soft apocalypse
16 titles
Films about the end of the world that stay small: a wedding, a birthday, one last shift at the gas company. The disaster is already on its way, so the movie skips the news coverage and just watches what people do with the days they have left.
Some of these never get an exact date. Justine can barely get through her own wedding reception in Melancholia, while a blue planet with the same name is quietly closing in on Earth. Alexander is celebrating his birthday with friends and family in The Sacrifice when word comes that nuclear war has started, and he tries to strike a bargain with God to undo it.
Other films know precisely when the clock runs out, and keep working anyway. In Last Night, the world has been scheduled to end at midnight for months, so a half-empty Toronto mostly just keeps its plans: some people are throwing parties, and Duncan and Donna are still clocking in at the gas company to keep the lights on for everyone else. An asteroid gives the world three weeks in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and one man spends his looking for an old high school crush.
The end of the world was never going to get anyone out of dinner.
