12 Movies And Shows To Watch If You Like The Last Of Us

Highlights

The Last of Us is a cinematic achievement that combines horror, adventure, and deep characterization.
The TV adaptation of The Last of Us introduces terrifying and memorable moments, along with complex multi-layered characters.
Fans of The Last of Us will enjoy other content like Twisted Metal, 28 Days Later, To the Lake, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, and more.

Three-image collage of the main characters from Netflix's Sweet Tooth, Viggo Mortensen's character in The Road, and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant.

The Last of Us was one of the final PlayStation exclusives for the PS3, and what better way to close out the console than with a cinematic achievement from Naughty Dog that masterfully combines horror, adventure, and deep characterization. It's gotten many awards and has since spawned a sequel, along with an HBO adaptation starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

The TV series put you through some really terrifying and memorable moments, like Joel's upside-down shooting, the Firefly hospital shootout, and your encounters with the Clickers, Bloaters, and Rat King, while introducing many complex multi-layered characters that reshaped gaming. If you love the games and the adaptation, check out these next!

The poster for Peacock's Twisted Metal, featuring Stephanie Beatriz's character. Anthony Mackie's character, and Sweet Tooth in the truck.

Where To Stream: Peacock

There's lots to love about Twisted Metal if you're a fan of The Last of Us. It's based on another PlayStation exclusive and set during the apocalypse. The main character travels across America encountering various enemy factions in the wasteland in an attempt to join an 'idyllic' community, aquiring a companion he doesn't gel with along the way.

While The Last of Us has a smattering of comedic moments to lighten the mood when things get very grim, Twisted Metal is largely a hilarious action comedy, from the creators of Zombieland and Deadpool. The story written for the show and the character development that it brings is spectacularly well-executed, especially given the game's premise.

11 28 Days Later

Cillian Murphy as hospital patient Jim in scrubs, wandering the empty streets of an apocalyptic London.

Where To Stream: Sling TV

The Last of Us brought something new to zombie games with its unique Cordyceps infection rooted in science, compelling characters, and emotional cinematic storytelling. It was very similar to the impact director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland's 28 Days Later had on zombie movies.

Instead of the infected's brains being hijacked by a fungal parasite to cause a violent rage, in 28 Days Later, chimpanzees infected with the Rage Virus as part of an experiment are unleashed on Britain's population. The story is told through the eyes of Jim, played by Oppenheimer and Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy, who's awoken from a coma and plunged into harrowing encounters of London's post-apocalyptic environment.

10 To The Lake

Lyonya standing in front of Sergey and Irina pointing an AK-47 rifle at someone off-screen.

Where To Stream: Netflix

To the Lake is a Russian offering on Netflix, about the early days of a strange virus running rampant in Moscow and turning people into violent infected. The added twist is that it's an awkward family affair, where Sergey is in a group of survivors that also includes his ex-wife, and their young son as well as his new lover and her son.

The story centers on the scary and uncertain survival of Sergey's friends and family, and its tense, tragic, and shocking moments are similar to The Last of Us. In fact, it feels as if the first game's prologue section kept going and was set in Moscow.

9 The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

Daryl speaking with Laurent in a garden area of the Convent in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.

Where To Stream: AMC+

The world of The Walking Dead has expanded quite a lot alongside its main 11-season run, but the one most similar to The Last of Us is 2023's The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, in which Norman Reedus' iconic character gets shipped off to a convent in France.

Daryl is put in charge of a boy named Laurent, who was born in a very similar way to Ellie in the show, with his mother also having given birth to him while infected and exposing him to the virus. This makes him very important cargo, and Daryl will have to help safely transport him across France to a resistance group called the Union of Hope, overcoming vicious enemies and obstacles along the way.

8 Beef

Steven Yeun's Danny Cho with a glass of champagne being confronted by Ali Wong's Amy Lau at a fancy party in Beef.

Where To Stream: Netflix

Beef is for fans of The Last of Us Part 2. If there's any other beef between two characters that can top Ellie Williams and Abby Anderson, it's the one between Steven Yeun's Danny Cho and Ali Wong's Amy Lau. It all starts with a honk as one car backs out of a parking lot, and quickly escalates into an obsessive and unpredictable tale of revenge for two people fueled by road rage.

Part comedy, part family drama, and part case study of marriage and wealth, Beef is a short ten-episode miniseries that has deservedly won many awards for its outstanding narrative about how life can get gravely upended as a result of revenge. The drastic lengths these characters go to in ruining each other's lives and the ending they receive parallels Ellie and Abby's.

7 A Quiet Place Part 1 And 2

Emily Blunt's Evelyn with her kids Marcus and Regan hiding inside a bunker from the alien threat.

Where To Stream: Paramount+

The Quiet Place films are another excellent horror follow-up to The Last of Us as they largely share the same survival themes, characters, and even enemies. Like the Clickers in The Last of Us, the alien creatures that landed on Earth in A Quiet Place are blind and have a heightened sense of hearing to rapidly attack based on sound and movement.

The movies are directed by The Office and Jack Ryan's John Krasinski and star him alongside his wife, Emily Blunt. The first film is more suspenseful and contained, focusing mainly on the Abbott family's survival at their farmhouse, while the sequel greatly expands on the characters and backstory to introduce Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou.

6 The Revenant

Close-up of Leonardi DiCaprio's character Hugh Glass in the freezing snow with a vengeful expression on his face.

Where To Stream: Amazon Prime Video (For purchase)

The Revenant is a perfect revenge tale starring Leonardo DiCaprio as historical figure Hugh Glass, based on the book The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke. Revenge is certainly what it's all about, even to the point where the book's title had to emphasize it, and you'll be immersed in Hugh's journey just as you were in Abby and Ellie's.

Hugh Glass is a fur trader betrayed by his company of fellow trappers who end up murdering his son and leaving him for dead after a near-fatal bear attack. Persevering through the pain of his wounds and brutal survival conditions in frigid climates, Glass sets off on a vengeful pursuit of Tom Hardy's Fitzgerald to see that he meets a fitting end.

5 Children Of Men

Kee wrapped in a coat holding onto Theo Faron's hand as they row away on a boat.

Where To Stream: Amazon Prime Video (for purchase)

If John Erick Dowdle's 2015 film No Escape had a baby with Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, you'll get Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. This movie also paints a dystopian future where the birth rate has completely declined due to infertility, with no babies being born for nearly two decades. At least until the miraculous case of Kee.

Kee is a refugee who was able to get pregnant and is now in need of safe transport for her and her baby in a war-torn and chaotic world, being hunted by various groups and constantly on the run. Tasked with helping Kee to get to where she needs to go is Theo Faron, portrayed by actor Clive Owen.

4 The Northman

Close-up of Alexander Skarsgard's Amleth with blood on his face and a harrowing shocked look.

Where To Stream: Starz

One look at Alexander Skarsgård's face in this still from The Northman will have you comparing his traumatized expression to the one of Ellie on the original The Last of Us Part 2 PS4 cover. He and Ellie have clearly both seen and done some horrific things, all in the name of revenge.

The Northman is an adaptation of an old Viking legend that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet. Skarsgård's character is Amleth, who witnesses his father's murder by his uncle at a young age. He goes on to create a mantra of enemies he'll kill and carries the murders out brutally. Though slow at times, this movie is a graphic spectacle of revenge and the cinematography and direction are masterful.

3 See

Jason Momoa's character Baba Voss leading his tribe through a rocky path, with his wife Maghra right behind him.

Where To Stream: Apple TV+

See is a sci-fi show developed for Apple TV+ by Peaky Blinders writer and creator Steven Knight which reinvents where futuristic dystopian fiction can go with a unique and brutal storyline. Instead of low to no birth rates, See's future envisions a more primitive society like the Horizon games, but where everyone has started to be born blind, and has adapted to fight as warriors in opposing factions.

Jason Momoa stars as protagonist Baba Voss, who's a stepfather and protector to his wife Maghra's two children, Kofun and Haniwa, both of whom were born with the now rare gift of sight. As a result of their unprecedented abilities, they're being hunted by the malicious forces of Queen Kane and Baba Voss' brother Edo Voss (Dave Bautista), who also wants revenge for their father's death.

2 Sweet Tooth

Christian Convery's antlered Gus walking in front of his protector Tommy Jepperd as they pass by some woods gazing toward something.

Where To Stream: Netflix

If you want another television series similar in premise to The Last of Us, the hybrid fantasy post-apocalyptic tale Sweet Tooth about an H5G9 virus responsible for creating hybrid animal-like people is very close. Similar to Joel and Ellie, this one follows a stranger named Jepperd protecting an antlered boy named Gus through their perilous journey across the US.

Sweet Tooth is based on the Vertigo comics of the same name by author and illustrator Jeff Lemire that predates The Last of Us. Also notable is that this show is executive produced by the husband and wife duo of Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey.

1 The Road

Viggo Mortensen's character cautiously walking alongside his son in a snowy path in the woods, looking at something with shocked expressions on their faces.

Where To Stream: Starz

The Road is adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, and it tells a post-apocalyptic story of a father and son, played by Viggo Mortensen and a much younger Kodi Smit-McPhee, dealing with a world of ash and cannibals. The visuals and atmosphere will instantly remind you of The Last of Us, even if there are no infected.

Also significant is that The Road was one of the sources of inspiration for the team at Naughty Dog when creating The Last of Us, and you can already start to see which parts it influenced. The story precisely combines emotional moments, sweet ones, gripping suspense, harrowing survival, and the dark themes of The Last of Us series.