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28 Days Later

28 Days Later (2002)

tomatometer

88

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 205
Fresh: 180 | Rotten: 25

28 Days Later is both a terrifying zombie movie and a sharp political allegory.

87

Average Rating: 7.1/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 5

28 Days Later is both a terrifying zombie movie and a sharp political allegory.

audience

82

liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 436,034

My Rating

Movie Info

Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results in this speculative sci-fi horror effort from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital 28 days later, bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors following a terrifying encounter in a seemingly abandoned church, Jim soon learns the truth behind the deserted

R, 1 hr. 39 min.

Science Fiction & Fantasy, Horror

Alex Garland

Oct 21, 2003

$44.9M

Fox Searchlight Pictures

All Critics (206) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (189) | Rotten (25) | DVD (42)

It makes for a more intimate brand of horror, one we can't explain away by pretending we're watching the same old well-oiled Hollywood malarkey.

August 7, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

In the old days, a feverish programmer like 28 Days Later would end up on the bottom half of a double bill.

July 1, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comment
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

... really creepy and really scary ...

June 30, 2003 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | Comment
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I enjoyed watching this film, mostly because Murphy and Harris make such an appealing central couple to build a new world around. But nobody should mistake this for a killer-zombie movie with real soul.

June 28, 2003 Full Review Source: Salon.com | Comment (1)
Salon.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Detestable, not just because its action is so vile or its technique so crude, but because its moral imagination is so impoverished.

June 27, 2003 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comments (6)
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Director Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have rebounded smartly from the bloated Leonardo DiCaprio debacle that was The Beach, their previous collaboration.

June 27, 2003 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A thrilling, gory affair, 28 Days Later is a well directed, believably acted yarn and well worth a watch, particularly for Romero fans.

July 14, 2011 Full Review Source: Digital Spy | Comment
Digital Spy

a wild cocktail of campy, gory fun

September 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Cinema Writer | Comment
Cinema Writer

Viral apocalypse, zombies, and terror. For adults.

August 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

A very frustrating watch as 28 Days Later... could have been a great film and the first half is just that. It is a shame about the rest.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Matt's Movie Reviews | Comment
Matt's Movie Reviews

This "Dawn of the Dead" inspired chiller is strong on concept, style and brutally violent action, but suffers from poor musical scoring, and a digital video format that helped keep its budget at 10 million dollars.

May 26, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comments (11)
ColeSmithey.com

Entertaining, horrifying and is sure to be a classic. Bravo Mr. Boyle, bravo...

April 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comment
Cinema Crazed

A zombie thriller spiked with horror, 28 Days Later begins with plenty of promise and shocks, but gets swallowed up by an overdose of bloody violence.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comments (3)
Urban Cinefile

It degenerates into an incongruous morality tale with an action movie climax that abandons all that came before it.

December 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound | Comment
Big Picture Big Sound

The film itself seems to exist in a state of perpetual imbalance... between life and death, the real and the surreal, civilization and chaos.

October 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Projection Booth | Comment
Projection Booth

It's a gory, depressing affair that bears an ultra-Darwinian message in its blood-stained hands.

September 26, 2007 Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | Comments (11)
Observer [UK]

Paying homage to the horror movies of the past while creating a modern-day drama steeped in realism, Boyle has created something truly unique.

August 4, 2007 Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | Comment
ComingSoon.net

Every bit as much a reactionary, establishmentarian work as the horror movies of fifty years ago.

July 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

Un film fort intéressant, mais malheureusement incomplet.

November 4, 2006 Full Review Source: Panorama | Comment

Danny Boyle has got his edge back.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

A brilliant and fresh horror film that is both scary and ingenious.

July 5, 2005 Full Review Source: Bullz-Eye.com | Comment
Bullz-Eye.com

It's Boyle's fleer at the Information Age, where physical survival's place in the pyramid is smallest -- a snicker at those to whom a gagging error-message online is tragedy.

May 13, 2005 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | Comment
Apollo Guide
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for 28 Days Later

A young bicycle courier wakes up from surgery in central London to find it completely deserted, until he is attacked by a horde of rabid people screaming for his blood. Danny Boyle's spin on the zombie movie, although as inevitably generic as you'd expect has enough quirks to make it stand out from an overpopulated

November 20, 2006
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

Jim: That was longer than a heartbeat. "The Days Are Numbered."When watching a zombie film there are things you expect. You expect it to be gruesome, disgusting, violent, dark, and depressing. That's the genre. With 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle made a "zombie" film that is everything I just described the genre to be.

March 4, 2012
blkbomb
Melvin White

Super Reviewer

    1. Selena: It started as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different. Because it was happening in small villages, market towns. And then it wasn't on the TV any more. It was in the street outside. It was coming in through your windows. It was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. It was something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities it was already too late. Army blockades were overrun. And that's when the exodus started. Before the TV and radio stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that.
    – Submitted by macky s (1 day ago)
    1. Selena: Hannah, it's OK. He's not infected.
    2. Hannah: But I thought he was biting you.
    3. Jim: Kissing. I was kissing her. Are you stoned?
    4. Selena: It's a long story.
    – Submitted by Rocky F (2 months ago)
    1. Maj. Henry West: This is what I've seen in the four weeks since infection. People killing people. Which is much what I saw in the four weeks before infection, and the four weeks before that, and before that, and as far back as I care to remember. People killing people. Which to my mind, puts us in a state of normality right now.
    – Submitted by Ruan B (4 months ago)
    1. Jim: No, no. No, see, this is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea.
    – Submitted by Jared F (8 months ago)
    1. Selena: It started as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different. Because it was happening in small villages, market towns. And then it wasn't on the TV any more. It was in the street outside. It was coming in through your windows. It was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. It was something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities it was already too late. Army blockades were overrun. And that's when the exodus started. Before the TV and radio stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that.
    – Submitted by Chris P (13 months ago)

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October 12, 2010:
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Foreign Titles

  • 28 Days Later ... (UK)
  • 28 jours plus tard (FR)
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