Global pandemics seem to have a habit of making people think the worst about our future, and while things look to be getting better across the globe, most of our favorite stories don’t have quite as happy an ending…

Post-Apocalyptic movies have become a staple of our modern age. We love them and can’t get enough of that apocalyptic goodness. So, given the state of our world, we put together a list of the 15 best post-apocalyptic movies of all time.

1. Escape From New York (1981)

John Carpenter does it again! Escape From New York features a post-apocalyptic world in which the island of Manhattan has been converted into a maximum-security prison for all of the country’s criminals. Kurt Russell (the world’s greatest actor) stars as ex-soldier Snake Plissken, who, after Air Force One crashes onto the island, is given 24 hours to rescue the president from certain death or risk no pardon for his crimes.

This is one of those high-octane action movies that any self-respecting 80s action fan has no right not to have seen. Russell’s Snake is the obvious highlight of the film as he does what every great action hero does best, he kicks ass with little trouble. They even made a sequel set in Los Angeles called (you guessed it) Escape From L.A. in case you need a little more Plissken action.

2. The Road (2009)

We briefly mentioned this one on our 10 best movies based on books list, but The Road is one of the best post-apocalyptic movies out there. An intense father-son drama based on the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy (which is excellent by the way), the flick stars Viggo Mortensen (Green Book) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (Alpha) as characters known only as man and boy. We follow them as they travel to the coast hoping to find warmth there, all while avoiding gangs and cannibals.

The post-apocalyptic landscape of an extinct America is chilling, combined with the already intense survival story mixed with a heavy flashback (featuring Charlize Theron as the woman) to the beginnings of the apocalypse, The Road is an honest look at how the fight to survive might look in our modern world. If you’re looking for a romanticized view of the apocalypse, this isn’t it.