# List of nuclear holocaust fiction

This list of nuclear holocaust fiction lists the many works of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction that attempt to describe a world during or after a massive nuclear war, nuclear holocaust, or crash of civilization due to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse.

## Films

| Title | Year | Author and notes |
| Five | 1951 | |
| Invasion U.S.A. | 1952 | |
| Captive Women | 1952 | |
| Day the World Ended | 1955 | |
| Teenage Caveman | 1958 | |
| On the Beach | 1959 | Nevil Shute (novel); John Paxton (screenplay) |
| The World, the Flesh and the Devil | 1959 | |
| The Time Machine | 1960 | H. G. Wells (novel); David Duncan (screenplay) |
| The Last War | 1961 | |
| The Day the Earth Caught Fire | 1961 | |
| The Creation of the Humanoids | 1962 | |
| La jetée | 1962 | |
| Panic in Year Zero! | 1962 | |
| This is Not a Test | 1962 | |
| Ladybug Ladybug | 1963 | |
| Fail-Safe | 1964 | Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler (novel); Walter Bernstein (screenplay) |
| Dr. Strangelove | 1964 | Peter George (novel); Peter George, Stanley Kubrick, and Terry Southern (screenplay) |
| The War Game | 1965 | |
| Late August at the Hotel Ozone | 1966 | Written by Pavel Juráček |
| In the Year 2889 | 1967 | |
| Planet of the Apes | 1968 | Pierre Boulle (novel); Michael Wilson and Rod Serling (screenplay) |
| The Bed Sitting Room | 1969 | |
| Beneath the Planet of the Apes | 1970 | |
| Colossus: The Forbin Project | 1970 | |
| Glen and Randa | 1971 | |
| Battle for the Planet of the Apes | 1973 | |
| Zardoz | 1974 | |
| A Boy and His Dog | 1975 | Harlan Ellison (short story); L.Q. Jones, Alvy Moore and Wayne Cruseturner (screenplay) |
| Barefoot Gen | 1976 | Tengo Yamada (screenplay), Keiji Nakazawa (manga) The story of Gen Nakaoka and his family, who lived in Hiroshima at the time it was atom-bombed, and their struggles and trials amidst the nuclear holocaust. |
| Damnation Alley | 1977 | Roger Zelazny (novel) |
| Wizards | 1977 |
| Virus | 1980 | |
| Malevil | 1981 | |
| Mad Max 2 | 1981 | Also known as The Road Warrior. |
| The New Barbarians | 1982 | |
| Future War 198X | 1982 | Anime movie produced by Toei Animation about World War III breaking out in the 1980s that triggers a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. |
| 2019, After the Fall of New York | 1983 | |
| Special Bulletin | 1983 | |
| Testament | 1983 | |
| The Day After | 1983 | |
| WarGames | 1983 | |
| The Terminator franchise | 1984, 1991, 2003, 2009, 2015, 2019 | Based on characters created by James Cameron (with acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison) |
| Countdown to Looking Glass | 1984 | |
| Threads | 1984 | |
| One Night Stand | 1984 | |
| Def-Con 4 | 1985 | |
| Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome | 1985 | |
| O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization | 1985 | |
| Radioactive Dreams | 1985 | |
| Dead Man's Letters | 1986 | |
| The Sacrifice | 1986 | |
| When the Wind Blows | 1986 | Based on the 1982 graphic novel |
| Whoops Apocalypse | 1986 | Based on the ITV series |
| Akira | 1988 | |
| Miracle Mile | 1988 | |
| By Dawn's Early Light | 1990 | |
| Hardware | 1990 | |
| Judge Dredd | 1995 | |
| Star Trek: First Contact | 1996 | Most of the film takes place in the mid-21st century as civilization rebuilds after nuclear war. Continuation of Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series. |
| The Postman | 1997 | |
| Der 3. Weltkrieg, a.k.a. World War III | 1998 | |
| Six-String Samurai | 1998 | |
| Deterrence | 1999 | |
| The Matrix (franchise) | 1999, 2003, 2021 | |
| On the Beach | 2000 | |
| Equilibrium | 2002 | |
| The Dark Hour | 2007 | |
| City of Ember | 2009 | |
| The Book of Eli | 2010 | |
| The Divide | 2012 | |
| Cloud Atlas | 2012 | |
| Dredd | 2012 | |
| Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl | 2014 | |
| Mad Max: Fury Road | 2015 | |
| Z for Zachariah | 2015 | |
| Friend of the World | 2020 | Brian Patrick Butler (screenplay); takes place in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Based on Dr. Strangelove and La Jetée. |

## Television programs

* A Carol for Another Christmas (ABC, 1964), Rod Serling TV film
* A Day Called 'X' (CBS, 1957)
* Adventure Time (Cartoon Network, 2010–2018)
* American Horror Story: Apocalypse (FX, 2018)
* Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi, 2003, 2004–2009)
* Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (NBC, 1979)
* By Dawn's Early Light (HBO, 1990)
* Countdown to Looking Glass (HBO, 1984)
* Dark Angel (Fox, 2000–2002)
* Der Dritte Weltkrieg (ZDF, 1998)
* Fail Safe (CBS, 2000)
* Fallout (Prime Video, 2024–)
* Genesis II (CBS, 1973)
* Jericho (CBS, 2006–2008)
* Level Seven (BBC, 1966), adapted by J. B. Priestley for Out of the Unknown
* On the Beach (Showtime, 2000)
* Planet Earth (ABC, 1974)
* Special Bulletin (NBC, 1983)
* Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox, 2008–2009)
* Testament (PBS, 1983)
* The 100 (The CW, 2014–2020)
* The Day After (ABC, 1983)
* The Martian Chronicles miniseries (NBC, 1980)
* The War Game (BBC, 1965)
* Threads (BBC, 1984)
* Whoops Apocalypse (ITV, 1982)
* Woops! (Fox, 1992)
* World War III miniseries (NBC, 1982)

### Television episodes

* The Motorola Television Hour: "Atomic Attack" (1954 ABC-TV series Season 1, Episode 15) – A family living 50 miles away try to flee from the fallout of an hydrogen bomb that fell on New York City. Based on the novel Shadow on the Hearth (1950) by Judith Merrill.
* The Twilight Zone: "Time Enough at Last" (1959)
* Playhouse 90: "Alas, Babylon" (1960)
* The Twilight Zone: "The Old Man in the Cave" (1963)
* Doctor Who: "The Daleks" (1963)
* Star Trek: "Space Seed" (1967)
* Star Trek: "Assignment: Earth" (1968) – The crew goes back in time to find out how the human race was able to survive the Cold War.
* The Twilight Zone: "A Little Peace and Quiet" (1985)
* The Twilight Zone: "Quarantine" (1986)
* The Twilight Zone: "Shelter Skelter" (1987)
* The Outer Limits: "Bits of Love" (1997)
* The Outer Limits: "The Human Factor" (2002)
* The Twilight Zone: "Chosen" (2002)
* Masters of Science Fiction: "A Clean Escape" (2007)
* What If...?: What If... Ultron Won?" (2021)
* A few episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise depict both humans and Vulcans as being close to extermination caused by nuclear war.

## Novels

* After The Bomb by Gloria D. Miklowitz
* Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
* Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem (regarding Hatfork)
* Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
* Arc Light by Eric Harry
* Armageddon's Children By Terry Brooks (2006) (Genesis of Shannara Trilogy book 1)
* The Ashes Series by William W. Johnstone
* The Beast of Heaven by Victor Kelleher
* Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells
* A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1960)
* Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence
* The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
* Commander-1 by Peter George
* Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny
* Dark December by Alfred Coppel
* Dark Mirrors (original title) Schwarze Spiegel by Arno Schmidt
* Davy and other works by Edgar Pangborn
* The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles by Robert Moore Williams
* Deathlands series by a variety of authors writing under the pen name James Axler
* Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb by Philip K. Dick
* Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
* Domain by James Herbert
* Doomday Wing by George H. Smith
* Doomsday Plus Twelve by James D. Forman
* Down to a Sunless Sea by David Graham
* Earthwreck! by Thomas N. Scortia
* The Eclipse Trilogy by John Shirley
* The Egghead Republic by Arno Schmidt
* Einstein's Monsters by Martin Amis
* End of the World by Dean Owen (novelization of the film Panic in Year Zero!)
* Ende: A Diary of the Third World War by Anton-Andreas Guha
* Endworld series by David Robbins
* Eon by Greg Bear
* The Erthing Cycle by Wayland Drew
* Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
* Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
* Fire Brats by Scott Siegel and Barbara Siegel
* First Angel by Ed Mann, published by Soldier of Fortune magazine
* Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson
* Free Flight by Douglas Terman
* The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
* A Gift Upon the Shore by M. K. Wren
* God's Grace by Bernard Malamud
* The Guardians series by Richard Austin
* The Hot War series by Harry Turtledove
* The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
* The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad
* Jenny, My Diary by Yorick Blumenfeld
* Domain by James Herbert
* The Last Children of Schewenborn by Gudrun Pausewang
* The Last Ship by William Brinkley
* The Last War, a 1986 novel by Martyn Godfrey
* Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald
* The Long Loud Silence by Wilson Tucker
* The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
* Long Voyage Back by George Cockcroft, under the pen name Luke Rhinehart, 1983
* Malevil by Robert Merle
* The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
* Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
* The Metrozone Series by Simon Morden
* Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
* Not This August by C.M. Kornbluth
* Obernewtyn and subsequent novels in the series by Isobelle Carmody
* On the Beach by Nevil Shute
* One Second After by William R. Forstchen
* The Outward Urge, by John Wyndham and Lucas Parkes
* The Pelbar Cycle Book One (Beyond Armageddon) by Paul O. Williams
* Plan of Attack, a 2004 thriller by Dale Brown
* The Postman, a 1985 post-apocalyptic novel by David Brin
* Prayers for the Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno
* Prime Directive, by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens; a Star Trek novel where an alien civilization is apparently destroyed by a sudden, unexpected nuclear war among its own people
* Pulling Through, by Dean Ing; first half of the book is a novel on a family surviving a nuclear blast, the second half is a non-fiction survival guide
* Red Alert, by Peter George
* Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois
* Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
* The School for Atheists by Arno Schmidt
* Second Ending, by James White
* The Seventh Day by Hans Hellmut Kirst (original title Keiner Kommt Davon)
* Shadow on the Hearth by Judith Merril (1950) – a novel about a traditional housewife's ordeals in the aftermath of nuclear attack
* The Shannara Series, by Terry Brooks
* The Silo Series by Hugh Howey (2011) – A nuclear exchange is used to cover up a nano-bot attack.
* Single Combat by Dean Ing (second in the Ted Quantril trilogy)
* A Small Armageddon by Mordecai Roshwald
* Star Man's Son by Andre Norton (1952) – a post-apocalyptic novel that takes place about two centuries after the Great-Blowup. It is titled Daybreak – 2250 AD in reprint editions.
* The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun by Christopher Anvil
* The Survivalist by Jerry Ahern
* Swan Song by Robert McCammon
* Systemic Shock by Dean Ing (first in the Ted Quantril trilogy)
* Tengu (Novel) by Graham Masterton
* Test of Fire by Ben Bova
* There Will Be Time by Poul Anderson
* This Is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow
* This Time Tomorrow by Lauran Paine
* Time Capsule by Mitch Berman
* Tomorrow! by Philip Wylie
* Trinity's Child by William Prochnau (1983)
* Triumph by Philip Wylie
* The Valley-Westside War by Harry Turtledove
* Vaneglory by George Turner
* Viper Three by Walter Wager
* Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka
* When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
* Wild Country by Dean Ing (Third in the Ted Quantril Trilogy)
* The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson
* Without Warning by John Birmingham
* The World Next Door by Brad Ferguson
* The World Set Free by H. G. Wells
* Worldwar series by Harry Turtledove – alternate history: World War II turns nuclear in 1943; another nuclear war in the 1960s
* Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien

## Short stories

* "The Blast" by Stuart Cloete (1947), published in 6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, 1954
* "Thunder and Roses" (1947) by Theodore Sturgeon
* "Not with a Bang" (1949) by Damon Knight
* "The Last Word" (1956) by Damon Knight
* "A Clean Escape" (1985) by John Kessel
* "The 16th October 1985" (2009) by James Plumridge
* "The Edge of the Knife" (1957) by H. Beam Piper
* "Lot" (1953) and "Lot's Daughter" (1954) by Ward Moore (inspiration for the film Panic in Year Zero!)
* "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury (1950)
* "Preview of the War We Do Not Want", published in Collier's Magazine (1951)
* "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke – featuring a boy living in a colony on the moon, left isolated by the destruction of the Earth
* "A Boy and His Dog" by Harlan Ellison (1969)
* "Fermi and Frost" by Frederik Pohl (1985)
* "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back" by Joe R. Lansdale (1986)
* "The Custodians" by Richard Cowper
* "Summer Thunder" by Stephen King
* "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benet (1937)

## Short story collections

* Countdown To Midnight, 1984, edited by H. Bruce Franklin
* Beyond Armageddon, 1985, edited by Walter M. Miller, Jr. and Martin Harry Greenberg
* Nuclear War, 1988, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin Harry Greenberg
* The Folk of the Fringe, 1989, Orson Scott Card

## Comics

* 2000AD/Judge Dredd, set in a post-war Earth where the majority of the United States is called the "Cursed Earth"
* Akira features Tokyo after a nuclear conflict.
* AXA, set in the aftermath of a nuclear- and biological war with heroine AXA fighting against evil
* Barefoot Gen, Japanese manga about life after the Hiroshima bombing
* Cobalt 60 by Vaughn Bodē, Mark Bodē and Larry Todd, set in a post-apocalyptic world
* Fist of the North Star, a Japanese comic franchise set in a post-nuclear Earth
* Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a Japanese graphic novel, later partly adapted in film, set in a far, post-apocalyptic future, rife with themes of bioethics, environmentalism, genetics and psionics
* The Punisher: The End, a one-shot issue of Marvel Comic's Punisher by Garth Ennis and Richard Corben
* Strontium Dog, set in a post-nuclear war earth where many humans have been deformed by the radiation and are branded as "mutants"
* V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, is set in an England which has survived through a nuclear war which devastated the majority of the rest of the world.

## Animation shorts

* The Big Snit (National Film Board of Canada, Richard Condie; 1985)
* The Hole, 1962, featuring the voice of Dizzy Gillespie
* A Short Vision, 1956
* Good Will to Men, 1955 (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
* Picadon (1978)

## Games

| Name | Year | Notes |
| 2300 A.D. | 1986 | Role-playing game |
| Aftermath! | 1981 | Role-playing game |
| Balance of Power | 1985 | A computer strategy game of geopolitics during the Cold War |
| Blast Corps | 1997 | Nintendo 64 video game |
| Burntime | 1993 | A role-playing video game for DOS and Amiga |
| DEFCON | 2007 | A real-time strategy game for Windows, Mac and Linux |
| Fallout series | 1997 (1st) 2018 (latest) | A post-apocalyptic role-playing video game for several platforms; early games were top down 2D while the last four are 3D; spiritual successor to Wasteland |
| Far Cry 5 | 2018 | An action-adventure first-person shooter game set in the fictional Hope County, Montana that has been taken over by a cult who believe the end of the world is about to occur. Towards the end of the game, radio broadcasts begin hinting that the world outside is in chaos and a nuclear war is imminent. If the resist ending is chosen, nuclear explosions appear around the player suggesting a nuclear holocaust has occurred. |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 2019 | An action-adventure first-person shooter game standalone sequel of Far Cry 5, set 17 years after the events of Far Cry 5, where the nuclear exchange known as "the Collapse" devastated the world, survivors attempt to rebuild the community in Hope County. Their efforts are however threatened by the Highwaymen, a roving band of organized bandits led by twin sisters Mickey and Lou. |
| Gamma World | 1978 | A post-apocalyptic role-playing game |
| Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number | 2015 | A top-down shooter game which is a sequel to Hotline Miami; features a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States at the end of the game |
| M.A.D. Global Thermonuclear Warfare | 2001 | PC Strategic simulation game released by Small Rockets |
| Metro 2033 | 2010 | A survival horror first-person shooter set in post-apocalyptic Moscow |
| Metro Last Light | 2013 | A survival horror first-person shooter which is a sequel to Metro 2033 |
| Missile Command | 1980 | An action video game which was wildly popular in the 1980s, widely recognized in popular culture |
| The Morrow Project | 1980 | Role-playing game |
| Neocron | 2002 | A post-apocalyptic cyberpunk MMORPG for Windows |
| Norad | 1981 | An action strategy game for the Apple II, where the player defends the United States against a nuclear attack. |
| Nuclear Throne | 2015 | A twin-stick shooter roguelike following a group of mutants in a nuclear wasteland |
| Nuclear War | 1989 | A turn-based strategy game for Amiga and DOS |
| NukeWar | 1980 | A turn-based strategy game for Apple II, Commodore 64, and other early home computer systems |
| Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet | 2004 | A post-apocalyptic visual novel |
| Star Ocean: The Last Hope | 2009 | An action role-playing video game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 |
| Superpower 2 | 2004 | A real-time strategy wargame |
| Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers | 1984 | A board wargame |
| Theatre Europe | 1985 | A turn-based strategy video game about a fictional war in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, in which both sides use nuclear and chemical weapons against each other |
| Trinity | 1986 | An interactive fiction game examining the futile nature of nuclear war |
| Trojan | 1986 | Arcade game and platformer set shortly after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization, which is now overrun by occultists who are bent on terrorizing the surviving population with psychological and biochemical warfare |
| Twilight: 2000 | 1984 | A role-playing game |
| WarGames | 1984 | A video game based on the game in the hit movie |
| Warzone 2100 | 1999 | An open-source real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game |
| Wasteland | 1988 | A post-apocalyptic role-playing video game |
| Wasteland 2 | 2014 | A post-apocalyptic role-playing game; a sequel to Wasteland |
| 60 Seconds! | 2015 | A game where the player helps a family of 4 to survive inside a nuclear bunker |