28 Years Later

28 Years Later is a 2025 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, the creative team behind 28 Days Later (2002). It follows that film and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later (2007), returning to the world transformed by the Rage virus. Sony Pictures Releasing opened the film theatrically in the United Kingdom and United States on 20 June 2025. The cast includes Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, and newcomer Alfie Williams. Cillian Murphy, who played Jim in 28 Days Later, is an executive producer, although he does not appear in this installment.

The story is set twenty-eight years after the virus escaped a biological-weapons laboratory. According to the film’s official synopsis, Britain remains under a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, while some survivors have devised ways to live amid the infected. One such community occupies a small island linked to the mainland by one heavily defended causeway. Jamie, played by Taylor-Johnson, takes his twelve-year-old son Spike, played by Williams, beyond that protection on a journey into the mainland’s “dark heart.” There they encounter altered infected and other survivors; the expedition exposes secrets, wonders, and horrors that have developed during the long isolation in Britain.

Boyle produced the picture with Andrew Macdonald, Peter Rice, and Bernie Bellew; Garland also produced. Macdonald’s DNA Films and Boyle’s Decibel Films made it, with Sony Pictures Releasing handling distribution. Anthony Dod Mantle served as cinematographer, continuing a professional association with Boyle that includes 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire. The production attracted attention for using iPhone 15 Pro Max phones as cameras, alongside rigs and lenses, rather than relying exclusively on conventional cinema cameras. Hildur Guðnadóttir composed the score. The film was shot in Northumberland and other locations in northern England, placing its isolated-survivor setting within recognizable British landscapes.

28 Years Later was conceived as a chapter of a trilogy. Its follow-up, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was directed by Nia DaCosta from a Garland screenplay and was scheduled for release in January 2026. Boyle has said he hopes to direct a third film if the series continues. The 2025 film does not repeat the outbreak narrative: its premise examines a Britain separated from the outside world for nearly three decades, and its father-and-son journey supplies the route from an island enclave to the quarantined mainland. Comer plays Isla, Spike’s mother, while Fiennes plays Dr. Ian Kelson.