This list of nuclear holocaust fiction lists the many works of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction that attempt to describe a world during or after a massive nuclear war, nuclear holocaust, or crash of civilization due to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse.
| Title | Year | Author and notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five | 1951 | ||
| Unknown World | 1951 | ||
| Invasion U.S.A. | 1952 | ||
| Captive Women | 1952 | ||
| Day the World Ended | 1955 | ||
| Teenage Caveman | 1958 | ||
| On the Beach | 1959 | Nevil Shute (novel); John Paxton (screenplay) | |
| The World, the Flesh and the Devil | 1959 | ||
| The Time Machine | 1960 | H. G. Wells (novel); David Duncan (screenplay) | |
| The Last War | 1961 | ||
| The Day the Earth Caught Fire | 1961 | ||
| The Creation of the Humanoids | 1962 | ||
| La jetée | 1962 | ||
| Panic in Year Zero! | 1962 | ||
| This is Not a Test | 1962 | ||
| Ladybug Ladybug | 1963 | ||
| Fail-Safe | 1964 | Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler (novel); Walter Bernstein (screenplay) | |
| Dr. Strangelove[1] | 1964 | Peter George (novel); Peter George, Stanley Kubrick, and Terry Southern (screenplay) | |
| The War Game | 1965 | ||
| Late August at the Hotel Ozone | 1966 | Written by Pavel Juráček | |
| In the Year 2889 | 1967 | ||
| Planet of the Apes[2] | 1968 | Pierre Boulle (novel); Michael Wilson and Rod Serling (screenplay) | |
| The Bed Sitting Room | 1969 | ||
| Beneath the Planet of the Apes | 1970 | ||
| 1970 | |||
| Glen and Randa | 1971 | ||
| Battle for the Planet of the Apes | 1973 | ||
| Zardoz | 1974 | ||
| A Boy and His Dog | 1975 | Harlan Ellison (short story); L.Q. Jones, Alvy Moore and Wayne Cruseturner (screenplay) | |
| Barefoot Gen | 1976 | Tengo Yamada (screenplay), Keiji Nakazawa (manga) The story of Gen Nakaoka and his family, who lived in Hiroshima at the time it was atom-bombed, and their struggles and trials amidst the nuclear holocaust. | |
| Damnation Alley | 1977 | Roger Zelazny (novel) | |
| Wizards | 1977 | ||
| Virus | 1980 | ||
| Malevil | 1981 | ||
| Mad Max 2 | 1981 | Also known as The Road Warrior. | |
| The New Barbarians | 1982 | ||
| Future War 198X | 1982 | Anime movie produced by Toei Animation about World War III breaking out in the 1980s that triggers a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. | |
| 2019, After the Fall of New York | 1983 | ||
| Special Bulletin | 1983 | ||
| Testament[3] | 1983 | ||
| The Day After | 1983 | ||
| WarGames | 1983 | ||
| The Terminator franchise | 1984, 1991, 2003, 2009, 2015, 2019 | Based on characters created by James Cameron (with acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison) | |
| Countdown to Looking Glass | 1984 | ||
| Threads | 1984 | ||
| One Night Stand | 1984 | ||
| Def-Con 4 | 1985 | ||
| 1985 | |||
| 1985 | |||
| Radioactive Dreams | 1985 | ||
| Dead Man's Letters | 1986 | ||
| The Sacrifice | 1986 | ||
| When the Wind Blows | 1986 | Based on the 1982 graphic novel | |
| Whoops Apocalypse | 1988 | Based on the ITV series | |
| Akira | 1988 | ||
| Miracle Mile | 1988 | ||
| By Dawn's Early Light | 1990 | ||
| Hardware | 1990 | ||
| Judge Dredd | 1995 | ||
| 1996 | Most of the film takes place in the mid-21st century as civilization rebuilds after nuclear war. Continuation of TV series. | ||
| The Postman | 1997 | ||
| Der 3. Weltkrieg, a.k.a. World War III | 1998 | ||
| Six-String Samurai | 1998 | ||
| Deterrence | 1999 | ||
| The Matrix (franchise) | 1999, 2003, 2021 | ||
| On the Beach | 2000 | ||
| Equilibrium | 2002 | ||
| The Dark Hour | 2007 | ||
| City of Ember | 2009 | ||
| The Book of Eli[4] | 2010 | ||
| The Divide | 2012 | ||
| Cloud Atlas | 2012 | ||
| Dredd | 2012 | ||
| 2014 | |||
| 2015 | |||
| Z for Zachariah | 2015 | ||
| Friend of the World | 2020 | Brian Patrick Butler (screenplay); takes place in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Based on Dr. Strangelove and La Jetée. |
"Bits of Love" (1997)
"The Human Factor" (2002)
| Name | Year | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2300 A.D. | 1986 | Role-playing game | |
| Aftermath! | 1981 | Role-playing game | |
| Balance of Power | 1985 | A computer strategy game of geopolitics during the Cold War | |
| Blast Corps | 1997 | Nintendo 64 video game | |
| Burntime | 1993 | A role-playing video game for DOS and Amiga | |
| DEFCON | 2007 | A real-time strategy game for Windows, Mac and Linux | |
| Fallout series | 1997 (1st)2018 (latest) | A post-apocalyptic role-playing video game for several platforms; early games were top down 2D while the last four are 3D; spiritual successor to Wasteland | |
| Far Cry 5 | 2018 | An action-adventure first-person shooter game set in the fictional Hope County, Montana that has been taken over by a cult who believe the end of the world is about to occur. Towards the end of the game, radio broadcasts begin hinting that the world outside is in chaos and a nuclear war is imminent. If the resist ending is chosen, nuclear explosions appear around the player suggesting a nuclear holocaust has occurred. | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 2019 | An action-adventure first-person shooter game standalone sequel of Far Cry 5, set 17 years after the events of Far Cry 5, where the nuclear exchange known as "the Collapse" devastated the world, survivors attempt to rebuild the community in Hope County. Their efforts are however threatened by the Highwaymen, a roving band of organized bandits led by twin sisters Mickey and Lou. | |
| Gamma World | 1978 | A post-apocalyptic role-playing game | |
| 2015 | A top-down shooter game which is a sequel to Hotline Miami; features a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States at the end of the game | ||
| M.A.D. Global Thermonuclear Warfare | 2001 | PC Strategic simulation game released by Small Rockets | |
| Metro 2033 | 2010 | A survival horror first-person shooter set in post-apocalyptic Moscow | |
| Metro Last Light | 2013 | A survival horror first-person shooter which is a sequel to Metro 2033 | |
| Missile Command | 1980 | An action video game which was wildly popular in the 1980s, widely recognized in popular culture | |
| The Morrow Project | 1980 | Role-playing game | |
| Neocron | 2002 | A post-apocalyptic cyberpunk MMORPG for Windows | |
| Norad | 1981 | An action strategy game for the Apple II, where the player defends the United States against a nuclear attack.[9] [10] | |
| Nuclear Throne | 2015 | A twin-stick shooter roguelike following a group of mutants in a nuclear wasteland | |
| Nuclear War | 1989 | A turn-based strategy game for Amiga and DOS | |
| NukeWar | 1980 | A turn-based strategy game for Apple II, Commodore 64, and other early home computer systems | |
| 2004 | A post-apocalyptic visual novel | ||
| 2009 | An action role-playing video game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 | ||
| Superpower 2 | 2004 | A real-time strategy wargame | |
| Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers | 1984 | A board wargame | |
| Theatre Europe | 1985 | A turn-based strategy video game about a fictional war in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, in which both sides use nuclear and chemical weapons against each other | |
| Trinity | 1986 | An interactive fiction game examining the futile nature of nuclear war | |
| Trojan | 1986 | Arcade game and platformer set shortly after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization, which is now overrun by occultists who are bent on terrorizing the surviving population with psychological and biochemical warfare | |
| 1984 | A role-playing game | ||
| WarGames | 1984 | A video game based on the game in the hit movie | |
| Warzone 2100 | 1999 | An open-source real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game | |
| Wasteland | 1988 | A post-apocalyptic role-playing video game | |
| Wasteland 2 | 2014 | A post-apocalyptic role-playing game; a sequel to Wasteland | |
| 60 Seconds! | 2015 | A game where the player helps a family of 4 to survive inside a nuclear bunker |