The Girl with All the Gifts

Children are strapped into wheelchairs at a military base and then wheeled to class. Melanie is one of them: polite, brilliant, devoted to her teacher, and carrying a fungal infection. The outbreak comes from Ophiocordyceps, which turns most people into mindless hungries, while some children born infected keep their minds. M.R. Carey wrote the novel and the screenplay at the same time and described the difference himself: the film stays with Melanie all the way, while the book moved between several points of view. Sennia Nanua plays Melanie, alongside Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close. The budget was 4 million pounds, backed by the BFI Film Fund and Creative England, for whom it was the largest investment made to that point. Aerial shots of an emptied London were built from drone footage of Pripyat, the town abandoned after Chernobyl. The ending inverts the genre: the hybrid children are positioned as humanity's continuation rather than its end. Who it is for: viewers tired of zombie films but open to the idea. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for humanity to win. The film refuses that outright.