Inspired by the launch of Spooks: Code 9 here’s my top 5 apocalypse survival stories.

The Rules:
as all film and media students know, aliens, meteors, viruses – they’re all just short hand for commie nukes, but for the list I have stuck purely with nukes.

That means that there’s no place in this list for zombie films, or for survival stories driven by other global catastrophes.

My choices:

- Jericho is just brilliant. It’s like a soap, but with a nuclear twist. And it has all the hall marks of good survival drama. The bad guy who comes good, good people going bad just to survive, unlikely alliances. Plus it’s a really good Afghanistan/Iraq/US interventionist policy allegory

- Domain. These stories are much scarier when you know the locations. They’re even more scary with giant rats. Herbert also wrote the excellent ‘48 which can’t make the list as it’s about a biological weapon.

- End Game: OK there’s debate over this one, you could argue it’s not about a post-apocalyptic scenario (feel free to use the comments)

- When the Wind Blows: I need to watch this again as an adult, but I remember it being horribly bleak.

- Mad Max: this is controversial because most people think this film is crap compared to Part 2. I like it though, it has more of a low key feel to it which is more in keeping with this genre.

Obvious omissions:
Threads, because I haven’t actually seen it (though I have just discovered it seems to be on re-release)