From other zombie comedies like Shaun of the Dead to other Jim Jarmusch-directed absurdist horror films like Only Lovers Left Alive, there are a ton of great movies like The Dead Don’t Die to check out. Now streaming on Netflix, The Dead Don’t Die tackles the familiar setup of a small-town zombie invasion in a completely unfamiliar way. As usual, the local cops are tasked with fending off the undead, but this movie has cops that know they’re in a movie, a zombie-slaying samurai played by Tilda Swinton, and a hefty dose of Jarmusch’s signature deadpan humor.
There’s no other movie quite like The Dead Don’t Die — it’s a very unique cinematic experiment — but there are movies with similar tones and styles. There are other movies that take a quirky comedic approach to a zombie apocalypse, like Life After Beth. There are other horror films with a refreshingly offbeat voice, like the improvised slasher Creep and the gonzo creature feature Tusk. There are other movies by Jarmusch featuring the same key actors, like Paterson and Coffee and Cigarettes. There are plenty of great films to check out after The Dead Don’t Die.
10 Zombieland
The Dead Don’t Die takes a comedic approach to the zombie apocalypse and uses the dawn of the dead to satirize the absurdity of American culture. The same conceit forms the basis of Ruben Fleischer’s comedy blockbuster Zombieland, just on a much larger scale. Where The Dead Don’t Die tackles small-town America, Zombieland spans the entire nation. Jesse Eisenberg leads a star-studded ensemble of mismatched survivors who reluctantly team up for a cross-country road trip in search of a zombie-free sanctuary.
Much like The Dead Don’t Die, Zombieland upends the tropes of zombie movies with a sly self-awareness. There’s a great running gag with an endless list of rules for surviving in a zombie-infested world. The slapstick and self-awareness of Zombieland are the perfect antidote to the seriousness of zombie stories like The Walking Dead.
9 Creep
What makes The Dead Don’t Die so special is that it’s an unusually quirky and offbeat take on the horror genre. Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass’ Creep has the same quality. Brice plays a freelance videographer who’s hired to film the last will and testament of an eccentric man who claims to be terminally ill, played by Duplass. As the night draws on, the videographer begins to realize that his client is lying and has no intention of letting him leave.
Creep is a thrilling two-hander carried by Brice’s everyman playing off Duplass’ disturbing slasher. Brice and Duplass improvised all the dialogue from a loose story outline, making Creep one of the only horror films to be shot in the style of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Most importantly, it makes the whole ordeal feel hauntingly authentic and true-to-life.
8 Paterson
Adam Driver’s dry, understated delivery style was perfect for Jarmusch’s dialogue in The Dead Don’t Die, but it wasn’t the first collaboration between the actor and filmmaker. They previously worked together on Paterson, a deeply touching character drama about regular people with big dreams. Driver plays a bus driver who writes beautiful poetry in his spare time, while Golshifteh Farahani plays his wife, who dreams of being a country music star/cupcake mogul.
Paterson might not be the most eventful movie; nothing really happens, and certainly nothing as exciting as a zombie uprising. But its characters and their everyday lives are strong enough that what could’ve been a really boring movie is surprisingly captivating. The poetry is well-composed, the performances are well-drawn, and the outlook is refreshingly optimistic. It’s a testament to creativity and the human spirit.
7 Little Monsters
Abe Forsythe’s Little Monsters, similar to The Dead Don’t Die, is a zany comedy set during a zombie apocalypse. It revolves around a washed-up musician, a children’s TV host, and a kindergarten teacher who all band together to protect a group of young schoolchildren on a field trip when a bunch of zombies escape from a nearby testing facility and attack them. Lupita Nyong’o and Josh Gad lead the cast with really hilarious performances.
Like The Dead Don’t Die, Little Monsters gets laughs out of blending the mundanity of everyday life with the thrill of a zombie outbreak. From Neil Diamond to Taylor Swift, it has some great musical numbers juxtaposed with the horror. Just when the zombie genre was starting to feel stale, Little Monsters came along and reinvigorated it with a fresh take on the mythos.
6 Delicatessen
Jarmusch offered audiences a darkly comedic vision of the apocalypse in The Dead Don’t Die, and its absurdist approach has earned it a cult following. The same could be said of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s French horror classic Delicatessen. It takes place in a dilapidated apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, where food is scarce. The landlord lures in unsuspecting victims with the promise of work, then promptly butchers them and feeds their meat to his tenants.
Delicatessen has an even grimmer sense of humor than The Dead Don’t Die — it gets laughs out of cannibalism — but it’s just as funny. Not only is it a visually stunning portrayal of a futuristic dystopia; it deals with a thought-provoking subtext that’s since been dissected. Delicatessen is a thematic parallel to the resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe.
5 Only Lovers Left Alive
The Dead Don’t Die isn’t the first time that Jarmusch has offered up his take on a well-worn horror trope. Long before he applied his deadpan humor to a zombie apocalypse, Jarmusch brought his passionate portrayal of romance to the vampire myth. Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as two vampires who have been married for hundreds of years, trying to survive in a world where they can’t go out in sunlight and need human blood for sustenance.
Just as The Dead Don’t Die uses a zombie apocalypse to satirize the breakdown of social order in small-town America, Only Lovers Left Alive uses a pair of immortal lovers to satirize the difficulties of long-term relationships and cohabitation. Relationships don’t get much more long-term than the centuries-old marriage of these two jaded bloodsuckers. Only Lovers Left Alive is as unique a vampire movie as The Dead Don’t Die is a zombie movie.
4 Tusk
Jarmusch isn’t the only acclaimed independent filmmaker to take a break from making talky low-budget comedies to helm an absurdist, experimental horror movie. 20 years after bursting onto the indie scene with his debut movie Clerks, Kevin Smith branched out into gonzo body horror with his deeply unsettling opus Tusk. Based very loosely on a true story, Tusk stars Justin Long as a podcaster who interviews an eccentric sailor, played by Michael Parks, and becomes the subject of his bizarre experiment to turn a human into a walrus.
Much like The Dead Don’t Die, Tusk bolsters its horror with a healthy dose of pitch-black humor. It’s truly disturbing to watch this poor guy get sewn into a suit of walrus skin. But there’s also something strangely funny about the whole situation — especially since Long’s character is an awful person who deserves some kind of karmic punishment.
3 Life After Beth
Just as The Dead Don’t Die is an ensemble piece about the residents of a small town that happens to contain zombies, Life After Beth is a coming-of-age romantic comedy that happens to contain zombies. Dane DeHaan stars as a young man who’s devastated when his girlfriend, played by Aubrey Plaza, passes away. He’s delighted when she mysteriously comes back from the dead, but he quickly finds that she’s not quite how he remembers her.
Writer-director Jeff Baena ingeniously blends all the familiar feelings of first love with this genre tale of a zombie slowly discovering her supernatural powers. Plaza is terrific as usual, while DeHaan is a great foil. Like The Dead Don’t Die, Life After Beth was poorly received by critics on its initial release, but it’s since been rightly reappraised as an underappreciated gem.
2 Coffee And Cigarettes
Jarmusch’s script for The Dead Don’t Die doesn’t focus on one main character; it chronicles the perspectives of a sprawling ensemble cast. Jarmusch previously made a movie in this style — minus the zombies — with his classic anthology movie Coffee and Cigarettes. Coffee and Cigarettes is a series of 11 vignettes with wildly different tones, casts, and stories, all connected by one simple motif: the characters on the screen all drink coffee and smoke cigarettes.
The ensemble of Coffee and Cigarettes shares a few cast members with The Dead Don’t Die: Bill Murray, RZA, Iggy Pop, and Tom Waits. All these performers are adept at delivering Jarmusch’s dry, deadpan dialogue, and they’re just as hilarious in Coffee and Cigarettes as they are in The Dead Don’t Die. Coffee and Cigarettes is essentially The Dead Don’t Die without zombies.
1 Shaun Of The Dead
The Dead Don’t Die is Jarmusch’s take on a zombie comedy, and the Citizen Kane of zombie comedies is Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead. Shaun of the Dead wasn’t the first movie to bring humor to the zombie genre, but it is by far the finest film in that quirky subgenre. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost star as a pair of slackers who contend with a zombie apocalypse over the course of a hectic day in suburban London.
Pegg and Wright’s airtight script is a great satirical deconstruction of the George A. Romero zombie movie formula transplanted into a British setting (the survivors hole up in a pub). Like The Dead Don’t Die, Shaun of the Dead uses its zombies more as an embellishment than the true narrative focus. Shaun of the Dead is a romantic comedy about making up with an ex-girlfriend after a breakup; it just happens to feature zombies.
English (US) ·