Re: "The Road"
Read the book, and saw the movie.
If you really like the "what will happen after the SHTF" this isn't the best treatment, eithr book or movie.
"Lucifer's Hammer" explores lots of themes within the general "EOTWAWKI" genre.
Not just one group (dad and kid) that ekes out a dying living, but people who are doing well, people who actually pull things together, people who rampage, and pillage, etc.
Next, an out of print book, "False Dawn" by Chelsea Quinn Yarborough, follows a woman who starts in Chico Ca, and ends up south of Lake Tahoe. Bad guys abound, and lots of action.
"Earth Abides" Weak on action, but interesting how the author explores a group of people who expect the lights and water to keep running, and how it impacts them when things stop a year after the SHTF.
"The Road" was OK, but I would have done things a lot differently in the main character's shoes. There were too many points in the book, where I thought it was clear the author did not have factual knowledge of how people behave under these scenarios. There is enough material in recent and ancient times, in Africa, Europe, and China in near exact conditions. Since the author doesn't spell out what happened, you can choose, and there are enough scenarios closely related to apply.
For instance, consider surviving, with your family, in the conditions that existed in Belgian Congo, in the 50's or in a German Concentration camp, or the Gulag Archipelago.
Consider surviving under conditions that the American Indians had to when under siege in the early 1800's. Not then even, take those conditions, and survive them NOW.
There are scenarios aplenty to stretch one's mind.