Cormac McCarthy: The Road
I don't know what it is about post-apocalyptic settings, but when done well, they punch me in the stomach every time. It really doesn't matter which media it's presented in -- even video games like Fallout had me captivated from the introductory movie on. I still think there's a potential movie there if done with the same art style and brains.
My fascination has something to do with how such situations strip away all the pretense that has so saturated modern human interaction. Suddenly humanism matters again -- and things like neon underlighting for your modified Toyota and clothes for pets seem just as vibrantly idiotic as they should. It's pure fucking fantasy of course. This is now Bobby McCEO's world, and the end, when and if it does come, it will be ushered forth glacially and gleefully via press release with the public playing the role of the "boiled frog" in the urban myth.
Anyway, I thought of it because I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road a few weeks ago and thought it was simple and brilliant. The country's been destroyed, all the animals are gone, but the book never so much as brushes against any political explanation of what went wrong -- it simply tells the tale of a father and son trying to brave their way west in order to survive.