10 Utterly Bleak Post Apocalyptic Movie Worlds

The closest the real world has come to a destroyed and dangerous apocalyptic landscape like those seen in the movies came with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a meltdown which turned the surrounding area into an abandoned nuclear wasteland. When local people looked for a cultural reference to connect with their new normal it was to this 70s classic of Soviet cinema that they reached.

Like the real life Exclusion Zone around the Chernobyl site, Stalker revolves around "The Zone", an eerie space where normal rules of nature don't apply, surrounded by ominous hazards and military blockades.

Stalker is a journey across stark, desolate landscapes and brutalist, industrial architecture, populated by people who have lost their hope and faith. Ultimately, that The Zone contains within it the power to grant your dreams is only a good thing in a society less cynical and pessimistic than this one.

Shot in and around deserted power plants and toxic chemical facilities, Stalker was appropriately grimly hazardous to make. The final film for director Andrei Tarkovsy, the poisons from those locations are thought to have contributed to the cancer that eventually killed him.