Top 50 Zombie Movies

Zombie movies are all the rage these days, and films such as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake can be credited with helping to vastly increase the genre’s fanbase. If you’re nuts about those shambling, undead brain-eaters, you should enjoy the following list of the Top 50 zombie movies. Even if it’s normally not your cup of tea, you may find something here to interest you.

Top American Zombie Movies

1. Night of the Living Dead (1968) – The black-and-white classic which started it all. Directed by George Romero and filled with plenty of his usual social commentary (especially the shocking ending).

2. Night of the Living Dead (1990) – Tom Savini remakes a classic, and does a damn fine job. Tony Todd is excellent as the male lead, and the lovely
Patricia Tallman kicks ass as a female survivor who doesn’t need to rely on men for protection.
3. Zombie Strippers – A zombie infection spreads to a strip club, and the crowd goes wild for these new undead tramps. Stars Robert Englund and Jenna Jameson.
4. Pet Sematary – Based on a Stephen King novel, a doctor discovers a hidden Indian burial ground where anything buried will return to life…sort of.
5. Resident Evil – Based on the hit video game, this film deals with a zombie outbreak in a corporate facility deep beneath the surface of Raccoon City.
6. Automaton Transfusion – An army experiment goes wrong, and a group of high school students are forced to fight against a hoard of zombies.
7. Slither – An alien entity infects the local population and turns them into zombie-like creatures. It’s up to the local sheriff (played by Nathan Fillion) to save the day. Also stars Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker and Jenna Fischer.
8. The Serpent and the Rainbow – Bill Pullman plays a Harvard graduate who journeys to Haiti to do some research for a pharmaceutical company. Going to Haiti was his first mistake.
9. The Return of the Living Dead – Unstoppable zombies come to unlife following the accidental opening of a government cannister. As the undead grow in numbers, it’s up to a group of 80’s punks to save the city.
10. Re-Animator – Combining horror and comedy, Re-Animator tells the story of Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) and brilliant-yet-dangerous scientist who seeks to conquer death. Features the most notorious zombie oral sex scene ever filmed.
11. Quarantine – An apartment complex is sealed off by the authorities, and those trapped inside must try to avoid a zombie outbreak.
12. Planet Terror – Robert Rodriguez directs this film as a tribute to the drive-in fare of the 1970s. Features plenty of zombies, a one-legged stripper with a machine-gun in place of a leg, and lots of memorable performances from actors like Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, and Rose McGowan.
13. Night of the Comet – When much of the world is suddenly killed, two valley girls get to have plenty of uninterrupted fun in this 80’s cult classic. Of course, there are also plenty of killer zombies to contend with.
14. Day of the Dead (1985) – The third film in Romero’s zombie trilogy, this one takes place in an underground military complex. Keep an eye out for Bub, Romero’s first intelligent zombie.
15. Dawn of the Dead (2004) – Zack Snyder remakes the Romero classic and gives it a shot in the arm when it comes to action and gore. Ving Rhames plays a badass, but what else is new? Great music, as well.
16. Dawn of the Dead (1978) – Romero’s most famous film, much of it’s set inside a mall. If you’ve never seen it, you can’t truly call yourself a zombie fan.
17. Waxwork - A comedy/horror film about a madman trying to bring about the “voodoo end of the world.” Plenty of monsters in this one, including vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, and many others.
18. Resident Evil: Apocalypse – The second of the Resident Evil films, it picks up where the first film left off. Raccoon City is now under siege from a massive swarm of zombies, and Alice (Milla Jovovich) must band together with Jill Valentine and others in order to escape the city.
19. Days of Darkness – A comet passes by the Earth and turns a large segment of the population into zombies. Just wait until you see what their weakness is!
20. Bride of Re-Animator – Herbert West returns in this sequel to Re-Animator, and the dead will once again walk the Earth…often with tragically comic results.
21. Beyond Re-Animator - The third film in the series, this time Herbert West is performing his re-animation experiments in prison, as that’s where he’s been for the last 13 years.
22. Dead Heat – Joe Piscopo and Treat Williams are cops who try to stop a bizarre group dedicated to bringing the dead back to life. When Roger Mortis (Williams) dies in the line of duty and returns to life, things start to get really crazy.
23. Creepshow – A series of horror stories packed together in one movies. Each one is excellent, especially “Happy Birthday to Me,” about an old man who returns from the dead to get revenge on his lousy family.
24. Dead and Breakfast – Teens wander into a small town just in time for a zombie uprising. David Carradine has a small part.
25. Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things – A troupe of actors are pursued by a group of hungry zombies. Guess who wins?
26. Lifeforce – Alien vampires engage in a plot to conquer the Earth.
27. Dance of the Dead (2008) – A group of high school nerds must band together to defeat zombies on their prom night.
28. Dead Space: Downfall – Evil aliens and mutated corpses abound in this animated prequel to the hit video game Dead Space.
29. Dead and Buried – From Dan O’Bannon, the creator of Alien, comes this tale of a town where the local populace is dropping like flies. Crazy twist ending, and this was considered one of 1984’s dreaded “Video Nasties” (along with such films as Cannibal Holocaust and The Evil Dead).

Top Italian Zombie Movies

30. Zombi 2 – On a small island, the dead are coming to life. Can they be stopped before the infection spreads to the rest of the world? Some really brutal deaths, and the highlight has to be a fight scene between a zombie and a shark.
31. Cemetery Man – Rupert Everett plays a cemetery caretaker who clients won’t stay in the ground. With his simple-minded assistant, he’s forced to become a one-man zombie wrecking crew.
32. The House by the Cemetery – A terrible secret lurks within the basement of a New England home. Maybe that explains all the recent murders in the area.
33. City of the Living Dead – The gates of hell open and zombies start spilling into our world. Can a reporter and a psychic save the world in this gory Italian film?
34. The Last Man on Earth – Vincent Price plays the only man on the planet not turned into a bizarre zombie-like creature. As he searches for a cure, he
must try to avoid a world intent on killing him. Based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend.

Top Asian Zombie Movies

35. Wild Zero – An over-the-top Japanese cult film starring the real-life members of the rock band Guitar Wolf. Aliens plan an invasion of the Earth, and they cause the dead to return to life. It’s up to the plucky Ace and the members of Guitar Wolf to save the day. Incredibly bizarre, but also tons of fun.
36. Battlefield Baseball – A high school baseball game with very little emphasis on actual baseball. Instead, the film focuses on slaughter, mayhem, super baseball pitches, zombies, ghosts, and all other manner of Japanese strangeness.
37. Versus – Immortal warriors, shootouts, swordfights, and zombies. This Japanese action film has a little something for everyone.
38. Bio Zombie – An Iraqi biological weapon in cans of soda cause people to turn into zombies in this horror-comedy from Hong Kong. A large part of the action takes place at the local mall.

Top UK Zombie Movies

39. 28 Days Later – Danny Boyle directs this instant classic about a young man who awakes from a coma and finds London overrun by zombies.
40. 28 Weeks Later – They thought the zombie threat was over in London, and so they started returning to the cities. Big mistake. Robert Carlysle stars.
41. Shaun of the Dead – Simon Pegg stars a Shaun, a likeable slacker who must get his act together in order to survive a zombie outbreak and save his girlfriend. Nick Frost and Bill Nighy also star.
42. Boy Eats Girl – An Irish film about a teenager who returns from the dead. Originally banned by the Irish Film Classification Office.
43. Outpost – Ray Stevenson plays a mercenary leading a company of men into an old bunker complex in Eastern Europe. The mission is supposed to be simple, but a group of unstoppable Nazi zombies have other plans.
44. Black Sheep – The only thing more frightening than human zombies are zombie sheep. I highly recommend this New Zealand film for its sheer originality.

Top Foreign Zombie Movies

45. Pontypool – A Canadian horror film about a virus which is transmitted by the English language. Those infected behave like zombies and seem preoccupied with killing the living. The hero of the film is a disc jockey (played by Steven McHattie).
46. Evil – The first zombie movie produced in Greece, Evil centers around a diverse group of people trying to survive a zombie outbreak in the city of Athens. Big surprise: They don’t all make it.
47. Dead Snow – A group of Norwegian medical students find a box of gold belonging to Nazis. As you might’ve guessed, the Nazis return as zombies to reclaim their treasure.
48. Dead Alive – Also known as Braindead, this over-the-top New Zealand film was directed by Peter Jackson prior to his Lord of the Rings success. It has the distinction of featuring a priest who utilizes kung-fu to dispatch large numbers of zombies. According to the priest, “I kick ass for the Lord.”
49. Fido – In this Canadian comedy/horror film, zombies are domesticated and used as help around the house. But how long until they throw off their shackles and go on a rampage? Takes place in a 50’s-era alternate universe and stars Billy Connolly and Carrie-Anne Moss.
50. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie – In this Spanish/Italian production, an agriculural machine designed for killing insects causes the dead to come back to life.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Movie Megalists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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One Response to “Top 50 Zombie Movies”

  1. Zombie Movies List says:
    December 4, 2009 at 5:07 pm

    [...] Top 50 Zombie Movies [...]

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