What most of the world does not realize is that Carpathia is actually the Antichrist foretold in the Bible. As people scramble for answers, an obscure Romanian politician named Nicolae Jetty Carpathia rises to become secretary-general of the United Nations, promising to restore peace and stability to all nations. Left Behind tells the story of the end times (set in the contemporary era), in which true believers in Christ have been raptured (taken instantly to heaven), leaving the world shattered and chaotic.

The series inspired an audio drama as well as the PC game Left Behind: Eternal Forces (2006) and its several sequels. A sequel, Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist, directed by and starring Kevin Sorbo, was released in 2023. A reboot starring Nicolas Cage, entitled simply Left Behind, was released in 2014 through Cloud Ten Pictures. The original series of three films are Left Behind: The Movie (2000), Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002), and Left Behind: World at War (2005). The series has been adapted into five films to date. The primary element is a Christian dispensationalist view of the End Times the pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatological interpretation of the Biblical apocalypse. It focuses on a seven-year conflict between the Tribulation Force, an underground network of converts, and the New World Order-esque Global Community and its leader, Nicolae Carpathia, who is also the Antichrist. Left Behind is a multimedia franchise that started with a series of 16 bestselling religious novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Left Behind The Rising, The Regime, The Rapture, Left Behind, Tribulation Force, Nicolae, Soul Harvest, Apollyon, Assassins, The Indwelling, The Mark, Desecration, The Remnant, Armageddon, Glorious Appearing, Kingdom Come For other uses, see Left Behind (disambiguation).

Author of left behind series