The Fallout franchise is made up of primarily popular video games, but has expanded substantially in the past 15 years. Merch, board games, spin-offs, cosplay — you name it, and this series has seemingly done it... except for a movie or TV show. That is, until last year. A few months ago we finally got screenshots, footage and details about the Amazon Prime adaptation from "Westworld" showrunner and writer Jonathan Nolan.

The inspiration collage that created Fallout's unique brand of sci-fi post apocalyptic satire is varied, stretching from '50s era sitcoms all the way to Walt Disney futurism. So while we wait for the entire season to drop on April 11, here is a smattering of movies and shows to get you in the mood for a bloody good time.

'A Boy and His Dog' and 'Mad Max' — core inspirations for the original 'Fallout' games

Based on a 1969 novella, "A Boy and His Dog" is the main reason Fallout even exists. The setting is a post-nuclear, war-torn US, set in the future, where a young man adventures with his pet dog. The entire tone is black comedy mixed with sci-fi shenanigans, or in other words, literally the premise of the Fallout games, down to a tee, with retro-future robots and shootouts and dystopian scavenging.

Another big influence on the series was the aesthetic and brutal nature of the early "Mad Max" films. There are tons of nods to the George Miller joints in the games, and you can live out your dreams of wearing big metal shoulder pads with spikes on them as you get grimy shotgunning mutants and marauders for the last scraps of resources.

If you're looking for more source material, you can check out:

• "A Boy and His Dog"
• "Mad Max"
• "Life of Brian"
• "Leave It to Beaver"
• "Dr. Strangelove"
• "The Omega Man"
• "The Last Man on Earth"
• "On the Beach"
• "Godzilla"
• "Planet of the Apes"

Spotlight on Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell — If you want to see the 'Fallout' cast in action

If you want to get more familiar with the faces in the show, it turns out they've already been in projects that are Fallout-adjacent! Walton Goggins has starred in comedic, foul mouthed and violent Westerns before, like "Justified" and "The Hateful Eight" and newcomer — and protagonist to the "Fallout" show — Ella Purnell was in the survival thriller series "Yellowjackets," about teenage cannibals (very Fallout coded) as well as the sci-fi dystopian romcom "Never Let Me Go" (albeit in a very small role).

And of course, we can't forget Kyle MacLachlan and his work as Agent Dale Cooper in the absurdist mystery "Twin Peaks."

For more Goggins, Purnell and MacLachlan, you can check out:

• "Justified"
• "Yellowjackets"
• "Never Let Me Go"
• "The Hateful Eight"
• "Twin Peaks"
• "Archer"

For the post-apocalyptic fans

The main vibe of the Fallout games is about the just how devastating the American wasteland is, and the drama that comes with the limited food sources in a place irradiated with nuclear fallout. If you want your dystopian nightmare to be in the desert, go with "The Book of Eli." Fancy more water? There's the box office bomb "Waterworld." "Snowpiercer" is set on a train around the arctic, and "I Am Legend" is set in New York City, which is cool because the Fallout games are always set in a major metropolis.

More post-apocalyptic scenes, you can check out:

• "The Book of Eli"
• "The Road"
• "Waterworld"
• "Snowpiercer"
• "I Am Legend"
• "Station Eleven"
• "Blade Runner 2049"

You can't leave without laughing

Fallout balances its brutal gore with over-the-top and goofy laughs. Sci-fi always lends itself well to satire, you can't go wrong with using robots and mutated freaks as a source of slapstick. Our favorite of these suggestions is the segment from "The Simpsons," where Homer goes into a fallout shelter, bombs go off destroying the world, and he is the last man on Earth; a miniature version of Fallout, in a nutshell.

For more comedic pleasure, you can check out:

• "Robocop"
• "Futurama"
• "The Oblongs"
• "The Toxic Avenger"
• "The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VIII"

Same but different — shows based on video games, nuclear disasters and sentient robots

Not perfectly in the mould of Fallout, but "The Last of Us" and "Twisted Metal" are still weirdly perfect because they're both post apocalyptic TV shows. "Westworld" is the last show Jonathan Nolan worked on (also happens to be about sentient robots in the future with a lot of violence) so that's another good fit. "Chernobyl" is a harrowing and haunting depiction of what nuclear radiation does to a society and the human body, and "Silo" is about a community who lives underground in a sort of fallout shelter. If that isn't the most Fallout-sounding thing you've ever heard, we don't know what is.

If you're looking for thematic similarities, you can check out:

• "Chernobyl"
• "Silo"
• "The Last of Us"
• "Twisted Metal"
• "Westworld"

[Image: YouTube]