Absolute Zero (2006)
Disaster Movie
A Syfy Channel disaster movie based around the scientifically nonsensical idea of the Earth’s pole undergoing a magnetic shift and temperatures being reduced to absolute zero
Disaster Movies
The disaster movie is a film spectacle that is set around some type of natural or man-made disaster – earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, planes in the process of crashing, ships sinking. There is the focus on spectacular scenes of mass destruction and drama as a crosscut of characters attempt to survive in the midst.
The original disaster movie fad began in the 1970s a series of big-budget hits featuring A-list casts. This underwent a revival in the 1990s where the advent of the CGI revolution allowed a much greater degree of depiction of spectacular mass destruction.
From the 2000s, the disaster movie has become the province of the B-budget film made for cable usually featuring a number of exotic science-fictional menaces – new onset Ice Ages, black holes, Global Warming scenarios, tornadoes of sharks and the like.
For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Disaster Movies.
Age of Ice (2014)
Disaster Movie
Low-budget disaster movie from The Asylum where the Middle East is covered in a sudden Arctic conditions with the onset of a new Ice Age
Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Disaster Movie & SF Spoof
Airplane was a parody of the disaster movie that proved a hit. This was a sequel that expands the action aboard the space shuttle and contains many SF in-jokes but to generally lesser effect
Alien Express (2005)
Alien Nasties on a Train
A ridiculous film with Lou Diamond Phillips pursuing aliens aboard a runaway train. Cliches are piled on with absurd effect and the show killed by cheap effects
Alien Tornado (2012)
Disaster Movie/Extraterrestrial Tornado
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie. With the sheer amount of these films, many have been straining to come up novelty threats – you cannot deny the idea of a tornado of alien origin holds your attention
The Apocalypse (2007)
Oncoming Asteroid/Biblical Disaster Movie
One of the bizarre early oddities from The Asylum, a disaster movie about an oncoming asteroid. This also try to jump aboard the mid-2000s fad for Biblical movies where faith elements are combined with the scenario in ways that are bizarre
Arctic Blast (2010)
Wave of Supercold Disaster Movie
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie featuring a cold wave that freezes everything in its path. As expected, this ignores basic science while offering cut-price digital mass destruction effects
Armageddon (1998)
Asteroid on a Collision Course with Earth
A film that relentlessly celebrates its own brainlessness. Michael Bay directs an asteroid collision film amid plenty of loud noise, mass destruction, flag-waving patriotism and resolute heroism
Behemoth (2011)
Giant Mythological Monster Awakens
A Syfy Channel film that is equal part disaster movie and monster movie. Formulaic but for the outlandishness of its premise – the disaster is caused by a giant mythological monster wrapped around the Earth
The Big Bus (1976)
Disaster Movie Parody
Intermittently amusing parody of the disaster movie set aboard an atomically-powered luxury bus where everything proceeds to go wrong. The better parody of the genre would have to wait for Airplane
The Black Hole (2006)
Black Hole & Electrical Monster Amok
Of all the concepts in physics, the wildest of these is the black hole. It seems highly disappointing that this set out to be a film about a black hole but all we get is a film about an electrical monster amok
The Cassandra Crossing (1976)
Plague-Infected Train/Disaster Movie
From the heyday of the disaster movie, an all-star cast head up a big scale drama about a train where a passenger is carrying a deadly plague, only for the train to be shunted all across Europe
Category 6: Day of Destruction (2004)
Superstorm/Disaster Mini-Series
A disaster tv mini-series about the most powerful storm in recorded history descending on Chicago just as a hacker disables the power grid. Most of this plays by the cliches of the genre.
Category 7: The End of the World (2005)
Superstorms/Disaster Mini-Series
Sequel to the tv mini-series Category 6: Day of Destruction ups the scale of the super-storm but is also better constructed as a disaster movie
Crystal Skulls (2014)
Alien Artefacts/Disaster Movie
Syfy Channel film that mashes the disaster movie together with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The result is peculiarly unsatisfying either as disaster movie or the tomb raiding adventure we expect
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
New Ice Age/Environmental Disaster Movie
In another of his big budget disaster spectacles, Roland Emmerich embraces environmental concerns about Global Warming. Here he (unscientifically) imagines the abrupt onset of a new Ice Age worldwide
Deadly Skies (2006)
Asteroid Collision
Very low-budget film about an impending asteroid collision. Possibly the first LGBT disaster movie depending on which version you see
Deep Impact (1998)
Asteroid Collision/Disaster Movie
Big serious attempt at creating an asteroid collides with Earth film, this came out the same year as Armageddon. Despite arraying much acting talent and effects artistry, this disappears into a melodramatic blandness
Deep Rescue (2005)
Space Shuttle Crash at Sea
This has an interesting premise of a returning space shuttle that crashes and sinks at sea and the attempts to rescue it. Alas, this has the misfortune of being produced on a minuscule budget and with pitiful effects
Deep Water (2026)
Stranded in a Sea of Sharks
The perpetually terrible Renny Harlin makes a halfway watchable film about the survivors of a plane crash at sea trying to stay alive as the sinking plane is surrounded by sharks
Delete (2013)
Artificial Intelligence Amok
The return of the talented Steve Barron after a decade’s absence in a film that was shot in my own backyard (literally). Disappointingly, all we get is a work that unimaginatively rehashes cliches about amok A.I.s
Deluge (1933)
Massive Worldwide Flood
The world’s first disaster movie concerning a worldwide flood. This has some extremely impressive effects for the era showing New York being drowned. Less interesting are the dramatics in the ruins
Don’t Look Up (2021)
The End of the World/Satire
The perfect film for the Covid era. A devastatingly on the ball satire on the ineptitude of people’s response in the face of an extinction level threat to the Earth from an oncoming comet as government agencies tries to minimise the news
Doomsday Meteor (2023)
Meteor on a Collision Course with Earth
Another enterprising low-budget disaster movie from The Asylum about a meteor on a collision course with the Earth. The great Joe Roche is on script and creates an amazingly almost plausible scenario
Earthquake (1974)
L.A. Devastated/Disaster Movie
Disaster movie in which Los Angeles is devastated by an earthquake Size 7 on the Richter scale. Despite a script by Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, this is the usual soap opera melodramatics
Earth’s Final Hours (2011)
End of the World/Disaster Movie
Another Syfy Channel low-budget disaster film. This creates a fascinating if scientifically dubious end of the world premise about a white hole but spends the show on the routine stuff of car chases and gunfights
Earthtastrophe (2016)
Earth Transported to Another Solar System
Syfy Channel disaster movie where Earth is suddenly transported into another Solar System amid cheap effects and an improbable time travel solution is sought to reverse this
Eve of Destruction (2013)
Dark Energy Experiment Amok/Disaster Mini-Series
An impoverished sf disaster mini-series about a dark matter experiment going amok that manages to tediously drag out four hours of soap opera dramatics and control room doubletalk
A Fire in the Sky (1978)
Comet on a Collision Course with the Earth
TV movie about an impending asteroid collision that was intended as a copy of the big-budget disaster movie Meteor but is actually a far better film. The science and Civil Defence reaction is written with an impressive credibility
Firequake (2014)
Disaster Movie
A Syfy Channel disaster movie that follows the formula with little variation about a geo-engineering project to tap clean energy from the Earth that goes amok creating firequakes
500 MPH Storm (2013)
Superstorm Disaster Movie
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie about a superstorm created by an amok weather control experiment. The shoddy CGI effects and cliched pieces of canned drama fly thick
Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007)
Zombies on a Plane
One of several films that came out not long after Snakes on a Plane offering similar wacky collusions – in this case, a zombie outbreak aboard a plane. The surprise is that the film plays itself seriously
Flood (2007)
London Deluged/Disaster Mini-Series
A British disaster tv mini-series that depicts London being overwhelmed by vast flooding and the struggle by civil authorities to cope
4 Horsemen: Apocalypse (2022)
Disaster Movie
The Asylum build a disaster movie around the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who are causing various volcanoes eruptions, locust swarms and other worldwide disasters
Geo-Disaster (2017)
Disaster Movie
A disaster movie mockbuster from The Asylum that was intended to exploit the (non)-success of Geostorm. Directed by the writer of the Sharknado films
Geostorm (2017)
Weather Control/Disaster Movie
Directorial debut of Roland Emmerich’s regular screenwriter Dean Devlin who has clearly been given orders to make another Emmerich film. Thus we get all the same effects-driven mass destruction spectacle, absurd science and pro-environmental messages
Greenland (2020)
Disaster Movie/Comet on a Collision Course with the Earth
There seems something redundant in 2021 with the world in the grip of a very real apocalypse about watching an old-fashioned mass destruction disaster movie about an oncoming comet impact
Greenland: Migration (2026)
Post-Apocalyptic Disaster Movie
Greenland was a disaster movie on the familiar theme of a comet colliding with the Earth. This is a desultory sequel where the survivors emerge from the shelters to now have to survive in a changed post-apocalyptic world
Ice (1998)
New Ice Age
A made-for-tv disaster movie about a new Ice Age. This uncannily prefigures the scenario of Roland Emmerich’s big budget, high-profile The Day After Tomorrow
Ice Twisters (2009)
Disaster Movie
Another formula Syfy Channel disaster movie based around a scientifically improbable meteorological premise. This does at least make the characters work with more of a sparring vigour than usual
Jet Stream (2013)
Disaster Movie/Weather Control Experiment Amok
A Syfy Channel disaster movie. Between the formula dramatics and cheap effects, this is better than expected, having a sense of humour and a more original hero than most of its kind
Judgment Day (1998)
Oncoming Asteroid Collision/‘Hood Drama
Coming out the same year as Deep Impact and Armageddon, this was another oncoming asteroid collision film – one that has been bizarrely crosshatched with a ‘hood drama
Lost in the Pacific (2016)
Disaster Movie/Mutant Cats on a Plane
A Chinese-made attempt to make a disaster movie with a crosscut of characters aboard a luxury airliner. What causes the film to plummet down into the ridiculous is the addition of a horde of mutant cats
Meteor (1979)
Meteor Collision/Disaster Movie
An effort from the heyday of the 1970s disaster movie that was a big flop when it came out. Widely ridiculed for its bad special effects, it is a film I am partially prepared to defend, it setting aside the usual soap opera dramatics of these films to make an interesting parable about Cold War tensions. It also prefigures Armageddon with its plot of trying to divert a meteor on a collision course with Earth
Meteor (2009)
Impending Meteor Collision
Disaster TV mini-series where assorted well-known faces fight through the chaos to prevent an impending meteor strike
Meteor Moon (2020)
The Moon on a Collision Course with the Earth/Disaster Movie
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Moonfall. This plays a ridiculous premise with an ingenious absurdity and proves far more entertaining than its bigger budgeted model
Moon Crash (2022)
Disaster Movie
The Asylum offer up a mockbuster copy of Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall that is far more entertaining than the original
Moonfall (2022)
Disaster Movie/The Moon on a Collision Course With the Earth
Roland Emmerich returns to mass destruction with a film about The Moon on a collision course with Earth, which heads in some conceptually challenging directions
Oceans Rising (2017)
Global Warming Disaster Movie
Disaster movie from The Asylum set around global warming. Notable for two things – the wackiness of the scientist’s scheme to save the planet by creating black holes, and the cheapness of the production, which does almost everything it can to avoid effects shots
100° Below 0 (2013)
Disaster Movie/New Ice Age
Syfy Channel disaster movie about a mass volcanic eruption plunging Europe into an instant Ice Age. All the usual potted formulaic drama and cheap effects – the absurdity of the film is surely demonstrated by the fact that people wander about in the midst of -100 degree temperatures in t-shirts
Planetquake (2024)
Disaster Movie
A B-budget disaster movie from The Asylum that concerns scientists trying to halt a vast ring of earthquakes that have been triggered around the world
Quantum Apocalypse (2010)
End of the World Film
Another cheap Syfy Channel end of the world film. So cheap that the catastrophe mostly ends up being talked about rather than depicted, while the rest of the show runs by disaster movie cliches
Raise the Titanic (1980)
Engineering Project to Raise the Titanic
Massively ambitious Clive Cussler adaptation about the attempts to raise the wreck of the Titanic, which became one of the most over-budgeted flops of its day. The actual raising of the Titanic looks utterly magnificent but the rest of the film remains sunken amid murky underwater photography that looks like children’s toys shot in a bathtub
Rollercoaster (1977)
Psycho Bomber
1970s disaster movie with George Segal tracking Timothy Bottoms as a mad bomber blowing up rollercoasters
San Andreas (2015)
Disaster Movie/California Hit by Super-Earthquake
As the spectacle of mass destruction goes, you could hardly get more epic in scale than this. On the other hand, as someone whose hometown was obliterated by an earthquake in 2011, I find it offensive that such devastation is arranged for our enjoyment while the suffering and even the idea that anybody has been killed has been edited out
San Andreas Quake (2015)
Disaster Movie/The Asylum Mockbuster
The Asylum’s cheap mockbuster version of the big-budget Dwaye Johnson-starring disaster movie spectacle San Andreas. Passable as general fare from The Asylum, about the level of the average filler tv movie and with effects to a not-too-bad standard
Seattle Super Storm (2012)
Disaster Movie
Another formulaic Syfy Channel B-budget disaster film. The film’s sole distinction is a more outlandish premise than usual – where the storm appears initially to be caused by a UFO that has been shot down
Seeds of Destruction (2011)
Massive Runaway Plant Roots
Cheap Syfy Channel CGI disaster spectacle about runaway plant roots – from the Garden of Eden, no less – growing to endanger the entire planet. Utterly formulaic and seeming to consist of no more than canned pieces of cliche action
Sinking of Japan (2006)
Japanese Disaster Movie
Big-budget modern Japanese remake of a 1970s disaster movie in which Japan starts to catastrophically sink into the ocean. Despite revisiting the original with CGI spectacle, this is a film in which hardly anything interesting happens
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Snakes Amok
Purportedly this was dreamed up by scriptwriters over drinks trying to think of the most ridiculous pitch they could make. The result was advertised as a deliberately bad movie and became a modest hit
Starflight One (1983)
Plane Trapped in Orbit/Disaster Movie
Made-for-tv disaster movie released to theatres about the attempts to rescue a plane that becomes trapped in orbit
Stonados (2013)
Disaster Movie/Tornado of Explosive Boulders
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie – this one featuring a tornado that rains boulders that explode upon landing. Everything runs to the usual formula plotting and cheap CGI effects of these types of movies
Stonehenge Apocalypse (2010)
Disaster Movie/Stonehenge Triggers the End of the World
Cheaply made Syfy Channel attempt to copy Roland Emmerich’s 2012 that jumps aboard wacky Erich von Daniken nuttiness but fails to create a worthy End of the World drama due to cut-price effects
Submersion of Japan (1973)
Disaster Movie/Japan Sinks Into the Ocean
A thinking person’s disaster movie depicting Japan’s sinking into the ocean
Super Tanker (2011)
Disaster Movie/Super-Container of Antimatter
Syfy Channel disaster movie about the efforts to dispose of a container of antimatter being carried on board a tanker, where things proceed to go wrong
Supernova (2005)
Solar Disaster
Disaster TV mini-series about the end of the world due to the sun about to go supernova. Cliche plotting, canned action scenes and bad science ensue
The Swarm (1978)
Killer Bees Amok
Irwin Allen had great success in the 1970s with his disaster movies but this killer bee saga with a cast of big name stars uttering ridiculous dialogue and shabby effects proved a bomb that spelt the death knell for the genre
Swarm (2007)
Ants on a Plane
A blatant copy of Snakes on a Plane featuring mutated ants aboard a plane. Without the other film’s tongue-in-cheek approach, this collapses into absurdity
10.5 (2004)
Disaster Mini-Series/California Super-Quake
Disaster mini-series based around the great belief that a super-earthquake will come and pitch most of California into the ocean. Despite devoting some four hour of screen time to it, the drama feels painfully padded at times, while the special effects sequences come out as not very special
Thunderbird 6 (1968)
Hi-Tech Rescue Organisation/Puppet Film
The second of the films spun off from the Gerry Anderson puppet tv series and a much better dramatically sustained film than its predecessor
Thunderbirds Are Go (1966)
Hi-Tech Rescue Organisation/Puppet Film
The first of the films spun off from Gerry Anderson’s cult puppet tv series. Not a completely successful transition but it is, as always with an Anderson production, worth watching for what the Andersons do best – making amazing models and blowing them up
Turbulence (1997)
Serial Killer on a Plane
Ridiculous disaster movie where air hostess Lauren Holly must deal with serial killer Ray Liotta while trying to land the plane
2012: Ice Age (2011)
Disaster Movie
One of several disaster movies set around the supposed year 2012 apocalypse made by The Asylum. Bad science abounds as a giant adrift glacier ends up creating a new Ice Age
Twister (1996)
Tornado Chasers
After the massive success of Jurassic Park, anything with Michael Crichton’s name on it was hot property. This is made from his script about tornado chasers and is a rather entertaining film made with no other purpose that to keep producing a series of spectacular mass destruction scenes on an ever-expanding scale
Twisters (2024)
Tornado Chasers
Sequel to Twister, the Michael Crichton written film about tornado chasers, this updates the story to the 21st Century and aims for much more in the way of mass destruction spectacle
2012 (2009)
The End of the World/Disaster Movie
Roland Emmerich mass destruction spectacle loosely based around the supposed Mayan prophecies about the end of the world in 2012. Mostly just an excuse for massively scaled disaster sequences.
Volcano (1997)
Disaster Movie/Volcano Erupts in L.A.
A disaster movie made early into the CGI era based around the ludicrous notion of an active volcano suddenly appearing in Los Angeles
When Worlds Collide (1951)
Planetary Collision/End of the World
Classic George Pal produced effects spectacular where Earth faces destruction in the face of collision with an oncoming planet and the efforts to build an ark so that some might survive