Film
The Girl with All the Gifts
A gutsy, unflinching entry in the fungal-apocalypse subgenre, adapted from Mike Carey's own novel. Part road movie, part body-horror, it follows a hyper-intelligent girl kept in classroom captivity by scientists convinced she holds humanity's last cure. Cool-headed, morally serious, and occasionally devastating, it never softens its questions about what we owe the next generation, even one born from catastrophe.
If you liked this
Train to Busan2016
Yeon Sang-ho's zombie thriller turns a moving train into a pressure cooker of grief and heroism, with a father-daughter bond as raw as anything in Girl. Kinetic, devastating, one of the genre's best.
But Subtitled and relentlessly sad by the final act; if you want your zombies without the tearjerker, look elsewhere.

28 Days Later2002
Danny Boyle's grimy, adrenaline-soaked outbreak film basically wrote the modern rulebook for British apocalypse horror, and its bleak moral clarity — soldiers as the real threat — rhymes directly with Gifts.
But Shaky digital cinematography and a slower midsection test patience if you crave nonstop, wall-to-wall action.

A Quiet Place2018
A tight, wordless survival thriller about a family protecting a child in a world gone monstrous — same tension between protection and sacrifice, minus the fungus.
But High-concept gimmick (silence) can feel thin on a second watch, and the scares are jump-heavy.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Never Let Me Go2010
Both films ask what a society owes a child engineered or discovered for its usefulness to others; here the answer is even bleaker for being ordinary.
A hushed British drama about children raised in a pastoral institution for a purpose they slowly realise is not their own — the same quiet horror of a child's worth being decided by adults, without a single monster.
But No horror, no action — it's a slow, literary heartbreak that some will find too restrained.

More like this (8)
The Last of Us2023
The most direct cousin here: a Cordyceps-driven apocalypse, a gruff protector, and a girl who might be the cure. Prestige TV pacing gives the ideas room to breathe that a two-hour film can't.
But Nine episodes is a big ask, and some plot beats will feel very familiar if you just watched Gifts.

Children of Men2006
Cuarón's masterpiece imagines a world without children being reborn around one impossible pregnancy — same aching question of what a single young life is worth to a dying species.
But No zombies, no action beats — this is dystopia as slow-burn dread, patient and quietly devastating.

Cargo2017
An Australian outback zombie film that swaps scares for heartbreak, following a father racing to place his infant with safe hands before he turns. Tender where Gifts is clinical.
But Small-scale and low-budget; if you came for scares, this is closer to a drama with zombies.

28 Weeks Later2007no page yet
The underrated sequel doubles down on the idea that the infected aren't the only monsters, and features a child immune carrier whose blood might hold the cure — sound familiar?
But Meaner and colder than the original, with a rougher, more nihilistic ending some viewers find punishing.
World War Z2013
If you want the scientist-races-for-a-cure structure blown up to global blockbuster scale, this delivers it loud and fast, with Brad Pitt hopscotching continents while civilisation crumbles around him.
But Slicker and shallower than Gifts, with most of the moral complexity sanded off in favour of spectacle.

I Am Legend2007
Will Smith's lone-survivor drama shares Gifts' interest in whether the infected have retained some flicker of humanity worth saving, rather than simply destroying it.
But The CGI infected have aged badly, and the theatrical ending softens the film's darker instincts.

Village of the Damned1960
Melanie's unsettling calm and the adults' fear of what she represents has a direct ancestor in this decades-older story of children as both innocent and existential threat.
The original uncanny-child horror: a village of identical, glowing-eyed children with powers beyond human understanding, and the adults who must decide whether to protect or destroy them.
But Dated effects and a stiff, very 1960s pace — this is more eerie than scary by modern standards.

Fantastic Fungi2019
The zombifying fungus in Gifts isn't invented from nothing; this film shows you the real organism, letting actual science recontextualise the fiction's horror.
A gorgeous, meditative documentary about real fungal networks, including the actual Cordyceps parasite that inspired Gifts' outbreak — mind-altering footage of nature doing something stranger than fiction.
But Zero horror, zero plot — this is a slow, trippy nature doc, not a thriller substitute.

People
Cast
Sennia NanuaMelanie
Gemma ArtertonHelen Justineau
Paddy ConsidineSgt. Eddie Parks
Glenn CloseDr. Caroline Caldwell
Fisayo AkinadeKieran Gallagher
Anamaria MarincaDr. Selkirk
Anthony WelshDillon
Joe LomasJoe
Dominique TipperDevani
Eli LaneKenny
Joel SheldonT-Shirt Boy
Will BrooksPainted Boy
Directing
- Colm McCarthyDirector
- Sam DonovanScript Supervisor
Writing
- Mike CareyNovel
- Mike CareyScreenplay
Production
- Colin JonesCasting
- Melissa Gethin ClarkeCasting Assistant
- Toby SpigelCasting Associate
- Andy MaysonExecutive Producer
- Christopher MollExecutive Producer
- Richard HolmesExecutive Producer
- Will ClarkeExecutive Producer
- Ben RimmerLine Producer
- Angus LamontProducer
- Camille GatinProducer
Recommended by
World War Z, Train to Busan, The Walking Dead: Dead City, Cargo, All of Us Are Dead, #Alive, Sweet Home