A nuclear war breaks out in 1996, expending the world's entire nuclear arsenal, except for one missile. Two children, Philip Chandler (John Stockwell) and Marlowe Hammer (Michael Dudikoff), are abandoned by their fathers in a fallout shelter cut into the side of a wooded mountain. The pair grow up in the shelter, with 1950s detective fiction and swing music as the guiding force in their learning. Fifteen years later Marlowe succeeds in digging out the cave entrance. The pair give each other haircuts, dress in suits, and go to rejoin the world.
In the near future, an atomic disaster has reduced the world to poverty. Instead of a government, America is run by an organization called the Merchants, who exploit the degenerate remains of society. In order to keep control of the populace, the Merchants force Dr. Paul Dean (Robert Glaudini) to create a new life form, a parasite that feeds on its host. Realizing the deadly potential of such a being, Dean escapes the Merchants with the parasite, infecting himself in the process. Now on the run, he travels from town to town, studying the parasite so that he can find a way to destroy it, all the while keeping one step ahead of a Merchant named Wolf (James Davidson) who is hunting for him. While resting in a desert town, he is attacked by a gang of hooligans (Cherie Currie, Freddy Moore, Natalie May, Joanelle Romero, Tom Villard) led by Ricus (Luca Bercovici), a former slave of the Merchants. The gang steal a silver canister containing the parasite, not realizing what it is, and it escapes and infects one of the members. Meanwhile, Paul befriends a pretty young lemon grower named Patricia Welles (Demi Moore), who promises to help him destroy the escaped parasite. Ricus, trying to save the life of his friend, comes to Paul for help, only to be confronted by Wolf. Patricia, Paul, and Ricus manage to evade Wolf, but when they return, the parasite has spread to another member and grown into a fleshy worm with a mouthful of deadly teeth. Ricus becomes a turncoat and attempts to help, but ends up getting killed by Wolf. A friendly diner owner, named Collins, comes to aid the group. After Patricia helps kill the parasite bonded to Paul, which they electrocute, the worm attacks Wolf who is then blown up by Patricia, Paul, and Collins.
Set in a post-nuclear war of the year 2024, the main character, Vic (Don Johnson), is an 18-year-old boy, born in and scavenging throughout the wasteland of the former southwestern United States. Vic is most concerned with food and sex; having lost both of his parents, he has no formal education and does not understand ethics or morality. He is accompanied by a well-read, misanthropic, telepathic dog named Blood, who helps him locate women, in return for food. Blood cannot forage for himself, due to the same genetic engineering that granted him telepathy. The two steal for a living, evading bands of marauders, berserk androids, and mutants. Blood and Vic have an occasionally antagonistic relationship (Blood frequently annoys Vic by calling him "Albert" for reasons never made clear), though they realize they need each other. Blood wishes to find a legendary promised land where above ground utopias are said to exist, though Vic believes that they must make the best of what they have.
In the late 2030s, solar flares irradiate the Earth, killing over 99% of the world's population. The survivors gather in a network of safe cities and build primitive humanoid robots, called Pilgrims, to help rebuild and operate in the harsh environment. These robots have two unalterable protocols: they can not harm any form of life, and they may not modify any robot. Initially seen as mankind's salvation, they are relegated to manual labor when they fail to stop the advance of desertification. Society has regressed due to lack of technology besides the Pilgrims (lack of functional planes or other transport prevents travel and cars are a rare commodity) and humanity is on the brink of collapsing.
Siblings Barbara and Johnnie visit their mother's grave in a remote Pennsylvania cemetery. During their visit, Barbara is attacked by a zombie. Her brother comes to her defense but is killed. Barbara flees the cemetery and discovers what at first seems to be an abandoned farmhouse. She seeks shelter there, only to find another pack of zombies. Shortly after, a man named Ben arrives, and the two clear the house of the dead and begin the process of barricading the doors and windows.
An infectious virus has spread worldwide, killing almost the entire population. Two brothers, Brian and Daniel "Danny" Green, along with Brian's girlfriend, Bobby, and Danny's school friend, Kate, are heading to Turtle Beach in the southwestern United States, a secluded beach motel where they believe they can wait for the viral pandemic to die out and so they can start a new life. They strictly follow a set of rules that they believe will keep them all alive and stop them from becoming infected.
The year is 2078. The planet Sirius 6B, once a thriving mining hub, has been reduced to a toxic wasteland by a civil war between the mining company, known as the New Economic Block (NEB), and the Alliance, a group of former mining and science personnel. Five years into the war, Alliance scientists created and deployed Autonomous Mobile Swords (AMS) — artificially intelligent self-replicating machines that hunt down and kill NEB soldiers on their own. They are nicknamed "screamers" because of a high-pitched noise they emit as they attack. Screamers track targets by their heartbeats, so Alliance soldiers wear "tabs" which broadcast a signal canceling out the wearer's heartbeat and rendering them "invisible" to the machines.
A nomad scavenger treks through an irradiated wasteland and discovers a buried robot. He collects the pieces and takes them to junk dealer Alvy, who is talking with 'Hard Mo' Baxter, a former soldier, and Mo's friend Shades. When Alvy steps away, Mo buys the robot parts from the nomad and sells all but the head to Alvy. Intrigued by the technology, Alvy begins to research its background. Mo and Shades visit Jill, Mo's reclusive girlfriend, and, after an initially distant welcome where Jill checks them with a Geiger counter, Mo presents the robot head as a Christmas gift. Jill, a metal sculptor, eagerly accepts the head. After Shades leaves, Mo and Jill argue about a government sterilization plan and the morality of having children. Later, they have sex, while being unknowingly watched by their foul-mouthed, perverted, voyeuristic neighbor Lincoln Weinberg via telescope.
Dr. Jennifer Paige brings her sister Lisa to the resort town of Snowfield, Colorado, a small ski resort village nestled in the Rocky Mountains where Jenny works as a doctor. Once in town, the sisters find no one around but a few corpses. At first, their suspicions are that of a serial killer loose in town. After finding the severed heads of the town baker and his wife in an oven, the sisters are found by Sheriff Bryce Hammond, a former FBI agent haunted by the death of a boy he accidentally killed, and his deputies Stu Wargle and Steve Shanning who came to investigate the strange killings.
The film begins with footage from a news cameraman and reporter, who are covering a story about an immigrant man killing his wife and son before committing suicide. The son and wife turn into zombies and kill several medical personnel and police officers but leave one medic and a reporter bitten before being killed. The narrator, Debra, explains most of the footage was never broadcast, but was recorded by the cameraman.
Equilibrium is set in 2072 in Libria, a city state established by the survivors of World War III that devastated the world, where a totalitarian government requires all citizens to take daily injections of "Prozium" to suppress emotion and encourage obedience. All emotionally stimulating material has been banned, and "Sense Offenders" – those who fail to take their Prozium – are put to death, as the government claims that the cause of all wars and violence is emotion. Libria is governed by the Tetragrammaton Council, led by "Father", who is seen only on giant video screens throughout the city. At the pinnacle of Librian law enforcement are the Grammaton Clerics, who are trained in the martial art of gun kata. The Clerics frequently raid the "Nether" region outside the city to search for and destroy illegal materials – art, literature, and music – and execute the people hiding them. A resistance movement, known as the "Underground", emerges with the goal of toppling Father and the Tetragrammaton Council.
Executioners reunites the main characters of The Heroic Trio in a dark, post-apocalyptic story set in a world ravaged by war, torn by social and political strife, and desperately short of uncontaminated water.
In the near future war rages across the fictional Republic of Gilead and pollution has rendered 99% of the population sterile. Kate is a woman attempting to emigrate to Canada with her husband and daughter. While attempting to take a dirt road, they are caught by the Gilead Border Guard, who orders them to turn back or they will open fire. Kate's husband uses an automatic rifle to draw the fire, telling Kate to run, but he gets shot, Kate gets captured, whilst their daughter wanders off into the backcountry confused and unaccompanied. The authorities take Kate to a training facility with several other women, where they are all trained to become a Handmaid, a concubine for one of the privileged but barren couples who rule the country's religious fundamentalist regime. Although she resists being indoctrinated into the cult of the Handmaids, mixing Old Testament orthodoxy and misogyny with 12-step gospel and ritualized violence, Kate is soon assigned to the home of the Commander and his cold, inflexible wife, Serena Joy. There she is renamed "Offred" - "of Fred".
In 2022, a comet strikes Earth causing an 11-year drought. By 2033, most of the little remaining water is held in reserve by Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell) and his Water & Power (W&P) corporation, which uses the water to control the population. Rebecca Buck – "Tank Girl" (Lori Petty) – is a member of a commune in the Australian outback that operates the last water well not controlled by the corporation. In an attack on the commune, W&P troops kill Tank Girl's boyfriend, Richard (Brian Wimmer), and capture Tank Girl and her young friend Sam (Stacy Linn Ramsower). Rather than killing her, Kesslee tortures and enslaves the defiant Tank Girl. Jet Girl (Naomi Watts), a talented but introverted jet mechanic who has given up trying to escape W&P, urges Tank Girl to make less trouble for their captors, though Tank Girl refuses. Among other forms of torture, W&P personnel push her down into a long pipe and fill it with water.
All remaining reserves of petroleum have finally run out; forcing people to ration the few remaining containers of gasoline left on the earth against mercenaries and warlords. Straker and his men (accompanied by his daughter Corlie - played by Annie McEnroe) find a vast supply of diesel fuel in a compound once thought to be radioactive. When Corlie refuses to execute the previous owners, she runs away from base camp. Hunter (Michael Beck), on his amazing (possibly ex-future-military) motorcycle, rescues the girl and takes her to his farm. After keeping her on the farm on a temporary basis, Hunter sends her off to live in a walled city (known in-film as Clearwater Farm) governed by a strict old-fashioned democracy (similar to the Quakers) where she is quickly accepted by the community. However, she is soon discovered by the mercenaries commanded by her father, Colonel Straker (James Wainwright), who moves to attack the Clearwater community. In the chaos that ensues, Corlie manages to escape back to Hunter's remote hideout. Straker terrorises the residents of Clearwater, taking their weapons, medicines, and other supplies and handing the women over to his men.