Dystopian fiction has at all times been a vital participant within the science fiction and horror genres, however within the twenty first century it is really risen as much as grow to be its personal dominant class. Here you may discover the best possible of TV dystopia, starting from zombie hellscapes to AI apocalypses to smaller pitfalls, like societies totally dominated by social media factors or worlds the place the whole lot you see will get recorded in your mind like video information.
Massive plagues, nuclear winters, robotic uprisings, time journey paranoia, and folks vanishing into skinny air — these 19 TV exhibits (plus one miniseries) symbolize the cleverest, scariest (and infrequently most poignant) — dystopian tales ever advised. Some are post-apocalyptic whereas some are simply individuals in an workplace with a microchip of their head that is break up their consciousness. All we’re searching for is a darkish imaginative and prescient of the long run, close to or far, that crackles with depth, intrigue, and creativeness.
If films are what you search, nonetheless, then take a look at the Top 10 Apocalypse Movies of All Time and the 6 Post-Apocalyptic Movies You’ve Probably Never Seen. Heck, IGN readers even voted on their Favorite Post-Apocalyptic World from Movies and TV!
But if it is TV you are after, then proceed on as we dig into Fallout, Severance, The Walking Dead, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Last of Us, and extra. Here are the Top 20 Dystopian TV Shows of All Time!
20. Twisted Metal
We’ll kick the listing off with some riotous carnage. 2024’s Twisted Metal adaptation, from Zombieland’s Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, was precisely the kind of violent silliness that was referred to as for (and precisely what the Borderlands film ought to have been, for what it is price). Anthony Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Encanto), and the tag workforce combo of Samoa Joe and Will Arnett (physique and voice for Sweet Tooth) star on this intelligent and goofy showcase of a world of walled-off cities and expendable couriers used to drive and ship packages throughout the harmful post-apocalypse wasteland.
Watch the primary season of Twisted Metal on Peacock. Season 2 is coming this summer season.
19. Paradise
The latest present on this listing — on which there are literally a superb variety of latest collection — is Hulu’s Paradise. And with out giving too a lot away for many who have not caught the primary season, let’s simply say that it is a White House homicide whodunnit? amidst the backdrop of an extinction degree occasion. Emmy-winner Sterling Ok. Brown reunites with This is Us creator Dan Fogelman for among the finest thriller field exhibits since Lost went off the air. Playing trusted Secret Service agent Xavier Collins to James Marsden’s affable President Cal Bradford, Brown performs each side of the deep conspiracy coin amidst a backdrop of a world-ending disaster. Julianne Nicholson and Sarah Shahi additionally star.
Watch the primary season of Paradise on Hulu. Season 2 has been greenlit.
18. Into the Badlands
Only a number of exhibits introduced right here truly kick ass on a visceral, violent degree, and Into the Badlands, which includes some really superior combat choreography, leads that individual pack. From Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville, Wednesday, Shanghai Noon), this from-the-ashes actionfest exhibits us the world 500 years from now, ruined by warfare, the place a U.S. territory often called the Badlands is dominated by Barons and dominated by blade and melee weapons (weapons are a no no). Daniel Wu performs one of many realm’s most deadly warriors, caught up in the entire harmful drama unleashed by this ravaged world. A stirring, bloody, dystopian cleaning soap that is price watching.
Watch all three seasons of Into the Badlands on Netflix or AMC+.
17. The Last Man on Earth
Will Forte’s comedic cringefest is a few foolish, egocentric loser, Phil, who, after months on his personal following a world-ending pandemic, discovers there are literally different survivors on the market. The downside is Phil’s a clumsy sociopath and the hearty laughs unspool as solely Mr. Forte can present. Like Twisted Metal a number of entries again, The Last Man on Earth is a uncommon comedy we’re together with to interrupt up the dystopian dourness. It’s formidable, audacious, and really gut-busting. Kristen Schaal, January Jones, Mary Steenburgen, and Jason Sudeikis co-star.
Watch all 4 seasons of The Last Man on Earth on Hulu.
16. The 100
One of the true tenured CW long-timers, that, you recognize, wasn’t Supernatural or a part of the Arrowverse was The 100 — a sci-fi saga, loosely based mostly on books by Kass Morgan, a few hundred teenage delinquents despatched right down to the Earth’s floor from an orbiting, malfunctioning Ark to see if the planet’s floor is survivable following a nuclear warfare that worn out the whole lot.
Over the course of 100 episodes (it was a should!), these characters endure harsh components, brutal warfare, a dastardly AI, interdimensional journey, and a few surprisingly darkish content material. In truth, The 100, which deviates fairly considerably from the novels, could be the grimmest present on this countdown.
Watch all seven seasons of The 100 on Netflix.
15. Jericho
In the most important case of fan appeasement for the reason that Firefly film Serenity bought made, CBS’ Jericho was introduced again for a second season, saved from cancellation by fervent followers who ran a powerful SAVE JERICHO marketing campaign. Sure, it solely lasted for yet one more season, and plans for a follow-up film had been finally scrapped, however Jericho nonetheless stands as one of the crucial well-known cult collection ever.
Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James (forward of The Walking Dead), Michael Gaston, Ashley Scott, and Gerald McRaney starred on this nuclear fallout drama concerning the residents of the fictional metropolis of Jericho, Kansas, remoted because of lack of energy and communications. Eventually warfare breaks out with a neighboring neighborhood whereas, within the background, a brand new militarized authorities units up store within the Western half of the U.S.
Created by Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure), Stephen Chbosky (writer of The Perks of Being a Wallflower), and Jonathan E. Steinberg (Black Sails, Percy Jackson and the Olympians), Jericho’s all about sustaining one’s humanity whereas making an attempt to reboot society.
You can watch the 2 seasons of Jericho on Paramount+.
14. Westworld
You’ll see Jonathan Nolan’s identify twice on this listing however we needed to name out a secret third Jonah Nolan present, Person of Interest. It began as a CBS procedural a few billionaire and a depressed mercenary saving individuals’s lives based mostly on a surveillance algorithm and it expanded brilliantly into a totally serialized collection about warring AIs. It’s not a “dystopian” present, per se, as a result of it was about characters making an attempt to stop a dystopia, however nonetheless.
It’s additionally an amazing precursor for what Nolan would do on Westworld, an AI apocalypse collection that truly exhibits you, over the course of 4 seasons, how the world ends. What begins as a robotic Wild West theme park experiencing malfunction and bloodbath (that includes the primary sparks of AI turning into “conscious”) spins out into some critical apocalyptic wild swings. In truth, this might have simply been the world our heroes on Person of Interest had been combating to cease.
Season 4 was not meant to be the finish-end however HBO un-renewed the collection after already having greenlit a Season 5. Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright, Aaron Paul, and James Marsden starred.
The 4 seasons of Westworld are usually not out there on Max. You can buy them on varied platforms or watch Season 1 on Tubi.
13. The Walking Dead
At one level, for a pair years, The Walking Dead was the highest-rated present on TV. Sure, the zombie style had been working extremely popular all by way of the 2000s however nothing like this had ever made it to TV. Based on the acclaimed Robert Kirkman comedian collection, The Walking Dead bought individuals to observe horror who by no means would usually. Heck, whole households watched this collectively and it typically featured gore that was exponentially nastier than you’d see in a film.
The Walking Dead, pure and easy, labored and when it was one fireplace it was a juggernaut of motion, suspense, love triangles, heartache, and nail-biting shut calls. And it will place even increased on the listing if AMC had simply let it go when the time was proper. But now, after nicely over a decade on the air, it nonetheless carries on with a number of spinoffs. Now, to be honest, a number of the new exhibits have benefit, however actually just for die-harders. That being that, there was a time when Rick, Daryl, Carol, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, and the remainder of the zompocalypse survivors dominated the f’n roost.
Watch all 11 seasons of The Walking Dead on Netflix.
12. Squid Game
Man, dystopia loves a recreation present. It loves competitors. Whether it is tales like Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, The Running Man, Death Race 2000 and even the enjoyable one-off business in RoboCop promoting Climbing for Dollars (the place to gather money the participant has to climb a rope over a pit of snarling, indignant canines). We’ve been condemning late-stage capitalism for years and among the finest strategies is to create leisure about individuals’s determined have to survive.
It’s no marvel then that viewers flooded to South Korea’s Squid Game in 2021, making it Netflix’s most-watched collection to today. We watched as a divorced father and playing addict joined the ranks of 455 gamers on a crazed, nightmarish recreation present the place these in debt play deadly kids’s video games for a jackpot prize. Squid Game has a pointy brutality and eager social commentary, making for compelling, addictive, and squirm-worthy TV.
Watch the 2 seasons of Squid Game on Netflix. The third and remaining season shall be launched on June 27, 2025.
11. Fallout
Jonathan Nolan’s newest dive into dystopia is his profitable adaptation of Fallout, the large recreation franchise concerning the wasteland future world of an alternate historical past America. This time, nonetheless, not like the morose machinations of Person of Interest and Westworld, Fallout sticks to the giddy gallows humor of the video games, performing not a lot as a retelling of one of many standard video games however as a brand new Fallout installment that exists alongside them.
Nolan, co-creating with Lisa Joy and Bethesda Game Studios, nails the tone of the video games whereas additionally canonically increasing the lore and including to the mosaic. Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell stars as a Vault Dweller, with no above-ground life expertise, exploring the skin world in the hunt for her lacking father (Kyle MacLachlan). There she encounters a Brotherhood of Steel hopeful, Maximus (Aaron Moten), and a former Hollywood cowboy (Walton Goggins) who’s nonetheless alive, and disfigured, 200 years after doomsday due to radiation. Fallout is a darkly comedian dive into an insane world of ghoulish gunslingers, mech-suited mercs, mutated beasts, and Vault Boy propaganda.
You can watch the primary season of Fallout on Prime Video. Season 2 has been greenlit.
10. Black Summer
The excellent sleeper on the listing, Black Summer is the best zombie present to ever stream. Even when you’ve uninterested in the style and are performed with undead hordes terrorizing trembling survivors, we implore you to take a look at this sinister, ingenious descent into hell. Z Nation creators Karl Schaefer and John Hyams envisioned Black Summer as a derivative, or companion piece of kinds, however the place Z Nation had a tongue-in-cheek high quality, Black Summer is a vicious, scathing potboiler that does not let up. Fast-moving zombies are taking up the world and our primary characters are simply merely surviving. The whole time. It’s relentless and excellent.
It’s additionally uniquely formatted, separated into segments titled with characters’ names. Segments that may run from one minute to 10. And the episodes themselves will be 40 minutes or 20. Black Summer is lean and imply. It’s simply the world falling. You know, the s*** that occurred when Rick Grimes was in a coma.
You can watch the 2 seasons of Black Summer on Netflix.
9. Silo
By itemizing Silo right here, we’re additionally giving a delicate nod to the Snowpiercer collection which, after switching networks, wrapped up its fourth and remaining season final summer season. We’re evaluating the 2 as a result of that present and Silo give us a destroyed, desolate future — Snowpiercer of ice, Silo of (as but) unknown wreck — the place the final survivors of the human race are saved away inside an enormous steel tube that is their solely likelihood of survival, and likewise due to the exploration they each sort out of sophistication revolution. The entrance of the practice/again of the practice dynamic is now the highest of the Silo/backside of the Silo battle.
Yes, as an alternative of a practice, Silo is… nicely, set in an enormous subterranean silo. One that comprises ten thousand individuals. One of whom is Juliette, a headstrong engineer from the low ranges who’s mysteriously named as the brand new “Sheriff” following the loss of life of the earlier one. Silo, based mostly on an acclaimed e-book collection, is a surprising present, performing as virtually a star car for powerhouse Rebecca Ferguson as she takes Juliette by way of a intelligent conspiracy thriller set amongst a inhabitants whose histories have been erased, and all previous artifacts outlawed, in order that they do not even know what’s exterior the silo or what the Before Times had been like. Tim Robbins, Common, Rashida Jones, and Steve Zahn co-star.
You can watch the primary two seasons of Silo on Apple TV+. Season 3 has been greenlit.
8. Severance
Sticking with Apple TV+ right here, Severance is the streamer’s greatest hit ever, mesmerizing followers with a unusual, upsetting dystopia the place an experimental mind chip permits individuals to separate their work self right into a separate consciousness — unleashing an avalanche of moral dilemmas about creating life that is simply imprisoned labor.
At first, the premise of Severance gave the impression of a Black Mirror episode stretched out (notably features of the “White Christmas” particular) but it surely rapidly established it is personal offbeat world, tone, and look, borrowing from Terry Gilliam, Jacques Tati, and extra for a fabulous thriller collection that offers a nefarious new which means to the time period “return to workplace.” Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, John Turturro, and Christopher Walken star on this devilish head-scratcher from creator Dan Erickson and EP/director Ben Stiller.
You can watch the primary two seasons of Severance on Apple TV+. Season 3 has been greenlit.
7. Station Eleven
“I don’t wish to reside the improper life after which die.”
The lone miniseries on the listing, Station Eleven, based mostly on the e-book by Emily St. John Mandel, appears to be like on the world throughout, and after, a pandemic kills off a lot of the inhabitants and reduces society to scattered, primitive clusters. We comply with a lady, Kirsten (Matilda Lawler and Mackenzie Davis), as she survives the collapse of the whole lot, rising as much as be part of a touring efficiency troupe that traverses the Great Lakes area performing Before Times performs and poems.
Leftovers author/producer Patrick Somerville as soon as once more offers with international colony collapse, hope, love, and cults, gifting us with probably the most Leftovers-feeling collection since The Leftovers. Station Eleven is transcendent TV, the kind that touches your soul. Unfortunately, it was launched throughout 2020 when hardly anybody needed to observe a narrative the place a virus wipes out all civilization, however those that noticed it understand how highly effective and delightful the collection is.
You can watch all 10 episodes of Station Eleven on Max.
6. Black Mirror
An astute, principally upsetting anthology collection, performing as our twenty first century Twilight Zone, Black Mirror is an outstanding assortment of mini-movies about imagined futures for humanity that vary from uniquely augmented to downright miserable and diabolical. Focusing totally on know-how, or generally social media, visionary Charlie Booker’s magnum opus about desperation, distraction, and unchecked superior tech has delivered a number of the most annoying TV within the historical past of the medium.
Black Mirror has additionally given us some outstanding love tales, from the acclaimed “San Junipero” to the algorithm-busting “Hang the DJ.” Of course, counter to which might be the chapters that drop the ground out from underneath you, whether or not it is a world the place persons are compelled to soulcycle for forex (“Fifteen Million Merits”) or the place their consciousness will be transferred in horrible methods (“Black Museum,” “White Christmas,” “USS Callister”) and even — to some a devastatingly well timed story — a future the place each single social interplay is given a score (“Nosedive”). Black Mirror is harrowing pulp that resonates deep inside.
You can watch all seven seasons of Black Mirror on Netflix.
5. 12 Monkeys
Dismissed as a foul concept, as most TV exhibits based mostly on beloved films wind up being ultimately, 12 Monkeys took the time journey ball and ran the f’n distance. Over 4 seasons, 12 Monkeys went from being a tweaked model of the Terry Gilliam film (and, in flip, Chris Marker’s La Jetée from 1962), with the central characters you are roughly aware of (contemplating how the film was an enormous showcase for Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt), and ballooned right into a first-class journey concerning the idea of predestination versus free will, elevating the bar at each flip.
12 Monkeys begins with Aaron Stanford’s Cole making an attempt to return in time to cease a world-ending plague, a extra primary nod to the film, but it surely blossoms into full exploration of the post-apocalyptic world that Cole comes from. It’s actually within the later seasons that the present turned its personal great, great factor. It’s a severely underrated time journey thriller that must be checked out. Amanda Schull, Emily Hampshire, Kirk Acevedo, and Todd Stashwick co-star.
The 4 seasons of 12 Monkeys are usually not presently streaming, however they’re purchasable.
4. The Handmaid’s Tale
One of the bleakest entries on this listing, The Handmaid’s Tale is usually a troublesome watch. It unapologetically lays out a merciless, oppressive, misogynistic future the place a second Civil War has created a totalitarian regime that makes use of girl as child-bearing slaves. Margaret Atwood’s pivotal 1985 novel is vividly delivered to life right here, haunting us with each twist and switch.
It’s a heavy collection, to not be binged evenly, but it surely’s headlined by Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss and her ferocious efficiency as Offred, a lady who’s captured and compelled into a lifetime of servitude amidst a brand new world of horrifying non secular extremism. The Handmaid’s Tale is meticulously paced, totally suspenseful, and generally, actually, too a lot to bear. Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, Alexis Bledel, and Bradley Whitford additionally star.
Watch all six seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu.
3. The Last of Us
The Last of Us is not simply the perfect video game-adapted TV collection of all time, it is only a flat out good watch, taking an impressive story arrange from the Naughty Dog recreation franchise and transferring it to tv, including daring new takes, twists, and turmoil whereas additionally protecting the core components that labored — specifically the connection between near-suicidal apocalypse survivor Joel and plucky, vengeful teen Ellie (who simply may be the important thing to saving the whole world from its hostile mushroom zombielords).
Casting was paramount right here, and stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey deftly ship the Joel and Ellie we want for this complete zombie (however not “zombie”) collection to work. At its ugly coronary heart, The Last of Us is a narrative about love and loss and the household we discover once we assume all hope has been extinguished. The finest instance of that is “Long, Long Time,” an episode that took two aspect characters from the sport and extrapolated one of many best love tales ever placed on display.
The present can also be about inconceivable selections and horrible decisions, the hallmarks of nice dystopian horror and sci-fi. Season 2 is lastly upon us and most viewers merely will not be prepared for the extraordinary drama forward. Craig Mazin (“Chernobyl”) and Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann have given us again the guts that The Walking Dead misplaced years in the past.
Watch the primary season of The Last of Us on Max. Season 2 premieres April 13, 2025.
2. The Leftovers
Not solely does The Leftovers, which lasted three superb seasons on HBO, uniquely current a world battling each grief and existential nervousness following a mini-Rapture sort occasion, the place 2% of the inhabitants vanished with out rationalization, but it surely additionally simply occurs to be one of many best TV exhibits of all time. Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta (loosely adapting his personal novel) current a wealthy panorama of wondrous happenings and vivid characters, toplined by Justin Theroux’s Kevin and Carrie Coon’s Nora.
The Leftovers evolves from a strong-yet-forlorn first season into an exceptionally magical expertise in Seasons 2 and three, by no means answering why the individuals disappeared however as an alternative dwelling inside that uncertainty and portray an unlimited mural of each trauma and pleasure. This is an ethical crucial for TV lovers. Not your typical “dystopia,” however a world gone mad nonetheless.
Watch all three seasons of The Leftovers on Max.
1. Battlestar Galactica
The work that Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica did for legitimizing style TV can’t be overstated. Science fiction was at all times about exhibiting us a mirror — utilizing parables, metaphors, and tucked away social commentary — however BSG was a landmark present. It was a strong, mature area odyssey throughout the latest Golden Age of TV, capable of simply compete with the Sopranos, Shields, and Wires of the period.
As for the “dystopia” facet? Absolutely. It’s simply possibly not what we have come to count on over time. It’s a future hellscape… for a distinct, previous iteration of individuals. A cautionary story, if you’ll, as we comply with the remnants of humanity fleeing by way of area after a mass genocide carried out by their very own AI creations — Cylons, who now look similar to people. It’s an professional have a look at post-9/11 concern and paranoia with a stellar ensemble, together with Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Tricia Helfer, and extra. With huge moments and crafty twists that may make your coronary heart each soar and sink, BSG reworked a clunky ’70s sci-fi collection, which had some retro cult love, and gave it grandeur and gravitas.
Watch all 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica on Prime Video (by way of the tip of April).
What’s your favourite dystopian TV collection? Is there one we missed that you just’d have appreciated to see on the listing? Vote in our ballot and hold forth under.
