2. The Road (2009)

Bring on the bleakness!  If you are looking for truly the most devastating, least hopeful post-apocalyptic film available, look no further.  Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, The Road only knows one word: survive.  A father and his young son make the harrowing journey towards the coast, the best option they’ve come up with since the total collapse of society.  Along the way they meet bands of marauders, cannibals, and thieves, any shred of goodness or humanity a long blown out candle.  It’s a story that asks uncomfortable questions that many end-of-the-world scenarios often don’t:  It’s not can we survive, but why should we survive?

Man and Boy walk down a desolate road in a destroyed world.  (The Road, 2009)