I finally watched Iron Sky, which is a very silly movie about a secret colony of Nazis hidden on the dark side of the moon, that has been plotting the “liberation” of earth for 70-some years. It’s got some nice, diesel-punk (that’s like steampunk, except moved forward about 40 years) sets and devices. It has some nice homages to a couple of movies (Dr. Strangelove, Downfall, just to name two) without beating you over the head with it. It was fun.

I especially liked the song that played over the end credits, “Under the Iron Sky”—not just because its chorus line, “We will meet again, under the Iron Sky,” was a nice nod to Kubrick’s choice to play “We’ll Meet Again,” over the end credits of Dr. Strangelove. While I was checking to see if the song was available to buy online (it is, along with an entire album of music inspired by the movie released by the Finnish band, Kaiti Kink Ensemble), I got thinking about other end-of-the-world movies and why I like them.

I wound up polling my twitter followers for more suggestions of end-of-the-world movies. That spawned a side conversation about the difference between a post-apocalyptic story versus a story about an apocalypse. For me, not all post-apocalyptic stories are end-of-the-world stories. And though I’ve been thinking about it for a whole week, I still haven’t been able to clearly articulate why I think of Mad Max as an end-of-the-world story, but Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome are post-apocalyptic but not end-of-the-world in my head.

However, since I polled my twitter followers, I’m going to poll you! Note that you can choose Other and type in the name of your favorite if it isn’t listed.

Also, please feel free to add a comment with your own thoughts on the subject. I want to post a follow-up on the subject. Maybe by then I’ll have a better idea of how to explain my definition of end-of-the-world movie!