The Best Movies About the End of the World, From ‘Melancholia’ to ‘Dr. Strangelove’
We asked a panel of film critics to name the best films about the apocalypse, and the results were as varied as their fears for the future.
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Willem Dafoe Is Fighting For The Future Of Cinema
“The other day Paul Schrader said to me ‘You know what your problem is? You actually like doing this.'”
Melancholia
Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). Despite Claire’s best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco, with family tensions mounting and relationships fraying. Meanwhile, a planet called Melancholia is heading directly towards Earth…
The Five Obstructions
About a filmmaker not only revisiting, but also recreating (not in a conventional sense) one of his first films, The Perfect Human / Det perfekte menneske (1967)
Antichrist
A grieving couple retreats to their cabin ‘Eden’ in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.
Nymphomaniac: Volume II
The continuation of Joe’s sexually dictated life delves into the darker aspects of her adult life and what led to her being in Seligman’s care.
The Idiots
With his first Dogma-95 film director Lars von Trier opens up a completely new film platform. With a mix of home-video and documentary styles the film tells the story of a group of young people who have decided to get to know their “inner-idiots” and thus not only facing and breaking their outer appearance but also their inner.
Dancer in the Dark
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life’s troubles – even if just for a moment – by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
Dogville
Director Lars von Trier depicts the vivid moral informative film about the ruthlessness of civil society. Filmed in a minimalist style, that until recently was unrecognized, the Danish filmmaker depicts the quite familiar themes of guilt and forgiveness, good and evil, and the moral chasm of humanity.
Nymphomaniac: Volume I
A self-diagnosed nymphomaniac recounts her erotic experiences to the man who saved her after a beating.
