Our collective zombie obsession began long before walkers or T-virus victims shuffled onto our screens — although every new iteration certainly helps reanimate the fanbase. Whether the living dead are shambling through a field or doggedly hunting down a pack of capable survivors, the zombie genre is still going strong, with creators bringing new (undead) life to stories on screens big and small. Zombies can serve as metaphors for our broken society or as catalysts for bringing humanity together. Sometimes they’re even kind of funny, in all their bloody, snarling glory. No matter what, zombie stories are always entertaining.
Here, we highlight some zombie TV shows and movies that are worth checking out. These are alternately bleak, hilarious, and thrilling watches, meaning there’s a little something for every kind of zombie fan.
#Alive
This South Korean horror film focuses on Joon-woo (Yoo Ah-in), a video game streamer who holes up in his family’s apartment and tries to live out the apocalypse by himself as a gruesome virus consumes his city. Just as he begins to lose hope, he makes contact with a neighbor, Yoo-bin (Park Shin-hye), and the two strike up a tentative bond while helping each other fight off invading zombies. #Alive has fun with the creative methods Joon-woo and Yoo-bin use to distract and kill the undead and, as the hashtag in its title suggests, explores the power of social media in times of crisis.
All of Us Are Dead
In this South Korean series, classrooms become battlegrounds as high school students are forced to fight for their lives after a sudden zombie virus begins to spread rapidly among their classmates. Over its 12-episode first season, the students form a disparate group, working together and fending for themselves as most of the adults in charge of controlling the situation all but abandon them. All of Us Are Dead is a bloody thriller that effectively turns its central location into a terrifying prison for its group of survivors, all while using the zombie genre to examine topics of corruption, wealth inequality, and the myriad ways in which the older generation has failed young people.
Army of the Dead
Zack Snyder’s high-stakes heist is set in a version of Las Vegas that has been rendered unrecognizable by a zombie outbreak, a problem that the US military is one day away from eradicating with a nuclear strike. With only hours to spare, a billionaire tasks mercenary-turned-fry-cook Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) with recovering $200 million from an abandoned casino vault. To pull it off, he rounds up a band of thieves, including his friends Cruz (Ana de la Reguera) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), helicopter pilot Marianne (Tig Notaro), safecracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), and Ward’s own estranged daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell). As they fight their way through hordes of zombies, the group learns that even the end of the world isn’t free of social and political hierarchies.
Black Summer
Set in the aftermath of a zombie plague, this series tells its story in vignettes, focusing on a revolving door of survivors that it repeatedly warns could turn into bloodthirsty zombies at the drop of a hat. Transformations are instant and brutal; here, the walking corpses are lightning fast and doggedly focused on killing their targets, making the many scenes in which the undead pursue humans feel like tense, adrenaline-packed nightmares. (One memorable episode from Season 1 consists almost entirely of a character running from place to place, trying to avoid a relentless zombie.) While some zombie stories are about finding hope and humanity in a broken society, Black Summer is more interested in providing a grisly, gory experience.
Cargo
It’s a zombie movie with heart. In the wild expanse of Australia, a couple with a young baby navigates a world ravaged by a disease that turns people into mindless, flesh-eating, goo-covered versions of themselves. As things get more and more dire, the father, Andy (Martin Freeman), searches desperately for someone he can depend on to take care of his infant daughter when he is no longer able to. Like the best postapocalyptic or zombie films, the most terrifying parts aren’t necessarily the zombies, but the feral humans willing to do anything to survive. This one will have you jumping and weeping.
Kingdom
At first glance, this epic two-season Korean series is a historical political drama depicting the monarchical intrigue of the 17th-century Joseon dynasty. But in fact, it’s a version of this era where Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon), the Crown Prince of Joseon, investigates a mysterious illness that seems to have afflicted his father, the King, that quickly spreads throughout the land. People fall ill, die, and, well — you know the drill. What is already a war of succession also becomes a war against the growing zombie population.
Santa Clarita Diet
Of all the horror monsters in existence, few lend themselves as well to comedy as zombies. There’s something about their dim-witted behavior and eating preferences that can be darkly funny when spun the right way. In this three-season series, Joel and Sheila Hammond (Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore) are a suburban couple and real estate duo, selling houses and raising their daughter. One day at an open house, Sheila gets violently ill. Later, she seems to be lacking a heartbeat, is generally less inhibited, and starts craving human flesh. Thus begins the hilarious new life of Joel and Sheila, who try to maintain some sense of normalcy while navigating Sheila’s new situation, while also solving the riddle of how to provide Sheila with the “food” she needs.
The Walking Dead
Based on Robert Kirkman’s comic book series, The Walking Dead is a pioneering entry in the zombie TV canon. The drama centers around Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a small-town sheriff who awakens from a coma to find that society has been overtaken by a virus that turns living beings into undead “walkers” who feed on the flesh of humans. Rick becomes the leader of a group of survivors that includes Norman Reedus’ Daryl, Steven Yeun’s Glenn, and Danai Gurira’s Michonne, and together they work to rebuild. Across 11 seasons, they come to discover that walkers aren’t the only dangers out in this decimated version of the world.
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
Everyone has hopes and dreams — experiences they’d like to have in their lifetime, things they’d like to accomplish. Hopefully, these things happen before the zombie apocalypse. For Akira Tendo (Eiji Akaso), the apocalypse is exactly what inspires a bucket list of 100 things he wants to do before he becomes a zombie himself. In the live-action film based on the manga of the same name (which was also adapted into an anime series), Akira has just started a new job when, one day on his way to work, he sees that zombies have taken over. He quickly realizes that the clock is now ticking on life as he knows it and he doesn’t have much time to complete everything on his bucket list.
Zombieverse
How would you fare in a zombie apocalypse? This show puts its participants to the test. In Zombieverse, a group of online celebrities attempt to film a reality dating show called Love Hunter, and they soon realize they’re actually in a survival competition game being hunted by zombies. The unscripted comedy-horror reality series, shot in South Korea, simulates different scenarios that could arise in a zombie apocalypse. As the cast members learn more about the zombies, how long it takes for people to turn, and whether they can trust each other, they’ll have to take greater risks to survive. How many people will make it out alive?
Additional reporting by Ananda Dillon and Caitlin Busch.
Number of recommendations may vary by region.