George Romero's zombie (or "ghoul") movies contain multiple themes about psychology, war, communication, and family -- all in the guise of scary, often gory cinema. (Romero's other works, such as The Crazies (1973) and Martin (1978), also worth seeking out.) Here's a summary:

Night of the Living Dead (1968): (Note: You can currently watch this whole movie online for free.) Prior to Romero's Night of the Living Dead, zombie movies tended to involve Haitian voodoo. This film established many of the rules, themes, and tropes we now associate with the zombie genre. Filmed in gritty black-and-white on a budget barely more than what you'd get from a few days at a lemonade stand, the story is a classic house siege, with a handful of strangers banding together to board up doors and windows, while listening to a radio to try to figure out what's going on. Duane Jones plays Ben, the leader of the group, which eventually splinters into conflict as the flesh-eating "ghouls" attack and people die off one by one. Shot in an area near Pittsburgh, with some brief segments in Washington D.C., the film has an inadvertent (somewhat) political subtext because later scenes resemble archival footage of Ku Klux Klan lynchings and racist posses. Though Jones was cast for his acting skills and handsome bone structure, he was an African American, and Romero maing him the lead actor was a bold move in 1968. In spite of its low-budget roughness, the film remains a must-see for anybody who wants to know the zombie genre's starting point. (The film was remade in 1990; I've heard it's pretty good.)

Dawn of the Dead (1978): This follow-up movie takes the entire concept up a level by setting the siege in a shopping mall, a brilliant concept that inherently links mindlessly hungry ghouls to conspicuous-consuming shoppers. The plot is brilliant too: The ongoing sequence involving communication across rooftops builds a Hitchcock Rear Window type of suspense. It would be fun to watch this back-to-back with Zack Snyder's slick 2004 update, which stars Sarah Polley, though the remake is designed more for thrills than for themes. (I have an idea for Dawn of the Dead Part 2: Zombies Line Up Their Cars at the Grand Opening of a New Krispie Kreme. Followed by Dawn of the Dead Pt. 3: Zombies Order Processed-Brain Foodstuffs Through Amazon.)

Day of the Dead (1985): The story pushes ahead to a post-civilized world, where enclaves of military and scientific types hide out in bunkers, with helicopters their only means of travel. They've captured zombies and attempt to study their brains and nervous systems, often doing grotesque surgical experiments on the "living" ghouls. In the mid-1980s, the public was becoming aware of, and debating the ethics of, cruel uses of vivisection and product experiments on animals. This movie feels like it's channeling some of those debates. It also shows some of the ghouls, particularly one named Bub, becoming self-aware and remembering their human pasts. This is the first zombie film where one might feel more empathy for the undead than many of the living characters, whose power conflicts approach Lord of the Flies levels.

Land of the Dead (2005): It's full-on post apocalypse time, and the zombies themselves (led by one named Big Daddy) have organized their own factions. It sounds almost like Planet of the Apes. Thematically the film appears to address multiple issues, including class stratification and wartime politics. George Romero's return to the genre, nearly 20 years after his previous installment, was spurred by the resurgence after hits like 28 Days Later.

Diary of the Dead (2008): This one is said to be a rather off-the-cuff, cinema verite commentary on mass media, along the lines of Cloverfield. Beth Accomando of KPBS, who is a zombie-movie expert in her own right, called the film "bloody fun, bloody smart and just plain bloody good."

Survival of the Dead (2009): This was the last film directed by Romero (1940-2017). Though it was not considered one of his better ones, it showed he still had plenty to say about society. The story, continuing a subplot in the previous film about National Guardsmen who go AWOL, is said to have been inspired by the 1958 William Wyler western The Big Country.

Called "Shaun of the Dead meets La La Land," this musical-style, Christmas-set zombie story doubles as a coming-of-age teen drama. This might make a good double feature with Dead & Breakfast (2004), a musical zombie comedy.

Theme/meaning?: Human connection is important even in times of crisis.

Blood quantum laws, aka Indian blood laws, involve how Native Americans determine authentic ancestry. The movie depicts a zombie uprising within a First Nations reservation in Canada.

Theme/meaning?: The zombie story is an entry point into issues of history, generational trauma, and racial tensions between Natives and colonizers.

Starring Elliot Page and Sam Keeley, this Irish horror drama shows what happens after a cure is found for a zombie virus. Society becomes divided between the Cured and the Resistant, with a new form of bigotry and social conflict as a result.

Theme/meaning?: The story touches on political themes of assimilation, segregation, and revolution.

This film is about zombies in Africa, which is a whole other continent o' creepiness. As promotional materials put it, "the Dark Continent becomes a dead zone." Though the central character is an American, the film was a British production, with the Africa scenes shot in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and the Sahara Desert. The whole movie is currently free online.

Theme/meaning?: The setting is ripe for commentary about colonialism and other global issues.

Important note: Do not confuse this with The Dead (1987), director John Huston's adaptation of one of James Joyce's great short stories from Dubliners (1914). Long ago, I attended a free screening of that movie in which the audience, prompted by the title, was expecting a zombie horror flick. While Donal McCann and Anjelica Huston expertly acted out scenes from a dinner party that results in the kind of sad philosophical revelations that often take place in Ireland when it's snowing, confused audience members walked out one after another, leaving only me and a handful of committed Joyceans around for the closing ruminations about spiritual malaise.

The official title was Braindead, but due to overlap confusion with another film, most audiences now know the movie as Dead Alive. This extremely gory, very silly early Peter Jackson entry would make a perfect double feature with Evil Dead II. The film makes it abundantly clear how much the New Zealand director restrained himself while shooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy, because the man (and collaborator Fran Walsh) clearly loves outlandish excess.

I'm pretty sure this is the only zombie movie that originates with a bite by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey. Somehow the infection ties in to a shy, sweet budding romance between Timothy Balme and extremely lovable Latina actress Diana Peñalver.

Highlights of the mayhem include a slapstick zombie baby who should not be let loose at a playground, and a zombie-fighting priest who proclaims "I kick ass for the Lord!"

Theme/meaning?: There's a wildly tasteless Oedipal drama about an overprotective mother, who by film's end literally wants her too-sheltered son to return to the womb. There's an old joke about how "Freud's mom must have been hot!" that definitely does not apply here, given the son's ongoing makeovers to his zombie mama's deteriorating flesh.

This is influential indie director Jim Jarmusch's comedic, absurdist stab at the zombie genre, with a cast that includes Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Danny Glover, and Steve Buscemi. The story depicts a zombie uprising in a small town, with scenes in diners, the local police station, and a funeral home. Jarmusch's deadpan style is not for all tastes. Gaunt rocker Iggy Pop plays a zombie, which seems like the ultimate what-took-them-so-long casting coup. 

Theme/meaning?: Human passivity in response to environmental and global crisis. Even when they hear the world is falling apart due to things like "polar fracking," characters are more concerned about their phone service.

This isn't a "virus" zombie film, but rather one where people are possessed by evil due to incantations of a demonic book called the Necronomicon. Though the first Sam Raimi movie in the series, Evil Dead (1981), played its low-budget horror straight, Evil Dead II is pure slapstick zaniness.

Bruce Campbell's performance as Ash has to be seen to be believed, especially when his own hand turns against him. (An unrelated comedy film, Idle Hands, takes the "possessed hand" idea and runs with it.)

If you like Evil Dead II then Raimi's follow-up, Army of Darkness (1992), is great Medieval-based fun -- though it's less a zombie film than a creative free-for-all with scenes right out of Don Quixote or Gulliver's Travels.

Theme/meaning?: If there's a theme, it's the joy of cinematic excess. Evil Dead II also is like a satirical mirror image of Evil Dead, so you sense Sam Raimi cathartically revisiting everything he did earlier when he barely had a budget.

Based on Mike Carey's well-regarded YA (young adult) novel, this is a very well-made, post-apocalyptic zombie ("hungries") film about a parasitic fungus. Here on Screenopolis, James Digiovanna listed it among the best films of the 21st century so far.

Theme/meaning?: Scientific ethics and how to teach moral responsibility to the young generation, who are likely to be skeptical of the adults who have ruined everything. Has a refreshingly female sensibility and cast.

The original 2009 French film (beware of unrelated other movies with the same title) provides a c'est génial take on the need for opposing groups to cooperate during a crisis. In this case the rivals are police and gangsters, who normally would go together like Crème Brûlée and escargot in a blender.

Theme/meaning?: Cooperation, even between mortal enemies, is the only way humans can survive.

Aubrey Plaza seems an inspired casting choice for a comedy about a zombified girlfriend, whose undead status aligns with her tendency toward jealousy and emotional chaos.

Theme/meaning?: Apparently, the entire film is a take on the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.

A synopsis says this movie dramatizes a father (Arnold Schwarzenegger) caring for his daughter (Abigail Breslin) as she transforms into a "necroambulist" zombie, staying by her side and respecting her dignity until the inevitable occurs.

Theme/meaning?: The grief a family member goes through while a loved one succumbs to a terminal illness.

The zombie genre is used as the basis for an existentialist story about isolation. Protecting himself from the zombie apocalypse outside, the main character creates a safe, comfortable apartment space, but what does it all add up to if he has no companions?

Theme/meaning?: Seeing a way past or through the repetitive, mundane, eventually soul-crushing nature of solitary existence. While playing the drums.

The Omega Man is based on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend, and it's fair to say that this novel is the granddaddy of what we consider the modern zombie genre. George Romero's films, from Night of the Living Dead on, also owe a debt to the novel. What makes these stories not purely "zombie" stories is that the monsters are a combination of zombie and vampire, mainly emerging at night and having human-like intelligence as opposed to the shambling "braaaiiiinsss" style of sleepwalker-resembling zombies.

The 1964 film stars Vincent Price, and fits more into the B-movie realm of the pre-gore era. The 2007 film stars Will Smith and used what were then next-level CGI effects to achieve the look of an abandoned Manhattan. Though the 2007 film has the best action/suspense sequenes, and most effective version of the sub-plot about the dog, fans of the novel will gladly tell you all the things that movie gets wrong.

I like Omega Man the most, because it's a particularly weird version that takes a lot of 1970s-style creative liberties with the story, so much so that it has become a cult favorite. Charlton Heston stars, and this could be considered part of a Heston sci-fi trilogy that also includes Soylent Green (1973) and Planet of the Apes (1968), not to mention the latter's kooky sequels.

Scenes of a green-velvet coat Heston playing chess with his mannequin are peak early-'70s cinema. The Omega Man also ties into the black-power movement of its time, casting black actors such as Eric Laneuville and Lincoln Kilpatrick, who look bizarre when wearing pale contact lenses. The film contains one of the first white-black kisses in a major Hollywood film. (However, William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols had it beat by three years on TV's Star Trek.)

Theme/meaning?: The I Am Legend films have psychological themes about isolation, technology's dangers, and questions about whether the hero is, in fact, an anti-hero.

Many of the "best zombie movies" lists include this recent entry from Japan. It's a satirical comedy in which a film crew has to shoot a zombie horror show in one take. Based on a stage play called Ghost in the Box!, apparently (and maybe this is a spoiler) they bring real zombies to life on accident, while continuing to film the mayhem unaware. Or something like that. I gotta see this thing.

Theme/meaning?: Much like Day for Night (1973) or similar movies about movies, the story celebrates the passion and collaborative zaniness of the filmmaking process.

This is a different entry in the zombie list, because the mode of transmission is not bites or toxic plasma (etc.), but language itself.

Set in Canada, the story involves a radio shock jock who both witnesses and hears broadcasts about people turning rabid as a result of certain types of verbal communication (including baby talk).

This is one of those films where, like A Quiet Place (2018), the best method of survival involves shutting your stinking trap. The premise reminds me of a book I read a few years ago, Max Barry's 2013 Lexicon, in which unusual words have deadly effects.)

Theme/meaning?: To paraphrase William S. Burroughs, language is a virus. The Talk Radio (1989)-like setting makes it clear that the film is making a parallel between mass media and people's irrationality.

It's fair to say that there is a causal relationship between the rise of pundits (the late Rush Limbaugh, Fox News hosts, podcasters, etc.) and the deterioration of civic discourse. Misinformation, memes, and ideological echo chambers turn people into different entities. Except instead of chanting "brains" they chant things like "I did my own research."

This doesn't need a lot of explaining: It's the filmed version of the 2009 novel, which parodies the 1813 Jane Austen classic about Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy's long road to mutual love and swimming-in-a-pond knickers wetness. Lily James and Sam Riley star.

Theme/meaning?: The Jane Austen novel was about people of integrity trying to navigate the difficult waters of class struggle while finding something resembling romantic fulfillment and family cohesion. Now add zombies and martial-arts asskicking to that.

Zombie-movie lists almost always rank the 2007 Spanish film -- but not the U.S. remake -- very high. It's a found-footage movie of the Blair Witch Project variety, though thankfully with less up-the-nostrils footage.

Theme/meaning?: The story blends the usual breakdown of social order with concerns about fascism as only Spanish storytellers, that is, experts on Francisco Franco, can. (See also: Pan's Labyrinth.) The story also pulls in themes about media's intrusiveness, and claustrophobia.

Throughout the early 2000s, the Resident Evil movies (based on a Japanese videogame) seemed to keep growing like little Milla Jovovich-shaped mushrooms. The first one, in 2002, was a solidly entertaining sci-fi/horror entry with a slick, almost cyberpunk feel thanks to director Paul W.S. Anderson.

Girlpower warriors like Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez have to navigate a creepy underground biolab. Nevermind the zombies, some of the boobytrap security systems are frightening, including a diamond-grid lasercutter that slices people into little gore cubes. I still shudder thinking about that Damien Hirst-like scenario. The primitive CGI of that film looks quaint now. I'm not sure how the sequels held up, but if I had to guess, they became progressively sillier -- with the final one (in 2017) involving a place called "Raccoon City." (There are also spin-off movies.)

Theme/meaning?: Science out of control, viral plagues, greedy corporations, biological weapons, and the evils of Big Pharma. The zombie apocalypse might not be a good time to go off your meds. 

This comedic, punk-rock-satirizing zombie film invented the brains-eating, "Braaaiiiinnns!" moaning variety of zombie. This was the directing debut of Dan O'Bannon, who co-created Dark Star (1974) with John Carpeneter, and later wrote the screenplay for Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). So there are creative chops behind this goofy movie, and if you don't care about that, you could still enjoy watching the B-movie actress Linnea Quigley, as a punker who dodges cadavers reanimated by toxic gas made by military experiments.

Theme/meaning?: The intent was to subvert zombie tropes, ripe for tomfoolery a decade-and-a-half after Night of the Living Dead. This might be the peak Reagan-era zombie flick.

This low-budget, social-commentary mockumentary feels a little too relevant in this era of ICE abudctions. In an Arizona/Mexico border town, an undocumented immigrant is accused of committing a massacre -- with nobody realizing that there might be other, ghastlier causes. The entire film is currently online for free.

Theme/meaning?: Who are the real zombies? Might the American justice system, the anti-immigrant xenophobes, the racists, and the confirmation-bias-stoking media be among the unthinking hordes?

This comedy always tops the favorite-zombie-movie lists, because it's loaded with quippy dialogue (delivered with lightning timing by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg) and directed on all cylinders by Edgar Wright. This was the first of what the threesome called their Cornetto Trilogy (Hot Fuzz and The World's End followed).

The story involves a young Londoner who is uninspired by his job and has no ambition besides video games and hanging out at a favorite pub, so his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) gives him the boot. The zombie invasion sneaks up on him and his friend as they go about their aimless day. While they form a survivor posse and hole up in a bar, the two friends work through their malaise about modern life. My favorite scene has them throwing vinyl records at zombies to keep them away -- sure, surviving is important, but it hurts to destroy collectible records in the process! At that point is it even worth it?

Theme/meaning?: This is a coming-of-age story about "putting away childish things" to become an adult, even if the middle-class adult world looks an awful lot like turning oneself into a zombie.

I know, I know: They Live is not a zombie film. I've included it because its premise is like a twist in which it turns out that we are the zombies -- stuck in a fascist world. The alien creatures, who disguise themselves as people by causing a form of mass hypnosis that hides their true appearance, have successfully put human beings in a trance that makes us very much like zombies.

The social commentary is similar to Dawn of the Dead: As consumers who are motivated by money, conformity, and other consumer-based identity traits, what is left of our humanity? And aren't we just being corralled and controlled, rather than exercising our own free will and power over our fate?

The scene where "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (mulleted protoype for a pro wrestler turned Hollywood leading man) finds sunglasses that let him see the truth is worth the price of admission. He realizes that billboards, magazines, and newspaper headlines are sending subliminal messages such as "CONFORM," "OBEY OBEY OBEY," and "MARRY AND REPRODUCE." Paper money is emblazoned with "THIS IS YOUR GOD." Maybe we're the zombies and we don't know it.

Theme/meaning?: Beyond the above, the story comments on the power of advertising and mass media to direct people's motives. It shows how the ruling class (the top 10 percent) prefer to stay hidden from view while benefiting greatly from their manipulative efforts. This is absolutely an apt statement and one everybody should take to heart while reading the news and heading to the voting booth.

Zombies aside, this is also one of the best action/suspense films involving a train, and it makes a strong case for South Korean filmmaking excellence. Directed by Yeon Sang-ho, the live-action film was followed by an antimated sequel, Peninsula (2020), as well as a prequel called Soul Station (which is said to be inferior). The story centers on a workaholic father who has partial custody of his young daughter.

The film is somewhat reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's 2005 War of the Worlds in that the father's main goal is to get his daughter to safety while traveling. In this case he is taking her on a train, and he (along with everybody else) is surprised to see that society is falling apart one train stop at a time. (Among other things, the film gives a nice geographical look at different suburban and rural areas of South Korea.)

Theme/meaning?: As the story develops, the train passengers become a microcosm of (South Korean) social hierarchies, with different ages and classes representing various mindsets and attitudes. A villain emerges from the upper classes -- an older executive who freely lies and exploits others to ensure his own survival. The emphasis on class stratification is in line with many other popular South Korean exports, including Squid Game (2021) and its sequels, and the films of Bong Joon Ho (Parasite, Snowpiercer, The Host).

28 Days Later jumpstarted the zombie resurgence of the 2000s, and 28 Weeks Later (2007) kept the (rotting, fleshy) ball rolling. Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland were part of a standout creative team alongside a cast that included Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson. The movie's new-ish idea for zombies was that they can run! Fast! Previously, you could almost get past zombies if you just weaved and did the "Serpentine!" thing ala Peter Falk and Alan Arkin from The In-Laws (1979). Not anymore.

A very recent follow-up, 28 Years Later, is said to be very good, and an additional film (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple) is slated for January 2026.

Theme/meaning?: Fragile civiliation, human nature's foibles, and the utter stress induced by fast zombies. What the heck -- they're supposed to be slow! Why are they running at me?