Films depicting the end of the world often linger on the spectacle of destruction: Burning cities, barren landscapes, scenes of annihilation. Yet beneath the rubble lies something far more unsettling, the collapse of ritual and, with it, the dissolution of meaning. In films such as Eddington (2025), Aniara (2018), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 12 Monkeys (1995), and La Jetée (1962), the destruction is revealed not only in the external world but also in the loss of shared habits, belief systems, and symbols that hold societies and minds together