28 Days Later

28 Days Later captures how the infrastructure and social order designed to protect humanity create illusions of safety, a notion furthered in the post-9/11 world of increased paranoia and uncertainty.

28 Days Later is a modern horror classic, and patient zero for zombie horror film's second renaissance.

It pays homage while instilling a new way to speak to this way of storytelling. 28 Days Later isn't the best horror ever, but it manages to spark a fire that still burns nearly 20 years later.

The vanished London society that Cillian Murphy wakes up to at the start of this movie is one of the most brilliantly staged horror movie openings ever, and the survivalist battle that closes it caps a powerful story of disease paranoia.