14. 28 Days Later (2003)

"Your days are numbered."

28 Days Later marks the horror debut for the now famous Danny Boyle. The film opens with British animal rights activists breaking into the Cambridge Primate Research Facility. While there, they run into a scientist who warns them that the chimpanzees there are infected with a virus called 'Rage'. They ignore the scientist and free one of the chimps there, which immediately attacks the activists and the scientist, turning them into bloodthirsty freaks. Exactly 28 days later, a man named Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma, and finds the city of London to be completely deserted, abandoned, and what looks like the aftermath of serious rampage. After scouting around the city some more, he runs into humans with the 'Rage' virus, and is nearly killed, but is saved by 2 more survivors that stumble upon him, and what follows is one of the greatest zombie films in recent history. The 'Rage' virus is brought out so well, and really doesn't feel like the typical zombie films that the movie community is used to nowadays. The virus is carried from the blood of the infected and can be transferred from one to another by having contact with the blood in any way, shape, or form. The characters were all played out brilliantly, and since there are only a few main protagonists, besides the few that appear later on, you grow so close to them, and it feels as if you are among the last remaining surivors of this Rage apocalypse. The atmosphere is amazing, and is definitely among the best I've experienced in a film. Overall, 28 Days Later is one of the better horror films of the 2000's, and quite possibly the best zombie film to date.