If anecdotes and Netflix algorithms are any suggestion, the current COVID-19 crisis has fostered quite the appetite for pandemic-related movies to watch while we’re self-sequestering. Obvious titles like 1995’s risible “Outbreak” and the woeful 2016 action/horror flick “Pandemic” make for easy clicks. There has also been an uptick in demand for docuseries like the Ebola virus doc “93 Days” and a new Netflix influenza series named, well, “Pandemic.”
If your streaming sensibilities hew to the topical, there are a number of quality options. All are worth a first-time viewing, and they’re also worth revisiting given the newfound perspective of our current times. Google these title to see which streaming services are offering each film.
“Pacific Liner” (1939): Ironically, the oldest offering is probably the most relevant to our current societal dilemma. When a cholera-infected Chinese stowaway is found in the bowels of a cruise ship, the disease infects the working men keeping the ship afloat while the well-heeled paying passengers above continue to party away. A debate ensues between the ship’s doctor, who wants to quarantine everyone, and the skeptical chief engineer, who doesn’t believe what he can’t see. Sound familiar?
“Panic in the Streets” (1950): In this noir thriller directed by Elia Kazan (need I say more?), a health services doctor, played by Richard Widmark, rushes to uncover the source of a plague-infected corpse in New Orleans. He’s thwarted along the way by criminal elements, the press, suspicious ethnic minorities, and governmental officials.
“The Andromeda Strain” (1971): The popular Michael Crichton novel was adapted by director Robert Wise, about a group of scientists trying to beat back a deadly extraterrestrial organism.
“The Crazies” (1973): Best known for his zombie classics, director George Romero produced this ultra-dark take on how a small town accidentally infected by a military biological weapon devolves into a standoff between its panicked citizens and soldiers poised to execute extreme measures to terminate the outbreak.
“12 Monkeys” (1995): One of Terry Gilliam’s most provocative films tracks a prisoner from the year 2035 (Bruce Willis) sent back in time to the 1990s to investigate and stop a global pandemic that would eventually wipe out almost all of humanity. It’s a taut whodunit, complemented by a gonzo, Oscar-nominated turn from Brad Pitt.
“28 Days Later” (2002) and “28 Weeks Later” (2007): I tried to avoid putting zombie movies on this list. My lone exceptions are the superlative original film, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, which follows the survivors of a global pandemic as they survive post-apocalyptic England. The sequel isn’t as good, but it delves into the ethics of extreme governmental measures taken to contain/eliminate the virulent virus.
“Children of Men” (2006): This dystopian thriller, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, imagines a devolving world in which two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Harsh, flailing efforts at law and order in the UK include draconian laws against refugees and immigration.
“The Host” (2006): Long before he directed the Oscar-winning “Parasite,” Bong Joon-ho made this movie about a genetically mutated creature, spawned from man-made pollution. The monster sporadically emerges from the Han River to attack unsuspecting victims, but the government also claims it’s the carrier of a deadly virus.
“The Road” (2009): There’s bleak, and then there’s this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. While not strictly a post-pandemic film, it’s a stark portrait of humanity’s hellscape that remains after a cataclysmic event. Despair is the toll you must pay to travel “The Road.” Still, it’s a trip worth taking.
“Contagion” (2011): Director Steven Soderbergh’s thriller is a taut procedural tick-tock of how various public health and governmental officials work (and don’t work) to combat and stop a global pandemic. A star-studded cast is featured is a film filled with verisimilitude.
“It Comes at Night” (2017): This tense psychological horror flick follows a family living in wooded isolation, trying to escape a highly contagious virus that has ravaged the planet and the survivors still spreading the disease. When some needy strangers arrive on the family’s doorstep, it upends their carefully contained reality.