OUTBREAK !!! - TOP 30 MOVIES ABOUT EPIDEMICS, PANDEMICS & BIOLOGICAL DISASTERS

by Call-Me-Mr-Smith | created - 31 Jan 2020 | updated - 25 Jan 2021 | Public

Best 'science'-based movies about epidemics (mostly zombie-free). The list is set in no particular order. Suggestions and comments are welcomed - you can vote movies in or out of the list. Also available - "Survival - Ultimate and Comprehensive List", "Survival - Air Disasters", "Survival - Nuclear Holocaust" and "Survival - TV Series", and others.

 Refine See titles to watch instantly, titles you haven't rated, etc
  • Instant Watch Options
  • Genres
  • Movies or TV
  • IMDb Rating
  • In Theaters
  • Release Year
  • Keywords







IMDb user rating (average) to
Number of votes to »




Reset
Release year or range to »




































































































1. Contagious (1997 TV Movie)

PG-13 | 103 min | Thriller

When some shrimp from Colombia, tainted with cholera, is served to some people on a plane bound for L.A., an outbreak ensues. And a doctor sets out to find the source and contain it before ... See full summary »

Director: Joe Napolitano | Stars: Lindsay Wagner, Elizabeth Peña, Ken Pogue, Brendan Fletcher

Votes: 399

2. The Andromeda Strain (1971)

G | 131 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

60 Metascore

Top scientists work feverishly in a secret, state-of-the-art laboratory to discover what killed the citizens of a small town and how the deadly contagion can be stopped.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: James Olson, Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid

Votes: 40,398 | Gross: $3.42M

Top 10

3. Contagion (2011)

PG-13 | 106 min | Drama, Thriller

70 Metascore

Healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a pandemic as the CDC works to find a cure.

Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow

Votes: 315,709 | Gross: $75.66M

Top 10

4. Outbreak (1995)

R | 127 min | Action, Drama, Thriller

64 Metascore

Army doctors struggle to find a cure for a deadly virus spreading throughout a California town that was brought to America by an African monkey.

Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey

Votes: 137,667 | Gross: $67.82M

Top 10

5. The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

R | 129 min | Drama, Thriller

30 Metascore

Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease. Nobody will let them off the train. So what happens next?

Director: George P. Cosmatos | Stars: Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson

Votes: 9,872

6. Variola Vera (1982)

110 min | Drama, History, Horror

This is a true story of the famous Variola epidemic outbreak in Belgrade.

Director: Goran Markovic | Stars: Rade Serbedzija, Erland Josephson, Dusica Zegarac, Varja Djukic

Votes: 3,039

Top 10

7. Panic in the Streets (1950)

Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A doctor and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with pneumonic plague.

Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance

Votes: 8,825

Top 10

8. The Killer That Stalked New York (1950)

Passed | 79 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

Police seek a smuggler while doctors, unaware she's the same person, desperately comb unprotected New York for a smallpox carrier.

Director: Earl McEvoy | Stars: Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone

Votes: 1,797

Top 10

9. Pandora's Clock (1996)

PG-13 | 176 min | Action, Drama, Thriller

A man infected with a deadly virus boards Quantum Airlines flight 66 in Frankfurt, Germany. The US government must stop the plane before it lands at JFK International Airport.

Stars: Richard Dean Anderson, Daphne Zuniga, Jane Leeves, Richard Lawson

Votes: 772

10. The Plague (1992)

R | 148 min | Drama

In the 1990s, a South American city suffers the outbreak of a plague. The people react in different ways: Dr. Rieux tries to cure the sick, two French journalists expect sensational headlines, pious believers lament this God-given scourge.

Director: Luis Puenzo | Stars: William Hurt, Sandrine Bonnaire, Jean-Marc Barr, Robert Duvall

Votes: 973

11. Parts Per Billion (2014)

R | 98 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

In the midst of a manmade biological disaster and a terrible fate, three couples try to find meaning in their lives.

Director: Brian Horiuchi | Stars: Frank Langella, Gena Rowlands, Rosario Dawson, Josh Hartnett

Votes: 2,173

12. Virus (1980)

PG | 108 min | Adventure, Drama, Horror

After a virus devastates the global human population, survivors in Antarctica desperately try to find a cure and save the human race.

Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Masao Kusakari, Tsunehiko Watase, Isao Natsuyagi, Shin'ichi Chiba

Votes: 3,040

13. Flu (2013)

Not Rated | 122 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

40 Metascore

Chaos ensues when a lethal, airborne virus infects the population of a South Korean city less than 20 kilometers from Seoul.

Director: Kim Sung-su | Stars: Jang Hyuk, Soo Ae, Min-ah Park, Yoo Hae-jin

Votes: 14,599

Top 10

14. Plague (1979)

PG | 88 min | Sci-Fi, Drama, Thriller

An ambitious lab assistant carries out a forbidden experiment and accidentally creates a deadly bacteria which kills her and rapidly engulfs the city. The authorities order a curtain of ... See full summary »

Director: Ed Hunt | Stars: Daniel Pilon, Kate Reid, Céline Lomez, Michael J. Reynolds

Votes: 329

15. Virus (1995 TV Movie)

TV-PG | 92 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller

Who could have deliberately released a rare and deadly African plague that is now spreading uncontrollably throughout America's largest urban areas? A lone determined doctor desperately and... See full summary »

Director: Armand Mastroianni | Stars: Nicollette Sheridan, William Devane, Stephen Caffrey, Dakin Matthews

Votes: 427

16. The Satan Bug (1965)

Approved | 114 min | Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi

A germ that could destroy life on Earth is stolen from a biological warfare lab and the thief threatens to release it into the open, prompting a security officer to act.

Director: John Sturges | Stars: George Maharis, Richard Basehart, Anne Francis, Dana Andrews

Votes: 3,037

17. Ever Since the World Ended (2001)

78 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

64 Metascore

Twelve years after a plague, an intimate mockumentary shows how the 186 San Francisco survivors live now.

Directors: Calum Grant, Joshua Atesh Litle | Stars: James Curry, Linda Noveroske, Dan Plumlee, Aubrey Ankrum

Votes: 751

18. Die Hamburger Krankheit (1979)

117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

The BRD is haunted by a mysterious, deadly plague. In Hamburg, a group of people head for an odyssey through the country to search for survivors and a rescue.

Director: Peter Fleischmann | Stars: Helmut Griem, Fernando Arrabal, Carline Seiser, Tilo Prückner

Votes: 473

19. Counterblast (1948)

90 min | Crime, Drama

An escaped World War 2 Nazi doctor impersonates a murdered English doctor so he can work on a vaccination to protect Germans in their planned germ warfare.

Director: Paul L. Stein | Stars: Robert Beatty, Mervyn Johns, Nova Pilbeam, Margaretta Scott

Votes: 255

20. Containment (I) (2015)

TV-14 | 77 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

What happens when an epidemic breaks out, but you're kept in the dark? Anything can happen. Slowly the residents realize that they will all die unless they come together.

Directors: Chris Carr, Roland Holmes, Neil Mcenery-West | Stars: Lee Ross, Sheila Reid, Gabriel Senior, Andrew Leung

Votes: 3,440

21. Domain (2016)

Not Rated | 97 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

After a deadly virus wipes out most of humanity, the survivors are forced to wait in self-sustaining bunkers with a networked video interface for communication, but one by one, they start mysteriously disappearing.

Director: Nathaniel Atcheson | Stars: Britt Lower, Ryan Merriman, William Gregory Lee, Sonja Sohn

Votes: 1,572

22. Pandemic (2016)

TV-MA | 91 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi

47 Metascore

A New York doctor travels with her team to Los Angeles to find survivors of a worldwide pandemic.

Director: John Suits | Stars: Rachel Nichols, Alfie Allen, Missi Pyle, Mekhi Phifer

Votes: 8,466

23. Carriers (2009)

PG-13 | 84 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

As a lethal virus spreads globally, four friends seek a reputed plague-free haven. But while avoiding the infected, the travelers turn on one another.

Directors: David Pastor, Àlex Pastor | Stars: Chris Pine, Piper Perabo, Lou Taylor Pucci, Emily VanCamp

Votes: 49,626 | Gross: $0.09M

24. Blindness (2008)

R | 121 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

45 Metascore

A city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant white blindness.

Director: Fernando Meirelles | Stars: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael García Bernal, Yûsuke Iseya

Votes: 75,166 | Gross: $3.07M

Top 10

25. The Last Days (2013)

Unrated | 100 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

In this terrifying apocalyptic horror, a mysterious epidemic like no other has swept across the globe, leaving chaos in its wake.

Directors: David Pastor, Àlex Pastor | Stars: Quim Gutiérrez, Jose Coronado, Marta Etura, Leticia Dolera

Votes: 9,005

Top 10

26. Only (2019)

TV-MA | 98 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

53 Metascore

After a comet releases a mysterious virus that begins to kill all the women in the world, a young couple hides out in their over-sterilized apartment trying to fight for their lives.

Director: Takashi Doscher | Stars: Freida Pinto, Leslie Odom Jr., Chandler Riggs, Jayson Warner Smith

Votes: 3,868

27. Phase 7 (2010)

R | 97 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Inside a quarantined apartment building a man must protect his pregnant wife from his new neighbors.

Director: Nicolás Goldbart | Stars: Daniel Hendler, Jazmín Stuart, Yayo Guridi, Iride Mockert

Votes: 3,396

28. 80,000 Suspects (1963)

113 min | Drama

A doctor's already-shaky marriage is tested to an even greater extent when he has to contend with a smallpox epidemic.

Director: Val Guest | Stars: Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Yolande Donlan, Cyril Cusack

Votes: 323

top 10

29. Kansen rettô (2009)

138 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Tsuyoshi Matsuoka, a doctor at a Tokyo hospital, misdiagnoses a patient's disease as a common cold. But after the patient's sudden death, he realizes that it's very serious disease, which ... See full summary »

Director: Takahisa Zeze | Stars: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Rei Dan, Ryôko Kuninaka, Yûji Tanaka

Votes: 347

30. To the Lake (I) (2019–2022)

TV-MA | 48 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A terrible plague strikes and a group decides to risk their lives. Humanity struggles to survive as they face the end of their civilization.

Stars: Kirill Käro, Maryana Spivak, Natalya Zemtsova, Eldar Kalimulin

Votes: 15,224

31. The Seventh Seal (1957)

Not Rated | 96 min | Drama, Fantasy

88 Metascore

A knight returning to Sweden after the Crusades seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.

Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe

Votes: 198,242

a must see bonus movie



Recently Viewed