The 1968 horror movie Night of the Living Dead is widely credited as beginning the on-screen fascination with zombie apocalypses. Since then, stories of flesh-eating corpses raised from the dead have come to dominate movies and television. Franchises like 28 Days Later have generated a 24-year lifespan and counting, while others, like Zombieland, have attracted A-list casts.
The zombie craze soon made its way to television, but the genre’s popularity has also threatened to be its downfall, as the zombie trope has become predictable. Some stories have attempted to stand out by avoiding the word “zombie“, instead rebranding them as “infected“, “walkers“, “necrotics”, “ghouls”, or even simply “Z’s“.
In reality, though, the originality of a zombie story comes not from what its zombies are called, but from the caliber of its characters, world-building, and emotional purpose. These ten shows have continued to truly evolve the genre, pushing the limits of what a “zombie show” can be.
Dead Set
2008
From the creator of Black Mirror, Dead Set was one of the first shows that played a part in popularizing the zombie genre on TV. Despite being a trailblazer, the series remains among the genre’s most innovative and relevant. The five-episode limited series, which concluded its original run on Halloween of 2008, explored the onset of a zombie outbreak during the production of a fictional season of Big Brother.
Dead Set was largely a satire, but rather than satirizing the zombie genre, it took aim at reality television and media consumption culture. By not softening its horror elements, Dead Set’s story became an unsettling combination of survival and self-reflective social commentary. Fans of Black Mirror’s unnervingly astute societal reflection will find a similar tone in Dead Set.
The Walking Dead
2010-2022
With 11 seasons (which were paired with a live aftershow on their first airing) and six spinoffs, The Walking Dead has become the quintessential zombie TV show. While the zombies, or “walkers,” posed an ever-present threat to the survivors, the show famously focused on the interpersonal dynamics of the living. Fellow survivors were often just as dangerous as the walkers.
The show’s longevity was especially impressive when considering the story’s nomadic and violent nature. The Walking Dead‘s setting and cast were both constantly evolving to the point that only two original main cast members remained on the show through its series finale. Nonetheless, its themes, thrills, and emotional core gave The Walking Dead a staying power that continues to live on today.
Helix
2014-2015
While many zombie stories explore the fallout of a zombie outbreak, including an often mysteriously absent Centers for Disease Control, Helix focused on the logistics of the outbreak itself, with its story centered around a CDC team attempting to learn about and control a potentially devastating virus. Even more unusual, Helix introduced the idea of a cure for its infected.
With zombies only being a piece of its puzzle, Helix‘s scope was ambitious. The show included the tense survival situations that have become a trademark of the zombie genre, but it also featured a sprawling sci-fi plot that included secret organizations, government-level cover-ups, and chemically manufactured immortality. Ultimately, Helix was a zombie show whose intrigue went beyond its living dead.
iZombie
2015-2019
iZombie deftly transitioned between genres and tones throughout its run, at no point becoming anything the zombie zeitgeist had already experienced. The show’s interpretation of zombies was much looser than many others, giving main character Liv Moore an almost vampiric need to feed on human brains for her own survival.
iZombie initially took on a crime procedural format, taking an approach akin to Dexter that allowed Liv to utilize her unique skills while also minimizing the harm she inflicted on others. Yet the show organically grew darker and more serialized as its world’s larger cultural response to zombies encroached on its characters’ way of life. Despite a lackluster finale, iZombie‘s nimble journey is worth watching.
Santa Clarita Diet
2017-2019
Santa Clarita Diet was a zombie story with no outbreak or apocalypse. When Drew Barrymore’s run-of-the-mill suburbanite Sheila suddenly devolved into a zombie, she joined a small, largely unknown undead population that remained a minority in relation to humans throughout the show’s run. The show’s conflict and comedy came instead from Sheila attempting to balance her bloodlust with regular life.
Santa Clarita Diet only improved as it went on and grew more comfortable with its uncomfortable tone. Despite its put-together suburban setting, the show was gratuitous with its gore, contributing to its comedic juxtaposition between Sheila’s old life and new, bloodthirsty one. The A-list cast made Santa Clarita Diet an especially entertaining and refreshing watch for zombie fans open to something silly.
Black Summer
2019-2021
Z Nation‘s prequel series had an arguably longer-lasting impact on the zombie genre than Z Nation itself. While Z-Nation had a campier, lighter feel, Black Summer dared to switch genres into a full-fledged drama. Like The Walking Dead‘s prequel, Black Summer detailed the beginning of the outbreak that Z-Nation began in the middle of, and it did so with more success than Fear the Walking Dead.
Black Summer fully embraced the horrors of its world, which were made even scarier and more unexpected by Z-Nation‘s comedic precedent. The chaos and confusion of an actively collapsing society was tangible in Black Summer and grounded by its sharply focused characters. Ultimately, Black Summer was able to stand tall on its own, the coveted legacy of any spinoff.
Happiness
2021
The zombies in Happiness were deemed to be infected with “mad person disease“, one of the genre’s more chilling monikers. The term also spoke to the question of the level of humanity retained by the infected, a central thematic conflict of the series. The show’s blurred line between zombies and humans gave Happiness a nuance rarely seen in the zombie genre.
Mad person disease was spread through both bites and scratches, pairing the increased humanity of the show’s zombies with a higher risk of infection. This created a simultaneous sense of heightened paranoia around the infected, as well as a compassion and confusion about them that was unique even among the zombie genre’s greatest hits.
All Of Us Are Dead
2022-Present
This South Korean series makes great use of its high school setting and characters. In All of Us Are Dead, the trivial teenage challenges of bullies and interpersonal drama have true life-or-death stakes, elevating the story’s problems to a level of importance that matches how its characters really feel about them. The show doesn’t feel like teenage melodrama, but rather a relentless, harrowing story of survival.
The series weaves between a detailed focus on the events at Hyosan High, the source of the outbreak, and a broader exploration of how the virus spread from there into the wider community. These parallel stories keep the show moving and allow for both a personal, emotional story and a big-picture depiction of societal collapse. All of Us Are Dead season 2 will explore a new outbreak in Seoul.
The Last Of Us
2023-Present
The Last of Us brought video game adaptations into the mainstream and officially made them a part of the quality TV conversation. The show gained massive popularity among both fans of the video games and new viewers alike, bringing a new level of stardom to Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.
I’m Officially Worried About The Last Of Us’ Fate On HBO
With one of the creators leaving and the other looking for the exit, The Last of Us’ future on HBO beyond season 3 seems worryingly uncertain.
Just like the games, the show’s “infected” are often genuinely chilling, but the intense emotional relationship between Ellie and Joel is what truly elevates the show. That dynamic fundamentally changed with season 2, and the show’s flawless reputation changed along with it, but its genuinely stellar first outing has cemented The Last of Us‘ unforgettable impact on the zombie genre.
Pluribus
2025-Present
Pluribus is such a complete reinvention of the traditional zombie apocalypse that it is perhaps debatable whether it belongs in the genre at all. Ultimately, though, Pluribus depicts a virus that has taken over the vast majority of the human population, turning them into beings that are out of their right mind and eat people.
Nonetheless, Pluribus is more of a thought exercise than an action-packed fight for survival in the traditional sense. The show’s “zombies” make a compelling case for their way of life, living in complete harmony with one another, sharing all of mankind’s collective knowledge, and claiming to be happier than anyone could even comprehend. The only threat facing the survivors is becoming one of them.