Night of the Living Dead

First watched this film in 2019, and again in 2026, and I like it more the second time. It's fascinating to watch the birth of what we now call zombie tropes (or "ghouls," as the film calls them). Cannibalistic undead lay siege to a group of survivors; the group splinters into factions, tensions flare between would-be leaders, and the grounded, level-headed ones tend to be the ones who make progress. It's the textbook pattern you see in The Walking Dead and most zombie horror since. Most of those ideas were codified right here, and there's smart social commentary folded in too: a black man in 1968 as the calm, competent hero among an all-white cast defined by their weaknesses. A trailblazer and a genre-defining film, NotLD earns its standing on its watershed zombie trademarks, layered with social commentary that never feels on the nose. One of the best horror films of all time.