Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

Countdown to Armageddon

TIFF Cinematheque - Retrospective

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Join us as we celebrate the End of Days with such apocalyptic (and post-apocalyptic) classics as Dr. Strangelove, The Road Warrior, Children of Men and, of course, Armageddon.

Films in Countdown to Armageddon

    • Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    • Stanley Kubrick
    • Peter Sellers brilliantly plays three roles — stiff-upper-lipped British flier Lionel Mandrake, ineffective American president Merkin Muffley, and crazed, wheelchair-bound ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove — in Stanley Kubrick's nightmarishly hilarious satire of atomic-age madness.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • Logan's Run
    • Michael Anderson
    • In a seemingly utopian, post-apocalyptic society whose inhabitants peacefully consent to disintegration at age 30, a rebel (Michael York) goes on the run from his preordained fate, in this sparkling digital restoration of the sci-fi cult classic.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • Melancholia
    • Lars von Trier
    • As a pathologically depressed newlywed (Kirsten Dunst) confronts her personal existential crisis, existence itself is placed in jeopardy by an enormous meteor on a collision course with Earth, in controversial director Lars von Trier's stylistically daring end-of-the-world drama.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • Children of Men
    • Alfonso Cuarón
    • Alfonso Cuarón's dazzlingly directed dystopian thriller, set in a bleak future where all of Earth's women have become mysteriously infertile, follows a cynical, alcoholic journalist (Clive Owen) as he tries to smuggle a miraculously pregnant young refugee to safety.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • Zardoz
    • John Boorman
    • A loincloth-clad barbarian (Sean Connery) in a far-distant future discovers the bizarre truth about his people's god in John Boorman's astronomically ambitious and hilariously dreadful cult classic.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • The Quiet Earth
    • Geoff Murphy
    • A scientist awakens from a narcotic slumber and discovers that he is the last man left on Earth — maybe — in this contemplative, stylish and surprisingly funny apocalyptic sci-fi drama, whose mind-bending premise and inventive, low-budget visuals helped make it an international cult hit.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • Armageddon
    • Michael Bay
    • When NASA scientists detect an asteroid "the size of Texas" on a collision course with the Earth, they do what any sensible person would: launch a dysfunctional crew of roughneck oil drillers into space to destroy the thing before it wipes out life as we know it. Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler star in action-movie "auteur" Michael Bay's grandiose, absurd, Aerosmith-propelled paragon of cinematic excess.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • Last Night
    • Don McKellar
    • As an unspecified cataclysm looms, a group of Torontonians try to decide how to spend their final hours, in Don McKellar's warm, witty and bittersweet apocalyptic comedy.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • Reign of Fire
    • Rob Bowman
    • In a flame-scorched future where dragons (yes, dragons) have taken over the world, the leader of a small band of survivors (Christian Bale) reluctantly teams with a bald, bearded, cigar-chomping mercenary (a hilariously over-the-top Matthew McConaughey) to take the fight to the fire-breathers.

    • No events playing at this time.
    • The Road Warrior
    • George Miller
    • The mysterious, maybe mad Max (Mel Gibson) comes to the aid of a peaceful commune under siege from a band of vicious desert marauders in George Miller's action-packed, high-velocity dystopian nightmare.

    • No events playing at this time.

As we prepare for the preordained (according to incorrect readings of the Mayan calendar) end of the world (not really) on December 21, 2012, what better way to spend our rapidly diminishing time than speculating on how we're going to buy the farm? The movies have long provided us with visions of our End of Days, ranging from the solemn (The Quiet Earth) to the satirical (Dr. Strangelove), the subtle (Last Night) to the spectacular (Armageddon), the shirtless (The Road Warrior) to the McConaughey (Reign of Fire). Come ride out the Rapture with us as we survey the wide, wonderful world of apocalyptic cinema.

—Jesse Wente