28 Days Later

"The days are numbered."

2002 1h 53m EN

👍

7.2

SOLID

🍅

87%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.5

IMDB

★7.2TMDB · 8,949🍅87%Rotten Tomatoes●73Metacritic★7.5IMDB · 539,380

HorrorThrillerScience Fiction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally unleashed from a British research facility, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. Carried by animals and humans, the virus turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs -- and it's absolutely impossible to contain.

“The days are numbered.”

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Cast

Cillian Murphy
Jim
Naomie Harris
Selena
Brendan Gleeson
Frank
Megan Burns
Hannah
Christopher Eccleston
Major Henry West
Noah Huntley
Mark
Luke Mably
Private Clifton
Stuart McQuarrie
Seargent Farrell

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Danny Boyle
Writers: Alex Garland
Languages: Spanish, English
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $83M — a 10.3× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 24 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: Spanish, English.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Part of the "28 Days/Weeks/Years Later Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Danny Boyle, shot by Anthony Dod Mantle. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by John Murphy. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Chris Gill shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Danny Boyle directs. Anthony Dod Mantle behind the camera. John Murphy scores. Chris Gill cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in Spanish, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Grossed $83M — a 10.3× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
2Released 24 years ago.
3Dialogue crosses 2 languages: Spanish, English.
4Part of the "28 Days/Weeks/Years Later Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5Directed by Danny Boyle, shot by Anthony Dod Mantle. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by John Murphy. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Chris Gill shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "The days are numbered.".
10IMDB entry: tt0289043 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 10 themes, including "london, england", "infection", "outbreak", "zombie".
12Released under 17 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle
Original score: John Murphy
Editing: Chris Gill
Production design: Mark Tildesley
Costume design: Rachael Fleming
Makeup / hair: Adrian Getley
Sound: Glenn Freemantle
Stunt coordinator: Nick Powell
Runtime: 113 min · 1h 53m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $8,000,000
Box office: $82,784,517
Return: 1035% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: 28 Days Later (2002)
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 73/100
IMDB rating: 7.5/10 · 539,380 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

10 wins & 32 nominations total

European Film Award for Best Cinematographer

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Part of

28 Days/Weeks/Years Later Collection

A post-apocalyptic horror film series focused on survivors of a blood-borne disease called Rage that turns the infected into mindless, zombie-like savages, the hordes of whom have decimated the population of Great Britain.

Also by

Danny Boyle

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

perelachaise2017-06-08
★ 7/10
mild abstract spoiler ahead My feelings about this movie may very well be extended towards Boyle's movies in general : solid direction overall, but events did not fail to go from situational and behavioral realism to sudden heroical action nonsense.
John Chard2019-09-30
★ 9/10
It started off as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different... 28 Days Later is directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Megan Burns, Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Ecclestone. Music is by John Murphy and cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle. When animal liberation activists break into the Cambridge Primate Research Center, they come across a scientist who tells them that to release these chimps would be insane. They have been injected with a test serum known as "Rage", and it's highly contagious and spreads easily and quickly. Ignoring the warnings, one of the activists opens a cage and is attacked and bitten by a chimp and rage quickly spreads among the group... 28 days later... The amazing thing with Danny Boyles's 28 Days later is that although it owes a huge debt to the likes of George Romero's zombie films, and John Wyndham and Richard Matheson's writings, it still feels fresh and exciting. Film is quintessentially British, as evidenced by the rightly lauded use of a depopulated London for the starting point to the terror, yet there's an earthiness to our small band of survivors. These are flawed characters that are ill equipped to deal with the infected implosion, there's nothing remotely Hollywood about these people or the landscapes that frame them (CG is minimal, where hand-held digital cameras are the order of the day). There's a realistic feel factor that is rarely seen in other films of this ilk. Yep, sure there's implausibilities, but with the infected creatures running at a fair old clip, becoming scary creations in a stark stripped back land, there's too much fun being had - and nervous tension being burnt - to even begin to start nit-picking. Besides, the last quarter alone is a lesson in energy fuelled horror as the survivors, having seemingly found a safe house, find that monsters aren't merely confined to the infected human kind. It's a cracker-jack of a finale, bloody and bloody frantic, all backed by Murphy's simple but totally potent musical arrangements. It's easy to see why America made it a monster hit at the box office, after just making a small profit in the UK, film went to America and made it big. Americans, you have to feel, enjoyed watching something raw in a sub-genre of horror that was at the time reliant on Romero rediscovering his mojo. Worldwide the film made over $70 million in profit, and those are the kinds of figures that speak volumes. The success ensured a sequel would follow, where Boyle and Garland bowed out of the main chairs and into producers roles for "28 Weeks Later". It's not as raw as "Days", but it's gorier and itself also a fine "infected" horror movie, and certainly a worthy follow up to what Boyle and Garland clinically created in 2002. A great cast and premise get down and dirty In a sharply executed infected based horror. 8.5/10
Gimly2019-12-28
★ 8/10
28 Days Later was made on a very small budget in the early days of digital cinema, so, yes, in retrospect, it does look a little bit like it was shot on a Nokia 3310, and yes, it is heavily responsible for the bilious deluge of zombie movies we got in its wake, which we are only now finally recovering from - but it's so good. Final rating:★★★★ - Very strong appeal. A personal favourite.