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World War Z poster

Movies that feel likeWorld War Z (2013)

Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.

If you loved World War Z, the closest films we have are Overlord (2018), 28 Days Later (2002) and Colony (2026). All three share World War Z's dread and unsettling feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Shin Godzilla (2016).

🍅 67% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Marc Forsterkineticdreadunsettlingcerebralbleak
11 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If World War Z hit the spot, these will too

Overlord poster
Overlord
2018 · dir. Julius Avery
🍅 82%★ 6.6horror · war · science fictionParamount+

Dread-soaked and unsettling in the same breath

The difference: Takes it somewhere less kinetic than World War Z does

On the eve of D-Day, a team of American paratroopers crash behind enemy lines and come face-to-face with a Nazi threat unlike any the world has ever seen.

28 Days Later poster
28 Days Later
2002 · dir. Danny Boyle
🍅 87%★ 7.5horror · thriller · science fictionApple TV+

The sprinting infected and empty streets Z borrowed its dread from

The difference: Rawer and crueler — the humans become the scarier threat

Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally unleashed from a British research facility, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. Carried by animals and humans, the virus turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs -- and it's absolutely impossible to contain.

Colony poster
Colony
2026 · dir. Yeon Sang-ho
🍅 81%★ 6.5horror · action · science fiction

Sealed-in outbreak panic with the infected mutating by the minute

The difference: Trapped in one building — claustrophobia instead of global stakes

Professor Se-jeong is thrust into a bloody nightmare when a rapidly mutating virus is released during a biotech conference causing authorities to seal the facility. Trapped inside with no escape, Se-jeong along with a small group of survivors must fight to stay alive while the infected undergo horrific transformations.

Shin Godzilla poster
Shin Godzilla
2016 · dir. Shinji Higuchi
🍅 87%★ 6.9action · science fiction · horrorMax

The same mix in both: momentum, then ideas

When a massive, gilled monster emerges from the deep and tears through the city, the government scrambles to save its citizens. A rag-tag team of volunteers cuts through a web of red tape to uncover the monster's weakness and its mysterious ties to a foreign superpower. But time is not on their side - the greatest catastrophe to ever befall the world is about to evolve right before their very eyes.

A Quiet Place poster
A Quiet Place
2018 · dir. John Krasinski
🍅 96%★ 7.5horror · drama · science fictionParamount+

Bleak horror, and it commits to that

The difference: Reviewed even better

A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.

Warm Bodies poster
Warm Bodies
2013 · dir. Jonathan Levine
🍅 81%★ 6.8horror · comedy · romance

Civilization gone, zombies everywhere — but this outbreak has hope

The difference: It's a rom-com at heart — the horror keeps yielding to sweetness

After a zombie becomes involved with the girlfriend of one of his victims, their romance sets in motion a sequence of events that might transform the entire lifeless world.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter poster
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
2016 · dir. Paul W. S. Anderson
🍅 39%★ 5.5action · horror · science fictionNetflixHulu

Humanity on the brink and one survivor racing the undead tide

The difference: Choppy franchise finale — video-game logic instead of realism

Picking up immediately after the events in Resident Evil: Retribution, Alice is the only survivor of what was meant to be humanity's final stand against the undead. Now, she must return to where the nightmare began - The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City poster
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
2021 · dir. Johannes Roberts
🍅 30%★ 5.2action · horror · science fictionHuluStarz

An outbreak traced back to the corporation that caused it

The difference: Small-town B-horror scale after Z's globe-spanning sweep

Once the booming home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation, Raccoon City is now a dying Midwestern town. The company’s exodus left the city a wasteland…with great evil brewing below the surface. When that evil is unleashed, the townspeople are forever…changed…and a small group of survivors must work together to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night.

Alien Resurrection poster
Alien Resurrection
1997 · dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
🍅 55%★ 6.2science fiction · horror · action

Cornered humans versus a biology that keeps outpacing them

The difference: Grubby and confined — corridors and body horror, not global scale

Two hundred years after Lt. Ripley died, a group of scientists clone her, hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the new Ripley is full of surprises … as are the new aliens. Ripley must team with a band of smugglers to keep the creatures from reaching Earth.

#Alive poster
#Alive
2020 · dir. Cho Il
★ 6.3action · horror · science fictionNetflix

One man improvising survival while a city collapses outside

The difference: Deliberately confined — a single apartment, not a world tour

As a grisly virus rampages a city, a lone man stays locked inside his apartment, digitally cut off from seeking help and desperate to find a way out.

The Purge poster
The Purge
2013 · dir. James DeMonaco
🍅 41%★ 5.8science fiction · horror · thrillerPrime VideoPeacock

Both are built on the same subject: dystopia

The difference: Sits closer to thriller than World War Z does

Given the country's overcrowded prisons, the U.S. government begins to allow 12-hour periods of time in which all illegal activity is legal. During one of these free-for-alls, a family must protect themselves from a home invasion.

The Meg poster
The Meg
2018 · dir. Jon Turteltaub
🍅 47%★ 5.7action · science fiction · horrorMax

Scientists in over their heads as an unstoppable thing surfaces

The difference: Sunny popcorn dread — one creature, and it knows it is fun

A deep sea submersible pilot revisits his past fears in the Mariana Trench, and accidentally unleashes the seventy foot ancestor of the Great White Shark believed to be extinct.

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The best-reviewed films that share World War Z’s defining feeling.