(Not a movie but a series on Amazon Prime - but very binge-able as a long movie)
I probably don’t need to recommend Fallout as everyone online is raving about it, but I don’t think they could have done a better job adapting a game to cinematic narrative.
If you’ve been under a radioactive rock, it’s based on the post-apocalyptic RPG game series by Bethesda. It is cartoonishly ultra-violent, darkly hilarious, plot-twisty, extremely character driven, and manages to be both tragic and poignantly-hopeful and inspiring all at once. It’s set as retro-futurism - in the Fallout universe allegedly the explanation is semi-conductors were never invented so you’ve got amazing technology but via vacuum tubes. The social mores never progressed past the 1950s although the war event is set around 2077 - there’s a cheery Leave it to Beaver optimism and '57 Chevy design aesthetic amid the gory hilarious chaos.
Some of the best details are that if you’ve played the game, you can almost tell how each main character is rolled in S.P.E.C.I.A.L. : Lucy is balanced and always takes the [Speech] option in attempt to avoid conflict (often failing hilariously). Maximus took all his points out of Luck and put them into Endurance, and The Ghoul is…well, he took the cannibalism perk and has crazy accuracy.
Some of the ridiculous gore is hand waved in that there are stimpacks that can revive someone from bleeding out to perfectly fine within seconds. The gore is realistic and disturbing, and the ways people deal with it can be even moreso and darkly hilarious, replicating V.A.T.S. slow-motion quasi-turn-based but non-stop combat from the game. The other fun aesthetic is the period music. In the games you could tune in a radio station (which only has access to 50s music that was available at the nuke-point) and many of the battle sequences are set to ironic music - just as in the games where your Pip-Boy radio station would keep playing while you were fighting and slow-motion blood and limbs were flying everywhere.
The show is set in the Fallout universe but is not telling any game story, and the creators of the show and game state the events are canon and they throw a bunch of huge but smart curveballs into the lore if you’ve played the games.
Not for kids or the squeamish, this is fantasy SF with western elements made by the Westworld creators in close conjunction with the game design team. I’ve heard reviews call it “engrossing as Game of Thrones but more fun” and also comparable to the “junk pile futurism” of Star Wars with regard to its universe-building.
A second season is already in production.
I will give one Trigger Warning specifically regarding dogs:
The first minute of episode 2 shows a government lab which is training dogs, and there’s a scene where they are throwing newborn underweight puppies into an incinerator. You see a toss and a flash of fire as the camera pans away but it’s not focused on - you know what’s happening and hear it. This can be skipped if you start episode 2 after the first 40 seconds - you won’t miss anything else plot critical. This is to set up a scene where a scientist rescues one of the underweight dogs and it becomes a principal character in the show as every Fallout game includes a dog companion. This featured dog has hunting instincts and does participate in combat and experiences violence and abuse as does every character, but is always healed and survives as a plot-critical NPC.
There is also a scene where characters pass a vendor with a sign hawking both “dog meat” and “iguana meat” but you only see what is likely cooked iguana on a skewer briefly.
A baby deer also is dragged away as cannon fodder as a prelude to introduce one of the mutated creatures in the show.
