19 Best Disaster Movies Of Cinema History
Natural disasters and people trying to survive are the most important realities of the human race. For this sole reason, as long as the cinema lives on, there will be movies made about these disasters.
We put together the best ones of this genre. Enjoy the list.☺️
Movies were put in order according to their IMDb ratings. Movies which were under 6.4 aren't on the list.
The storylines were taken from IMDb.
19. The Perfect Storm - (2000)
In October 1991, a confluence of weather conditions combined to form a killer storm in the North Atlantic. Caught in the storm was the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail. Magnificent foreshadowing and anticipation fill this true-life drama while minute details of the fishing boats, their gear and the weather are juxtaposed with the sea adventure.
18. The Day After Tomorrow - (2004)
As Paleoclimatologist named Jack Hall is in Antartica, he discovers that a huge ice sheet has sheared off. But what he does not know is that this event will trigger a massive climate shift that will affect the world population. Meanwhile, his son Sam is with friends in New York to attend an event. There they discover that it has been raining non-stop for the past 3 days, and after a series of weather-related disasters begin to occur over the world, everybody realizes the world is entering a new Ice Age and the world population begins trying to evacuate to the warmer climates of the south. Jack makes a daring attempt to rescue his son and his friends who are stuck in New York and who have managed to survive not only a massive wave but also freezing cold temperatures that could possibly kill them.
17. Hours - (2013)
In New Orleans just before Hurricane Katrina hits, a pregnant woman gives birth prematurely. She dies and her baby is in critical condition. The baby has to be kept in a neonatal incubator. When the hurricane strikes, all the power goes out and everyone in the hospital leaves. But the baby's father stays because the baby can't be moved so he has to take care of his baby by making sure the ventilator stays on. And because there's no power, the only power source is generator that he has to crank every few minutes. So he has to stay awake while waiting for someone to come for them.
16. War of the Worlds - (2005)
Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. When his ex-wife and her new husband drop off his teenage son Robbie and young daughter Rachel for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm suddenly touches down. What follows is the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it in this contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells seminal classic sci-fi thriller.
15. Contagion - (2011)
Soon after her return from a business trip to Hong Kong, Beth Emhoff dies from what is a flu or some other type of infection. Her young son dies later the same day. Her husband Mitch however seems immune. Thus begins the spread of a deadly infection. For doctors and administrators at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, several days pass before anyone realizes the extent or gravity of this new infection. They must first identify the type of virus in question and then find a means of combating it, a process that will likely take several months. As the contagion spreads to millions of people worldwide, societal order begins to break down as people panic.
14. Armageddon (1998)
Due to a shuttle's unfortunate demise in outer space, NASA becomes aware of a doomsday asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth. It seems that the only way to knock it off course is to drill into its surface and detonate a nuclear weapon. But as NASA's under-funded yet resourceful team train the world's best drillers for the job, the social order of the world begins to break down as the information reaches the public and hysteria results. As high-ranking officials play politics with the effort, the drilling team all faces deep personal issues which may jeopardize humanity's last chance...
13. Bølgen - (2015)
Based on the fact that mountain pass Åkneset, located in the Geiranger fjord in Norway, one day will fall out and create a violent tsunami of over 80 meters that will crush everything in its path before it hits land in Greenland. A geologist gets caught in the middle of it and a race against against time begins.
12. Independence Day - (1996)
In the beginning of July, humans received a strange signal, and this has turned into a global phenomenon. A massive spaceship headed towards Earth and smaller spaceships began to cover entire cities around the world. Suddenly, the wonder turns into horror as the spaceships destroy the cities with energy weapons. Then when the world counterattacked, the alien ships are invincible to military weapons. Then the President of the United States decides to head to Area 51, to formulate a plan to defeat the aliens. Now the fate of the world rests on a handful of surviving humans.
11. Cloverfield - (2008)
Cloverfield follows five New Yorkers from the perspective of a hand-held video camera. The movie is exactly the length of a DV Tape and a sub-plot is established by showing bits and pieces of video previously recorded on the tape that is being recorded over. The movie starts as a monster of unknown origin destroys a building. As they go to investigate, parts of the building and the head of the Statue of Liberty come raining down. The movie follows their adventure trying to escape and save a friend, a love interest of the main character.
10. Jurassic World (2015)
Jurassic World has been running with great success for more than a decade in the wake of the disaster that haunted the island 22 years ago. The park's geneticists have once again broken scientific and ethical boundaries in order to raise attendance for the park, now experiencing a decline in happy customers. Convinced that the new attraction will bring in many more people, but having crossed the line once again, the results may be devastating.
9. World War Z (2013)
Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.
8. Melancholia - (2011)
On the night of her wedding, Justine is struggling to be happy even though it should be the happiest day of her life. It was an extravagant wedding paid for by her sister and brother-in-law who are trying to keep the bride and all the guests in-line. Meanwhile, Melancholia, a blue planet, is hurtling towards the Earth. Claire, Justine's sister, is struggling to maintain composure with fear of the impending disaster.
7. 28 Days Later - (2002)
Animal activists invade a laboratory with the intention of releasing chimpanzees that are undergoing experimentation, infected by a virus -a virus that causes rage. The naive activists ignore the pleas of a scientist to keep the cages locked, with disastrous results. Twenty-eight days later, our protagonist, Jim, wakes up from a coma, alone, in an abandoned hospital. He begins to seek out anyone else to find London is deserted, apparently without a living soul. After finding a church, which had become inhabited by zombie like humans intent on his demise, he runs for his life. Selena and Mark rescue him from the horde and bring him up to date on the mass carnage and horror as all of London tore itself apart. This is a tale of survival and ultimately, heroics, with nice subtext about mankind's savage nature.
6. Lo imposible - (2012)
A regular family - Maria (Naomi Watts), Henry (Ewan McGregor) and their three kids - travel to Thailand to spend Christmas. They get an upgrade to a villa on the coastline. After settling in and exchanging gifts, they go to the pool, like so many other tourists. A perfect paradise vacation until a distant noise becomes a roar. There is no time to escape from the tsunami; Maria and her eldest are swept one way, Henry and the youngest another. Who will survive, and what will become of them?
5. Tang shan da di zhen - (2010)
In Tangshan, the truck driver Da Qiang, his wife Yuan Ni and their twins Fang Da, their son, and Fang Deng, their daughter, are a happy simple family. On 27 July 1976, a devastating earthquake destroys Tangshan, and Da Qiang dies while trying to rescue his children from their apartment. When a collapsed beam traps Fang Da and Fang Deng, Yuan Ni is forced to decide between saving her son or daughter and she chooses Fang Da. However, her daughter Fang Deng overhears her mother's choice and miraculously survives. She is rescued by a soldier and adopted by Mr. Wang and his wife with the name Wang Deng. Thirty-two years later, after an earthquake in China, Wang Deng, now married to a Canadian lawyer and living in Vancouver with her daughter, travels to China and voluntarily joins the rescue team. By chance she meets Fang Da and she learns the drama of Yuan Ni through all those years. The family is finally reunited at Yuan Ni's home, where bitterness is exposed and resolved.
4. Darwin's Nightmare - (2004)
The larger scope of the story explores the gun trade to Africa that takes place under the covers -- Russian pilots fly guns into Africa, then fly fish back out to Europe. The hazards and consequences of this trade are explored, including the pan-African violence propagated by constant flow of weapons into the continent. If it is a 'survival of the fittest' world, as Darwin concluded, then the capitalist interests that fund the gun runners are climbing the evolutionary ladder on the backs of the Africans in this stark Darwinian example. Much like the foreseeable extinction of the Lake Victoria perch, and death of Lake Victoria itself, the Africans are in grave jeopardy, even as they survive in the only ways they know how.
3. Titanic (1997)
84 years later, a 101-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story to her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert, Brock Lovett, Lewis Bodine, Bobby Buell and Anatoly Mikailavich on the Keldysh about her life set in April 10th 1912, on a ship called Titanic when young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon Hockley. Meanwhile, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets to the ship in a game. And she explains the whole story from departure until the death of Titanic on its first and last voyage April 15th, 1912 at 2:20 in the morning.
2. Gravity - (2013)
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone - tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness.
1. WALL·E (2008)
In the distant future, humans abandon Earth because there is too much trash on it. WALL-E, with habit of picking up everything he finds interesting, lives alone on the planet with a pet cockroach. He has quite a collection of things, from lighters to a working iPod and even a small ring box (without the ring). He even has the last living plant. When a spaceship comes to earth and drops a sleek and dangerous probe EVE to look for a living plant, WALL-E falls in love with her. WALL-E gives her the plant, which makes EVE go into sleep mode. When a spaceship comes to take EVE back, WALL-E too goes with her. What follows is an adventure onboard the Axiom, where people move on hovering chairs and get liquid food which they suck up through a straw. Due to laziness, they have become so fat that they are unable to move. Due to hastily given instructions given to it, auto, the autopilot it tries to get rid of the plant which compels WALL-E, EVE, the pilot and some malfunctioning robots to find a way to retrieve the plant and save the earth.
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