Top 5 End of the World Movies

     Since the Rapture is coming on Saturday, this seemed appropriate. And to be clear, we're not just talking general disaster movies. The criteria is "End of the World." Humanity, the entire earth, the entire universe has or is about to come to an end. Feel free to add your comments and movies you think should have made the list. 

5. Armageddon (1998): It pains me to put this movie on the list, but the title itself pretty much necessitates it be included. And despite casting Ben Affleck and having the worst power ballad of all time stuck in our heads well into this millennium, it boasts a very strong (and funny) supporting cast with Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Billy Bob Thornton and great visual effects. It pretty much completely embodies the quintessential--and best--example of the big-budget, blockbuster "End of the World" movie (*read: it was either this or '2012'). We might be hearing the phrase "test drill" tossed around a lot over the next day or two. 

4. Ghostbusters (1984): I might have cheated a bit and included this movie solely for this scene. Though the living world is at risk from spirits from beyond, we don't really think of Ghostbusters as an 'End of the World' movie. However, their pleas to the mayor in this scene appropriately describe the disaster of "biblical proportions" we might be facing tomorrow using arguably the funniest line in film history. Also, why isn't "dickless" a more often-used insult?

3. Planet of the Apes (1968): *Spoiler Alert!* There has to be a statute of limitations on spoiling the endings for classic films. If you don't know that the planet of the apes is actually earth in the future, then damn you all to hell! Not the typical disaster/action movie in line with the others on this list, but that's why it stands the test of time.

 

2. The Road (2009): I wanted so badly to put this at number 1. Not many people saw this, but be prepared for one of the most intense movies you've ever seen. Based on Cormac McCarthy's pulitzer prize winning novel (author of No Country for Old Men), it's the brutally (read: BRUTALLY) haunting journey of a father and son across a post-apocalyptic landscape. Oh yeah, and it's SCARY AS F**K! 

1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): No doubt about it. Best 'Doomsday' movie ever! Most of the success for Kubrick's masterpiece is attributed to the fact that we are laughing our asses off all the way up to, and (*Spoiler Alert!*)  after, the world is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, and Slim Pickens turn the most tense moments of the Cold War into an episode of the Three Stooges. "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the war room!"