10 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films That Were Much Too Depressing For The Masses

7. Miracle Mile (1988)

Remember that time you met the girl of your dreams totally out of the blue one day, then arranged to go on a date with her only to miss that date AND discover the world is about to end at the exact same time? Of course you don't, because life could never be that cruel. Miracle Mile, however, is: as museum tour guide Harry (Anthony Edwards) arrives late at the coffee shop at which soul mate Julie (Mare Winningham) just left, he also gets a panicky anonymous phone call telling him that nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union is imminent. The 'in 70 minutes' kind of imminent. As Harry searches an anarchic LA for his new beau with the knowledge that the Earth is about to be plunged into a nuclear winter, Miracle Mile features one of the less conventional romances in cinema. But at least the set-up's romantic, right, albeit in a basically horrifying way? Well, maybe it would be, if Harry and Julie weren't reunited for just a few precious minutes before America turned a new shade of explosion. What's worse is that their eventual fate becomes somehow more gruesome than that of the people melting all around them; while escaping the city via helicopter, Harry and Julie's rescue chopper is downed by an atomic blast, leaving them both to slowly drown in the La Brea Tar Pits. There, they will be preserved together forever - as a reminder that life can be absolutely brutal.