FLYLine27*
BUCH
Name some of your favorites, old and recent (though I can't really think of anything that good recent).
Movies: Top Natural Disaster Movies
- Thread starter FLYLine27*
- Start date
SJSharksfan39
Registered User
I wonder if these kind of movies are just a guilty pleasure for me, because I really liked movies like Twister and Day After Tomorrow. Granted, it doesn't live up to scientific scrutiny, but I still found them really enjoyable.
BonMorrison
Registered User
LeafalCrusader
Registered User
b1e9a8r5s
Registered User
Do Virus movies count as natural disaster movies?
I hated Contagion. Hated it.
Outbreak is good.
Day After Tomorrow is a guilty pleasure of mine.
Deep Impact > Armegedon
I hated Contagion. Hated it.
Outbreak is good.
Day After Tomorrow is a guilty pleasure of mine.
Deep Impact > Armegedon
Sharpshooter
Registered User
- Dec 14, 2011
- 13,590
- 9
Duke33
Registered User
Me too on Dante's Peak. Came out the same year as the awful "Volcano" so that helped its cause. Overall it was a decent movie. Typical clichés and some dubious effects/science at times but the suspense of waiting for the mountain to blow was fun. Had the "Jaws" economic effects going as well.
I want to say that Titanic, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno are the three best natural disaster films of all time, but, while they're iconic as "disaster" films, you could perhaps nitpick whether they're in the same category as the others mentioned. For example, in Armageddon, Dante's Peak and The Day After Tomorrow, the natural disaster is so large and out of human hands that humans are seen as innocent and complete victims. In Titanic, 'Poseidon' and 'Inferno', however, the emphasis is on the reverse: the scale of the human achievement and how easily it was brought down by a relatively small natural force (ex. an iceberg, a wave or a spark), and humans don't seem so innocent because they thought that they were in control of nature and nature put them in their place. Those should still qualify as "natural disaster" films, IMO, but may illustrate how there are two distinct sub-categories of the genre.
montreal
Go Habs Go
Twister
Dante's Peak
The Day After Tomorrow
Deep Impact
Armegedon
Volcano
Outbreak
Night of the Comet
The Andromeda Strain
The Core
2012
Atomic Twister
what about ones based on true events?
The Perfect Storm
White Squall
Pompeii
St. Helens
Dante's Peak
The Day After Tomorrow
Deep Impact
Armegedon
Volcano
Outbreak
Night of the Comet
The Andromeda Strain
The Core
2012
Atomic Twister
what about ones based on true events?
The Perfect Storm
White Squall
Pompeii
St. Helens
AfroThunder396
[citation needed]
The original 1954 Godzilla is very much a natural disaster movie, if you replaced shots of Big G with shots of an earthquake or tsunami the movie wouldn't be any different.
I, personally, wouldn't consider Godzilla to be "natural." He's unnatural, like King Kong and other monsters. I wouldn't call monster movies "natural disaster movies." When it comes to natural disasters, we think of the danger coming from the natural elements and forces. You might stretch that to include some living dangers like viruses and insect swarms, but I think that getting much larger, smarter and/or unnatural gets too far from what think of as natural disasters.
Last edited:
Franck
eltiT resU motsuC
The actual natural disaster in it is merely a plot device to get the real story going, but I think Force Majeure is good enough as a film that I'll mention it here anyway.
USC Trojans
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
I'm a sucker for these movies:
Armageddon
2012
Day After Tomorrow
Twister
San Andreas (aka that Daddario movie with the Rock in it)
The Perfect Storm
I'm not afraid to admit it, Armageddon is still one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time.
Armageddon
2012
Day After Tomorrow
Twister
San Andreas (aka that Daddario movie with the Rock in it)
The Perfect Storm
I'm not afraid to admit it, Armageddon is still one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time.
Led Zappa
Tomorrow Today
I didn't think anyone else liked The Night of the Comet anywhere near as much as I do.
. A perfect camp comedy movie.Twister has a special place in my heart for personal reasons. Probably some others I'm forgetting about.
Twister
Night of the Comet
The Andromeda Strain
Poseidon Adventure
The Day After Tomorrow
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
Day After Tomorrow was decent - running away from the weather and some other gems in there just killed it. I liked the take on the weather events.
Night of the Comet - awesome.
Night of the Comet - awesome.
tony d
New poll series coming from me in June
Duke33
Registered User
Have to disagree with the Titanic, Inferno, etc. votes. I don't think those count as natural disasters, except the Poseidon Adventure to some extent. That was caused by an underground earthquake/tsunami type situation. Yes the ship owners were at fault to a point too but it was the actual wave that was the problem.
In Inferno, it was faulty/cheap construction, human greed/error etc. and to some extent the Titanic was the same. Much human error (not the idiotic reason the movie used though, where the lookouts were too busy watching Kate and Leo messing around that they didn't see the berg), but ignoring ice warnings, not having enough lifeboats, etc.
That movie in general was filled with so much fluff it was out of control. A really good Titanic movie I always thought was "A Night to Remember" which was about the disaster and didn't have 90% of its run time filled with a forced Hollywood romance that ended in typical fashion with "bad" guys and shooting, etc.
In Inferno, it was faulty/cheap construction, human greed/error etc. and to some extent the Titanic was the same. Much human error (not the idiotic reason the movie used though, where the lookouts were too busy watching Kate and Leo messing around that they didn't see the berg), but ignoring ice warnings, not having enough lifeboats, etc.
That movie in general was filled with so much fluff it was out of control. A really good Titanic movie I always thought was "A Night to Remember" which was about the disaster and didn't have 90% of its run time filled with a forced Hollywood romance that ended in typical fashion with "bad" guys and shooting, etc.
Sharpshooter
Registered User
- Dec 14, 2011
- 13,590
- 9
Forgot about The Core. I don't know why, but I enjoyed that one quite a bit. The acting was over the top, the writing was meh, but somehow it all came together to be a good watch.
Yeah, I did acknowledge most of that. I'm just of the thinking that it puts them into a different sub-category, rather than disqualifying them entirely. My thinking is that, if it's a disaster that's caused by nature, as opposed to being caused by the actions of "bad guys" (ex. terrorists, super villains, corporations, armies, aliens, monsters), then it probably counts as a "natural disaster film."
If something would not have been such a disaster if not for human error/greed/recklessness/decision-making, wouldn't that potentially disqualify a lot of the other films listed, as well? For example, The Day After Tomorrow basically blames man-made global warming, volcano movies always have people stupidly living too close to active volcanoes and even movies that center on things out of human control rely on human stupidity to make matters worse (ex. refusing to evacuate or going towards the danger, rather than away from it). If we were to count natural disaster films as only those in which humans are totally innocent of contributing to the existence or magnitude of the disaster, probably few would qualify, perhaps only asteroid impact films.
