The Black Beats

thematically connected

The Road

McCarthy's Pulitzer novel strips survival to its most elemental — love between father and son

thematically connected

House of Leaves

The most formally inventive horror novel — the house that defies space, the text that defies reading

thematically connected

All Quiet on the Western Front

The anti-war novel — inside the trenches of WWI with no glory, only mud

thematically connected

The Last of Us

The defining post-apocalyptic story in games

thematically connected

Silent Hill 2

The greatest horror game — a journey into guilt and self-punishment

thematically connected

Spec Ops: The Line

A third-person shooter that becomes an indictment of the genre and its players

thematically connected

Hereditary

Ari Aster's debut — grief as a haunting, family as a trap

thematically connected

Apocalypse Now

Coppola's hallucinatory vision of Vietnam as a journey into the heart of darkness

thematically connected

Station Eleven

What survives of us is art — a hopeful post-pandemic fable