My Top 3 "PA" Movies

If you want to see some of the cinema that truly depicts the post-apocalyptic setting, here are 3 movies that are on the must watch list.

3.  Planet of the Apes:  Okay, so this is an odd choice, but I really feel like this deserves to be included.  Yeah, apes evolved into almost-people may be ridiculous, and there isn't the same type of struggle for survival present in other PA films.  But Planet of the Apes accomplishes ones of the greatest feats I've seen. 

*SPOILER ALERT IN CASE YOU'VE NEVER ACTUALLY SEEN THIS 40 YEAR OLD MOVIE*

The movie tricks you by not actually revealing it's post-apocalyptic!  For most of the film you're just made to believe that an astronaut crash landed on an alien planet ruled by apes, and humanity is nothing more than ignorant slaves.  Or there's the notion that it was some kind of parallel universe where one species evolved and the other didn't.  This is more classic sci-fi.  But then, the ending hits you, and Heston is sitting there staring at the remains of the Statue of Liberty, and it hits the audience that it's the FUTURE, and that we "blew it all up!"  Fucking awesome.

2.  A Boy and His Dog:  A very weird movie, with the main characters being a young man and a dog that talks to him.  He wanders around the remains of America, looting supplies from wrecked buildings and hunting to live.  All this changes when he stumbles across a cult that seems great at first, but reveals itself to be something malevolent.  I won't spoil it, but seriously, its a good quirky movie.

1.  The Road Warrior:  And here it is.  The Mel Gibson movie that made everyone actually give a shit who Mel Gibson is.  His character, Max, drives around the wastelands of Australia in a bad-ass 1973 Ford XB Falcon.  He helps a small clan of people defend themselves from a marauding band of bikers led by The Great Humongous.  What makes this film so great?  The scenery, the costume design, and the main characters all basically set standards for the genre, and this film alone is largely responsible for the genre's popularity.  Seriously, the scenery is so barren, so stark, but its beautiful.  The resource everyone is fighting for, gasoline, is something that you could really see people killing for in the doomsday scenario.  And it is a prime example of what humanity can degrade to when civilization crumbles, as Humongous' horde regularly rapes and slaughters with reckless abandon simply because nobody can stop them.  If John Hobbes were alive to see this film, he'd shit himself inside out with glee describing how everything present is what he discussed in his book, Leviathan.