Best Movies About Viruses and Pandemics

“Maze Runner: The Death Cure” is a futuristic action sci-fi film based on a novel by James Dashner. It’s about a group of young people on a mission to save their friends from a man-made virus called The Flare by breaking into the infamous Last City, a deadly labyrinthine metropolis. Critic Brian Eggert said “Both formally and narratively, ‘The Death Cure’ feels like a patchwork, Frankensteined together from better material.”

Starring Chris Pine and Piper Perabo, “Carriers” is about four young people driving through the Southwestern desert trying to avoid a plague that is ravaging the planet. In the process, they start turning on each other. Nigel Floyd of Time Out said it was a “thoughtful, low-key exploration of our darker survival instincts” but was “too conventional and unfocused to fully engage our emotions.”

Zombie master George A. Romero (“Night of the Living Dead”) directed this doomsday thriller about a nurse and her husband prevented by the Army from escaping their town after it’s been infected with a plague. While Vincent Canby of the New York Times called “The Crazies” an “inept science-fiction film,” Matt Brunson of Film Frenzy felt the movie was “in one way his most frightening film.”

Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (“Rain Man”) used the found-footage technique to great effect in “The Bay,” a horror flick in which residents of a seaside community are overtaken by mutant parasites that control their minds and bodies. David Gritten of the Daily Telegraph found the movie “gruesome but oddly riveting.”

There is no shortage of starpower in this film, with Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Gooding Jr. playing key roles. Hoffman and Rene Russo appear as doctors who go to a California town where an outbreak, brought to the U.S. by an African monkey, is raging. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said “Outbreak” was a “frustratingly uneven all-star disaster drama, Outbreak ultimately proves only mildly contagious and leaves few lasting side effects.”

The dystopian movie stars Charlton Heston as an Army biologist living in Los Angeles who has survived a biological war that has all but wiped out the planet, leaving light-sensitive mutants as almost the only inhabitants. The staff at Variety magazine said the movie was “an extremely literate science-fiction drama.” The film would be rebooted as “I Am Legend,” starring Will Smith.

Sandra Bullock plays a woman who takes her children on a journey to a sanctuary to avoid a deadly and mysterious force that kills people by taking the form of their worst fears. To avoid seeing this force, they have to make their trip blindfolded. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said the movie “never quite reaches its intriguing potential, but strong acting and an effectively chilly mood offer intermittently creepy compensation.”

We know John Ford for his Westerns and his frequent collaborations with John Wayne, but he also gained acclaim for “Arrowsmith.” Based on a Sinclair Lewis novel, the movie stars Ronald Colman as a physician who’s tasked with combating the bubonic plague in the West Indies. Critic Raquel Stecher said “even with its flaws ‘Arrowsmith’ is a glorious Pre-Code film. It tackles a difficult subject, and isn’t afraid to experiment.”

The remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 film of the same name stars Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell as a husband and wife trapped in a town whose residents have fallen victim to deadly toxins that have turned them into bloodthirsty maniacs. Critic Annalee Newitz said the movie “is a scary, smart thriller that tweaks its tropes and offers a non-preachy fable about the military’s dark side.”

Trey Edward Shults wrote and directed this taut thriller about two families forced to live together in the same house after an apocalypse has depopulated the planet. Theirs is an uneasy relationship that becomes volatile. Critic Michael J. Casey said “writer/director Trey Edward Shults makes the most of the least, relying on shadow and sound to terrify.”

Matt and Ross Duffer – who later created the smash Netflix series “Stranger Things” – wrote and directed “Hidden,” about a couple and their daughter living inside a fallout shelter to avoid a dangerous outbreak. The Duffers were lauded for their depiction of the claustrophobic confines of the family’s living space. Critic David Nusair said the movie “benefits substantially from the Duffer brothers’ patient, methodical approach to their spare screenplay…“

“World War Z” stars Brad Pitt as a United Nations investigator tasked with finding the source of a virus that quickly infects its hosts, turning them into the zombies who have overrun much of Earth. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said although the movie diverges from the source material, a book by Max Brooks, it still “brings smart, fast-moving thrills and a solid performance from Brad Pitt to the zombie genre.”

Based on Michael Crichton’s thriller, “The Andromeda Strain” featurs the measured and capable acting of Arthur Hill, Kate Reid, and David Wayne as scientists racing to contain a lethal extraterrestrial microscopic organism inadvertently returned to Earth by a U.S. satellite. Kevin Maher of the Times of London called it “an underrated classic,”

The action comedy film starred Steven Yeun as a lawyer unjustly discharged from his job at a law firm. The attorney finds out the firm’s building has been quarantined because a virus has infected those inside, causing them to act out their wildest impulses. Critic Adam Graham called “Mayhem” a “frantic, blood-splattered, rock ‘n’ roll action-horror-comedy that plays like a killer cross between ‘Crank’ and ‘Office Space.'”

A stellar cast and a tightly written script lifted “Contagion” above the norm. After Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) dies following a business trip to Hong Kong, her malaise-like symptoms become evident in others and a global pandemic is unleashed. Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian opined that “the all-star disaster-movie genre is taken out of the 1970s and given a stylish and largely persuasive 21st century makeover by director and cinematographer Steven Soderbergh.”

Oscar-winning actor Casey Affleck directed and stars in this post-apocalypse thriller about a father protecting his daughter in a world in which a pandemic has nearly eradicated the world’s female population. Some critics complained about the “patience-testing” pace of the movie, although Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said that the film’s “sober wavelength will be rewarded with a thought-provoking chiller.”

Nothing says macabre like Vincent Price starring in a Roger Corman-directed horror movie based on an Edgar Allan Poe story set in medieval times. Price plays Prince Prospero, whose castle is a refuge from a plague but also a place of debauchery and satanic worship. “A moment of genuine brilliance from Corman, a master class in villainy by Vincent Price, and a reminder of the enduring power of Poe’s work,” exalted critic Johnny Gayzmonic.

Suffering from a mysterious environmental illness, a woman from California (Julianne Moore) goes to a New Age guru’s clinic in New Mexico where she becomes increasingly isolated. The critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes applauded the film’s “eerie social satire” and “impressive, understated performance from Julianne Moore.”

“The Painted Veil,” set in the 1920s, stars Edward Norton as a British bacteriologist stuck in a loveless marriage with a wife ((Naomi Watts) who has cheated on him. He volunteers to go to China to treat victims of a cholera epidemic and takes his wife with him. In the challenging conditions of rural, civil-war ravaged China, they rebuild their marriage. Based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, the movie was more of a favorite among Rotten Tomatoes audiences, though critics lauded “Norton’s and Watts’s deft portrayals of imperfect, complicated characters.”

Director Elia Kazan (“On the Waterfront”) garnered critical acclaim for his thriller “Panic in the Streets.” The film is about discovery of pneumonic plague during the autopsy of an unknown man and the race against time to prevent an outbreak and avoid a public panic. The movie enjoys a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score of 97%, the highest of any film on this list. Besides stars Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas, the motion picture features early-career appearances of Jack Palance and Zero Mostel.

An outbreak of yellow fever in New Orleans is part of the plot of “Jezebel,” featuring one of Bette Davis’ greatest performances – which won her her second Oscar. Davis plays a spoiled Southern belle who, spurned by her now-married ex-suitor, tries to care for him after he is stricken with yellow fever. Critic Mike Massie said “even the historical backdrop – primarily with the paranoia, death, and destruction from the yellow jack epidemic – are no match for Davis’ fiery persona.”

Critics liked this entry into the revived Apes franchise. In “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” Ten years after simian flu has virtually wiped out the human race, genetically enhanced chimpanzee Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his followers have built a colony outside San Francisco. But he faces a challenge from a small group of human survivors.

“Children of Men” is a star-studded futuristic tale of a world in which women have been rendered infertile and a former activist (Clive Owen) agrees to bring a pregnant woman to a sanctuary boat at sea that will take her to the Human Project, giving hope for humanity’s future. The film also features Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Critic Brian Eggert said “‘Children of Men’ is an achingly, almost dreamily optimistic film in the face of such brutally cynical conditions, offering a humanist message.”

The animated film was directed by Wes Anderson and voiced by Bryan Cranston, Ed Norton, Scarlett Johansson, and Bill Murray. The plot is about an outbreak of canine flu in Japan that forces the mayor of a fictitious city to ban all dogs to an island to halt the risk of humans becoming infected. One of the dogs belongs to a 12-year-old who later hijacks a plane and flies it to the island to find him. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said “the beautifully stop-motion animated Isle of Dogs finds Wes Anderson at his detail-oriented best while telling one of the director’s most winsomely charming stories.”

Terry Gilliam, the animator for the television shows and movies for tMonty Python’s Flying Circus, directed this time-travel tale. Bruce Willis plays a convict imprisoned in the 2030s who’s sent back in time to gather information about a man-made virus that will depopulate the planet in the future. A strong cast features Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer. Critic Travis Johnson said “in the grim Spring of 2020… ’12 Monkeys’ looks startlingly prescient, even if the dates are wide by a decade or two.”