dwellers of the nuclear winter slowly becoming more weak and frail as civilisation frays and falls apart. While Threads can be said to have dated and purporting a few hammy actors and Coronation Street qualities, it is the film€™s documentary style reportage that shocks you the most; its appearance of the real makes it seem so much more than simply another post-apocalyptic film. In charting the effects of the nuclear winter for ten years, there is not one moment of positivity or hope and by the bitter end you€™re glad it€™s over.