Every Alex Garland Film Ranked, from ’28 Days Later’ to ‘Civil War’

8. ‘Men’ (2022)

Over the past few years, so-called ‘elevated horror’ that uses its premise as a metaphor for capital T Trauma has gone from the hot new defining subgenre to a bit of a punchline, due to the waves of films that confuse thudding obviousness for trenchant commentary. And Garland’s ‘Men’ is perhaps the absolute low point of the entire trend, an execrable and wretched misfire that is more interested in beating you over the head with its metaphor than it is in truly scaring or surprising you. The film, ostensibly, has a plot, but Jessie Buckley’s holiday in an English village where all the residents look like Rory Kinnear is really just a thin sketch of a thing, a three-page outline in the place of a script with the words ‘Men scary?’ written in red letters and circled three times (never has a film about misogyny and the female experience more clearly been directed by a man than ‘Men,’ unsurprisingly). All of Garland’s worst instincts as a writer, from his clunky dialogue to shallow consideration of a singular idea, are on display here, and the film is too obsessed with its mind-numbingly simple themes to pump real blood into its violence and eventual body horror. Every other film Garland has worked on has some redeeming quality worthy of praise; not even Kinnear and Buckley can save ‘Men’ from itself.  

7. ‘Civil War’ (2024)

On one hand, it’s easy to understand Garland’s decision to strip the politics and meaning out of the conflict in ‘Civil War.’ There’s a version of this movie in some alternate universe where the four-way divide across the United States more clearly maps onto the political divisions of our times, and it’s probably extremely cringeworthy and embarrassing. The actual film Garland made, about a ragtag group of journalists traveling across America documenting the fighting, has been described as a tribute to journalists, but it’s not exactly that either: in its most interesting interpretation, ‘Civil War’ can be seen as a look at how sensational photos of violence actually strip the people in front of the lens of their humanity, and the situations seen of their context.

Still, the fact that it’s an ‘interpretation’ is part of the problem: ‘Civil War’ is a muddled canvas of a film, stretching its one conceit so thin that it doesn’t really offer much of anything at all. Despite good performances from Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny, the photojournalists in the film are ciphers, and their journey does in nearly two hours what a 10-minute short could have accomplished in exactly as much depth. Garland’s issues as a screenwriter are on full display here, especially as the film’s ostensible lack of politics get murky with references to ‘Antifa Wars’ and a simultaneously upsetting and underwhelming Jesse Plemons cameo as a white nationalist. There’s a smugness to this movie’s provocation that feels unearned, mainly because ‘Civil War’ ultimately doesn’t provoke much of a response at all. 

6. ‘Never Let Me Go’ (2010)

There’s nothing aggressively wrong with Garland’s script for ‘Never Let Me Go,’ an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s beloved tearjerker novel directed by Mark Romanek. But somehow, the whole thing has a lot less punch than you want it to. Ishiguro’s novel, about the relationship between three lifelong friends and clones in a world where they’re doomed to die an early death, is a famously gutting read, quiet but full of deeply felt emotion. The film just never lives up to what’s on the page, despite great performances from Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley as the trio at its center. The problem may rest in Garland’s script, which struggles to externalize the very internal story of the novel. In taking the movie out of Kathy’s head, Garland’s script for ‘Never Let Me Go’ just doesn’t cut deep enough. 

5. “Ex Machina” (2014)

Garland received an Oscar nomination for writing ‘Ex Machina,’ and the film likely stands as the most acclaimed project of his career. That said, the film has many of the flaws inherent in Garland’s work, including thinly sketched ideas that don’t fully stand up to scrutiny. The film, a parable of sorts about a nebbish programmer who gets invited by a mysterious billionaire to give the Turing Test to an intelligent robot, has little to say about AI and only slightly more to say about male insecurity and possession. Still, this is easily the slickest and most stylish movie that Garland has made, and it works as a sleek thriller with a cerebral atmosphere and gorgeous special effects, even if its ideas don’t prove the most intriguing. It helps that the quartet at the center — Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, and Sonoya Mizuno — are so uniformally terrific, with Vikander walking way with the film as the inhuman and frightening machine the movie revolves around. 

4. ‘Dredd’ (2012)

Garland is only the screenwriter of ‘Dredd,’ an adaptation of the influential comic book character Judge Dredd. But he led the post-production process of the film and sought a co-directorial credit with director Pete Travis, and star Karl Urban has said the film should be considered Garland’s directorial debut. So if you choose to view it as such, you’ll find a pretty good one. The film puts the title character, a ‘street judge’ in the dystopian city of ‘Mega-City One,’ and puts him in a gritty 3D action film, as he and his partner Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirby) fight and shoot their way through a 200-story apartment building to put down Lena Headey’s vicious drug lord. Much of the satire and criticism of authoritarianism and police brutality that makes the original comic a subversive favorite got lost in Garland’s translation between mediums, and it makes ‘Dredd’ much emptier than it could be. But the action is crisp and exciting, and Urban and Thirby make for a top-tier action duo.

3. ‘Sunshine’ (2007)

Very nearly a great film, ‘Sunshine’ struggles a bit to pair its more philosophical ambitions with the action thrills of its second half. But Garland’s second collaboration with Danny Boyle is a smart, often moving science fiction story of humanity attempting to save itself from disaster, and the queasy relationship between science and religion. An international cast led by Cillian Murphy star as the crew of the (maybe too aptly named) Icarus II, a spaceship sent to use a powerful bomb to ignite the dying sun. As they close in on the sun’s orbit, they find the remnants of the Icarus I, and attempt a rescue mission, all while pondering whether their mission goes against the plan the universe has for humanity. Garland’s writing has never been more successful in tackling big ideas as it is in ‘Sunshine,’ which doesn’t offer clear answers to the questions it raises. The final result is imperfect, but it’s possibly the one film from Garland that’ll linger in your imagination the longest.  

2. ‘Annihilation’ (2018)

Easily the best of Garland’s directorial efforts, ‘Annihilation’ makes some big changes to the environmentalist, weird sci-fi novel it is based upon, and author Jeff VanderMeer has expressed disapproval of the final product. On its own though, ‘Annihilation’ stands as one of the most fascinating and original science-fiction movies of the last few years, a heady story of an all-female scientific team exploring an environment that has taken on a life of its own. Garland’s slick direction and talent for bringing unforgettable sci-fi images to the screen is on full display here, and the story of paranoia gives the great cast — including Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, and Jennifer Jason Leigh — a chance to let loose as the women turn on each other. Many of Garland’s movies flirt with horror — ‘Men,’ ’28 Days Later’ — even if they aren’t that scary. ‘Annihilation’ is the only one that genuinely terrifies. 

1. ’28 Days Later’ (2002)

Still a stone-cold classic now that we’re closer to 28 years later, ’28 Days Later’ redefined the zombie film when it was released in 2002, and its influence can still be felt in the genre today. And a lot of what makes Danny Boyle’s film pop is just, honestly, the vibes: the thrilling action and the heavy atmosphere is second to none. But credit also has to go to Garland’s script, which pairs action with character drama that gives the great actors (including Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, and Brendan Gleeson) leading the project something real to chew on (you can see a whiff of him repeating himself a bit in ‘Civil War,’ which features a very similar quartet). ’28 Days Later’ works because its so simple and lacking in frills, and although Garland’s growing ambition as a writer is admirable, it’s unlikely that he’ll ever make a film as perfect as this.