Our collective zombie obsession began long before The Walking Dead premiered (although it certainly helped). In fact, it’s still going strong to this day, with creators bringing new life to stories of the undead. Zombies can serve as metaphors for our broken society or as catalysts for bringing humanity together. Sometimes they’re even kind of funny, in all their bloody, snarling glory. No matter what, zombie stories are always entertaining.

Here, we highlight some zombie TV shows and movies that are worth checking out. These are alternately bleak, hilarious, and thrilling watches, meaning there’s a little something for every kind of zombie fan.

28 Years Later

In 2002, Danny Boyle gave us 28 Days Later, a zombie film that has since been credited with reinvigorating the genre. It wasn’t the first to portray fast-moving, rage-fueled zombies, but it certainly popularized this extra-scary version of the mindless killers. It also portrayed zombies that aren’t technically dead, but instead driven by a virus pumping so much adrenaline into them that they have added strength and stamina. Now Boyle and original screenwriter Alex Garland return with this new installment that shows how a small island community has managed to survive in the 28 years since the virus ravaged the world. One boy from this community, Spike (Alfie Williams), defies his father, escaping the island with his sick mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), in search of the eccentric local Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). Along the way they face all sorts of peril, including new horrors that have emerged as the virus mutated over the years. 

28 Years Later

1h 55m   R   2025

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#Alive

This South Korean horror film focuses on Joon-woo (Yoo Ah-in), a video game streamer who holes up in his family’s apartment and tries to live out the apocalypse by himself as a gruesome virus consumes his city. Just as he begins to lose hope, he makes contact with a neighbor, Yoo-bin (Park Shin-hye), and the two strike up a tentative bond while helping each other fight off invading zombies. #Alive has fun with the creative methods Joon-woo and Yoo-bin use to distract and kill the undead and, as the hashtag in its title suggests, explores the power of social media in times of crisis.

#Alive

1h 38m   TV-MA   2020

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All of Us Are Dead

In this South Korean series, classrooms become battlegrounds as high school students are forced to fight for their lives after a sudden zombie virus begins to spread rapidly among their classmates. Over its 12-episode first season, the students form a disparate group, working together and fending for themselves as most of the adults in charge of controlling the situation all but abandon them. All of Us Are Dead is a bloody thriller that effectively turns its central location into a terrifying prison for its group of survivors, all while using the zombie genre to examine topics of corruption, wealth inequality, and the myriad ways in which the older generation has failed young people.

All of Us Are Dead

1 Season   TV-MA   2022

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Army of the Dead

Zack Snyder’s high-stakes heist is set in a version of Las Vegas that has been rendered unrecognizable by a zombie outbreak, a problem that the US military is one day away from eradicating with a nuclear strike. With only hours to spare, a billionaire tasks mercenary turned fry cook Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) with recovering $200 million from an abandoned casino vault. To pull it off, he rounds up a band of thieves, including his friends Cruz (Ana de la Reguera) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), helicopter pilot Marianne (Tig Notaro), safecracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer) and Ward’s own estranged daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell). As they fight their way through hordes of zombies, the group learns that even the end of the world isn’t free of social and political hierarchies.

Army of the Dead

2h 28m   R   2021

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Black Summer

Set in the aftermath of a zombie plague, this series tells its story in vignettes, focusing on a revolving door of survivors that it repeatedly warns could turn into bloodthirsty zombies at the drop of a hat. Transformations are instant and brutal; here, the walking corpses are lightning fast and doggedly focused on killing their targets, making the many scenes in which the undead pursue humans feel like tense, adrenaline-packed nightmares. (One memorable episode from Season 1 consists almost entirely of a character running from place to place, trying to avoid a relentless zombie.) While some zombie stories are about finding hope and humanity in a broken society, Black Summer is more interested in providing a grisly, gory experience.

Black Summer

2 Seasons   TV-MA   2019

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Cargo

It’s a zombie movie with heart. In the wild expanse of Australia, a couple with a young baby navigate a world ravaged by a disease that turns people into mindless, flesh-eating, goo-covered versions of themselves. As things get more and more dire, the father, Andy (Martin Freeman), searches desperately for someone he can depend on to take care of his infant daughter when he is no longer able to. Like the best postapocalyptic or zombie films, the most terrifying parts aren’t necessarily the zombies, but the feral humans willing to do anything to survive. This one will have you jumping and weeping.

Cargo

1h 44m   TV-MA   2018

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Kingdom

At first glance, this epic two-season Korean series is a historical political drama depicting the monarchical intrigue of the 17th-century Joseon dynasty. But in fact, it’s a version of this era where Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon), the Crown Prince of Joseon, investigates a mysterious illness that seems to have afflicted his father, the King, that quickly spreads throughout the land, causing people to fall ill, die, and, well, you know the drill. What is already a war of succession also becomes a war against the growing zombie population. 

Kingdom

2 Seasons   TV-MA   2019

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Santa Clarita Diet

Of all the horror monsters in existence, few lend themselves as well to comedy as zombies. There’s something about their dim-witted behavior and eating preferences that can be darkly funny when spun the right way. In this three-season series, Joel and Sheila Hammond (Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore) are a suburban couple and real estate duo, selling houses and raising their daughter. One day at an open house, Sheila gets violently ill. Later, she seems to be lacking a heartbeat, is generally less inhibited, and starts craving human flesh. Thus begins the hilarious new life of Joel and Sheila, who try to maintain some sense of normalcy while navigating Sheila’s new situation, while also solving the riddle of how to provide Sheila with the “food” she needs. 

Santa Clarita Diet

3 Seasons   TV-MA   2017

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The Dead Don't Die

Something is off in the rural small town of Centerville — the sun no longer sets at its usual time, cell phones and watches have stopped working, and the animals are acting strange. One morning, Hank Thompson (Danny Glover) finds two murdered diner employees, and Officer Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) thinks zombies were behind it. While investigating, Officer Peterson and Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) find that graves have opened up, and they prepare to take on the zombies terrorizing the town. This horror comedy from director Jim Jarmusch (Down By Law) will have you laughing through the jump scares. The Dead Don’t Die also features a starry ensemble cast — featured alongside Glover, Driver, and Murray are Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Selena Gomez, Austin Butler, Maya Delmont, and more. 

The Dead Don't Die

1h 45m   R   2019

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Train to Busan

Train to Busan is a zombie blockbuster that will take you on quite the ride. The hit Korean film follows white-collar worker and father Seok-woo, played by Squid Game’s Gong Yoo, as he accompanies his estranged daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) on a train across the country to see her mother, his ex-wife. Meanwhile, the country is experiencing a zombie outbreak with no known cause or cure, and the train’s passengers are unable to escape the virus when an infected young woman boards the train. Now facing an impossible situation, Seok-woo must find a way to keep his daughter safe as they fight to reach their destination. Once you finish Train to Busan, find out what happens next in the standalone sequel, Peninsula, also streaming on Netflix.

Train to Busan

1h 57m   TV-MA   2016

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The Walking Dead

Based on Robert Kirkman’s comic book series, The Walking Dead is a pioneering entry in the zombie TV canon. The drama centers around Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a small-town sheriff who awakens from a coma to find that society has been overtaken by a virus that turns living beings into undead “walkers” who feed on the flesh of humans. Rick becomes the leader of a group of survivors that includes Norman Reedus’ Daryl, Steven Yeun’s Glenn, and Danai Gurira’s Michonne, and together they work to rebuild. Across 11 seasons, they come to discover that walkers aren’t the only dangers out in this decimated version of the world.

The Walking Dead

11 Seasons   TV-MA   2010

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Fear the Walking Dead

Fear the Walking Dead is a spin-off of AMC’s seminal zombie drama The Walking Dead (which also makes this list), but it fully stands on its own. Set before the events of The Walking Dead, Fear goes back to how it all began, centering around Madison (Kim Dickens) and Travis (Cliff Curtis), two newly married high school teachers who are struggling to blend their families when the apocalypse hits. There’s new ground to cover in the early days of the outbreak, with survivors not quite knowing how to approach those who have been infected and still believing the virus can be contained. While the premise will keep you hooked, the characters are what make the show, from Colman Domingo’s smooth-talking con man Victor Strand to Rubén Blades’ formidable survivalist Daniel Salazar.

Fear the Walking Dead

8 Seasons   TV-MA   2015

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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

The second of The Walking Dead’s character-focused spin-offs (after The Walking Dead: Dead City), Daryl Dixon follows Norman Reedus’ titular hunter after he washes ashore in France with no memory of how he got there. His search for answers and his hope of getting back to America are complicated when he becomes responsible for escorting a boy to a faraway safe house. The series follows him through many dangers, from the fascist militia group trying to capture the boy to the very different types of French zombies.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

2 Seasons   TV-MA   2023

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The Walking Dead: Dead City

Dead City centers on a pair of characters from The Walking Dead’s expansive world — but it’s certainly not a love story. The spin-off follows Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) as they search for her son, Hershel (Logan Kim), who was kidnapped by Negan’s former cult. The two have a complex dynamic — Negan beat Maggie’s husband to death in Season 7 of The Walking Dead — and Dead City takes its time exploring how these two people with so much history can possibly work together.

The Walking Dead: Dead City

2 Seasons   TV-MA   2023

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Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

Everyone has hopes and dreams — experiences they’d like to have in their lifetime, things they’d like to accomplish. Hopefully, these things happen before the zombie apocalypse, but that’s exactly what kicks off Akira Tendo’s (Eiji Akaso) bucket list of 100 things he wants to do before he becomes a zombie himself. In the live-action film based on the manga of the same name (which also was adapted into an anime series), Akira has just started a new job when one day, on his way to work, he sees that zombies have taken over. He quickly realizes that the clock is now ticking on life as he knows it and he doesn’t have much time to complete everything on his bucket list. 

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

2h 9m   TV-MA   2023

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Zombieverse

How would you fare in a zombie apocalypse? This show puts its participants to the test. In Zombieverse, a group of online celebrities attempt to film a reality dating show called Love Hunter, and they soon realize they’re actually in a survival competition game being hunted by zombies. This show is an unscripted comedy-horror reality series shot in South Korea that simulates different scenarios that could come up in a zombie apocalypse. As the cast learn more about the zombies, how long it takes for people to turn, and whether they can trust each other, they’ll have to take greater risks to survive. How many people will make it out alive? Once you’ve finished Zombieverse, stay tuned for its return as Zombieverse: New Blood. 

Zombieverse

2 Seasons   TV-MA   2023

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Additional reporting by Ananda Dillon