We Bury the Dead (2025)

Grief drama or zombie movie? We Bury the Dead never picks, and every time it leans into one, it flinches back toward the other. The setup is bleak and smart. An American weapons test goes wrong off Tasmania, the island goes eerily quiet, and Daisy Ridley’s Ava, a physiotherapist, volunteers to help soldiers recover the bodies, mostly so she can get closer to the town where her husband Mitch was on a work trip. Then she and another volunteer, Clay, ditch their unit on a motorbike. The best idea here is that some of the dead aren’t monsters so much as people with unfinished business, and one quiet encounter with a risen father who just wants to finish one last job is haunting. The worst habit is snapping back to standard zombie scares in between. Ridley is excellent, raw and stubborn the whole way. It made $3.9 million worldwide. A 5.8 because the ideas are fresher than the scares. $8,982 says you save the next voicemail from someone you love instead of deleting it.

What works: Ridley gives a raw, committed performance, and treating the dead as grieving people rather than monsters is genuinely moving.

What doesn’t: It keeps swerving back to standard zombie scares, which leaves the structure lopsided and its best ideas half explored.

Who it’s for: Horror fans who would take a sad, slow apocalypse over a big, loud one.