28 Years Later

Three decades after 28 Days Later transformed the zombie genre and became a cultural touchstone of early 2000s British cinema, Danny Boyle returns to the infected world he helped create. Set in a Britain that has quarantined itself from the rest of the world, 28 Years Later follows Isla (Jodie Comer), a nurse living in a survivor settlement, whose son's dangerous curiosity sets in motion a journey into the infected zones that will upend everything she thought she knew about the outbreak and its origins. The island is now a strange, enclosed ecosystem of communities built alongside — and in constant danger from — the rage-infected who still roam the countryside.

Boyle shoots the film in a raw, immediate style that recalls the original's documentary aesthetic while pushing further into painterly expressionism in its more hallucinatory sequences. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays a charismatic outsider whose motives remain opaque throughout, and Ralph Fiennes appears in a mesmerizing supporting role as a reclusive doctor who has spent decades studying the infected — and who may know far more than he's willing to share. The film expands the mythology of the franchise in meaningful ways without letting backstory overwhelm the moment-to-moment dread.

28 Years Later is the first of a planned trilogy — a confident, terrifying return to form that works equally well as a standalone thriller and as a setup for what's to come. Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have constructed a film that earns its place beside the classics of the genre, delivering genuine horror while engaging seriously with questions of isolation, community, and what it means to survive in a world permanently altered by catastrophe. A Sony Pictures release.