My Favorite Post-Apocalyptic Books and Movies

The Post-apocalyptic or end of time / Endzeit genre deals with the destruction of mankind. A dystopia (as a negative version of utopia) or cacotopia goes a step further; it is often characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian "government", with different kinds of repressive social control systems, absence of individual freedom or a state of constant warfare and violence. What-if books and movies focus on the question "what would happen if..." You will recognize all of these aspects in TWO JOURNEYS - below my personal list of favorites.

• Mad Max - movies featuring Mel Gibson, who later directed a rather humorless remake of Life of Brain (Passion of the Christ wasn't half as funny as LoB !)
• The Omega Man - movie featuring Charles Heston. This man is a REAL Hombre
• I am Legend - movie featuring Will Smith
• The Machine Stops - novel by E. M. Forster
• The Sun Grows Cold - novel by Howard Berk (not sure whether it is still in print)
• Escape from New York - Movie featuring Kurt Russell as "Snake" Plissken - Ulawee! Dark and mean!
• The Day After - Film portraying a fictional nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Gloomy
• The Book of Eli - Starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman. Particularly interesting, like TWO JOURNEYS a "road movie", but a true dystopian story.
• Make Room! Make Room! - novel by Harry Harrison
• Delicatessen 1991 - Movie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro
• The much debated Waterworld and The Postman with Kevin Costner
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy - dark and menacing. Personally, I am not sure everything will be as hopeless as that, but you be the judge of that.