BEST ZOMBIE MOVIES
“I Walked With a Zombie” (1943) A nurse (Frances Dee) gets a lot more than she bargained for, while on a mission in the Caribbean, in this classic from director Jacques Tourneur and producer Val Lewton.
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956) They may not be zombies in the literal sense, but the emotionless, alien-pod-generated duplicates of people are scary enough that this Don Siegel-directed chiller merits a place on this list. (And heed star Kevin McCarthy’s warning: “You’re next!”)
“The Last Man on Earth” (1964) Filmed several times, also as “The Omega Man” and (the original title of the Richard Matheson story) “I Am Legend,” this effective thriller casts Vincent Price as a scientist who’s virtually the only person unaffected by a plague that turns everyone else into – you guessed it – zombies.
“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) One of the ultimate classics about the undead, director George A. Romero’s chiller used its shoestring budget to its advantage, generating horrifying images that remain impossible to shake more than 50 years later.
“Dawn of the Dead” (1978) Returning director Romero’s first “Night of the Living Dead” sequel had more money (and color film!) to work with, yielding even more shocking visuals that depict a zombie invasion of a shopping mall.
“Night of the Comet” (1984) Initially clueless sisters (Kelli Maroney, Catherine Mary Stewart) fight the undead upon realizing an apocalypse has happened around them.
“Re-Animator” (1985) Scientists conspire to bring the dead back to life in director Stuart Gordon’s cult-favorite version of an H.P. Lovecraft story; Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton star.
“Cemetery Man” (1994) A cemetery caretaker (Rupert Everett) pursues a recent widow (Anna Falchi) while corpses at the Italian site rise from their burial spots.
“28 Days Later” (2002) Director Danny Boyle’s melodrama follows several British survivors of a virus (including those played by Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson) at 28-day intervals.
“Shaun of the Dead” (2004) Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s send-up of the “Night of the Living Dead” franchise manages to be both scary and funny, with a British pub as the outpost used by those trying to avoid a zombie onslaught.
“REC” (2007) A reporter and her cameraman (Manuela Velasco, Pablo Rosso) are trapped in a building with those affected lethally by a virus in this Spanish chiller (remade in America as “Quarantine”).
“World War Z” (2013) The “Z” is for “zombie” in this adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel, as Brad Pitt plays a United Nations veteran trying to protect his family during an international rise of the undead.