Zombie romance movies and love stories worth watching

Zombie stories are usually about survival, but the ones people remember often have a love story underneath: someone who will not give up on a partner, a parent or a first crush, even after the world ends. This is an independent list with no affiliation to any of the studios or streaming services involved. Descriptions stick to the premise, so there are no spoilers, and availability varies by country, so check your usual services.

Want to be the couple in one? The zombie couple video turns two photos into a short zombie love story, and your first video is free.

Star in my own zombie love story

Zombie romance comedies

• Warm Bodies (2013). A young zombie known only as R meets a living girl, Julie, and something in him starts to wake up. Adapted from Isaac Marion’s novel, it is probably the best-known zombie romance and plays it sweet rather than scary.
• Shaun of the Dead (2004). A London slacker who has just been dumped decides the zombie outbreak is his chance to win his girlfriend back and sort his life out. Edgar Wright’s British comedy is as much about growing up as it is about zombies.
• Zombieland (2009). A nervous survivor with a long list of rules teams up with a tough zombie hunter and two sisters on a road trip across a ruined America, and slowly falls for one of them.
• Life After Beth (2014). A grieving young man is overjoyed when his girlfriend comes back from the dead, until it becomes clear she is not quite herself. An indie dark comedy about letting go.
• Burying the Ex (2014). A horror comedy from Joe Dante: a man finally meets someone new just as his controlling ex-girlfriend returns from the grave, determined to keep him.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016). The Bennet sisters are trained fighters in a Regency England overrun by the undead, and Elizabeth and Mr Darcy still cannot stand each other. Based on the mash-up novel of Jane Austen’s classic.
• Anna and the Apocalypse (2017). A Scottish Christmas zombie musical: a teenager and her friends fight and sing their way across town in the outbreak, with friendship and first love at the centre.

Zombie love story dramas

• Zombie Honeymoon (2004). A low-budget indie horror about newlyweds whose honeymoon goes wrong when the husband is attacked and begins to change, and the wife tries to stand by him.
• Train to Busan (2016). A workaholic father takes his young daughter on a train from Seoul to Busan as an outbreak spreads. A Korean thriller whose heart is family love and sacrifice.
• Maggie (2015). A quiet drama in which a father cares for his teenage daughter after she is infected and slowly begins to turn. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the father, far from his action roles.

Zombie romance TV series

• iZombie (TV, 2015–2019). A medical resident becomes a zombie, takes a job at a morgue so she can eat brains discreetly, and tries to keep a love life going. A crime comedy with a long-running romance.
• Santa Clarita Diet (TV, 2017–2019). A suburban estate agent becomes undead, and her husband decides to stick by her whatever it takes. A comedy that is, underneath, about a devoted marriage.

Why zombie love stories work

A zombie story strips everything back to one question: would you stay? Love stories need an obstacle, and few obstacles are bigger than one of you no longer being entirely human. That is why the genre swings so easily between comedy and heartbreak.

• The recognition moment. The partner who has turned, but still knows you, is the emotional peak of many of these stories, and it lands in seconds.
• Loyalty under pressure. Choosing someone when it costs you everything is romance at its most concentrated.
• Room for jokes. The situation is so absurd that couples can bicker, flirt and be ordinary in the middle of it, which is where the romantic comedies live.
• Before and after. A cut from a sunny memory to the ruined present says more than a page of dialogue.

Those same beats drive the short videos that have been filling social feeds. The zombie AI trend and the zombie hug both compress a zombie love story into a few seconds: one partner has turned, the other cannot let go, and a memory flashes up at the end.

Make your own zombie love story

Every story on this site borrows a classic beat. The Last Embrace is the recognition hug, Till Death and After is the vows that outlast everything, and Before the Fall is the cut from a first date to the end of the world. Upload a photo of the partner who stays human and one of the partner who turns, and you get a 15-second video with music and no watermark. Prefer it without zombies? There is a romantic couple video option too, and pets can join in with Zombie Pet AI.

Planning a themed movie night for Halloween? Pair this list with the zombie couple costume ideas.

Make our zombie love story