Films whose plots revolve around something huge, horrible, and natural heading towards the protagonists, and their reactions to it.

About half have the main characters trying to stop the disaster somehow, while the other half have them simply trying to survive. In both varieties, viewers are introduced to large casts that exist solely to be killed off in various ways by the disaster and its side effects. Meteors, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and catastrophic climate change are among the popular subjects. People who watch these movies are typically Just Here for Godzilla.

The genre became incredibly popular in The '70s, with Irwin Allen becoming (in)famous for making a number of these movies. Eventually, like all trends in Hollywood, it burned itself out, finally being killed when Airplane! tore into the genre. Modern special effects helped revive the disaster movie in The '90s, until the destruction of the Twin Towers did away with audiences' appetite for scenes of cataclysmic destruction. This aversion swiftly passed, therefore making this trope a textbook case of Cyclic National Fascination.

Alien Invasion and especially kaiju movies tend to be very similar in tone to disaster movies, with their focus on destruction.

Not to be confused with the Seltzer and Friedberg movie of the same name.

Common tropes used in the genre:

• All-Star Cast: For some reason, disaster movies are like magnets for A- and B-list actors.
• Anyone Can Die: For audiences back then it was genuinely surprising to see big name actors that one assumed were safe die horrific deaths onscreen, as opposed to just the extras.
• Apocalypse Wow: These movies are big on special effects by necessity to wow the audience.
• Based on a True Story: Real-life disasters make great inspiration for movies. See here for many examples.
• Big Dam Plot: Dams appearing on a disaster movie will be severely damaged and/or break, just like the Chekhov's Volcano will always erupt.
• Cassandra Truth: Often times one or more of the protagonists know about the impending catastrophe, even know how to prevent it, but they are often either a) laughed at/ignored, or b) silenced with threats.
• Chekhov's Volcano: If the movie features a volcano, it will erupt.
• Deadline News: The poor newscaster assigned to cover this story is in for it.
• Death of a Child: For some reason, a lot of these movies show a child getting killed, just in case we've ceased to care by this point.
• Designated Villain: Sometimes, the character that is intended to be the Jerkass and Hate Sink will be a completely rational and pragmatic character who simply makes reasonable but tough decisions that the other characters don't like (their attitude does not helps). See 2012's Carl Anheuser for what is perhaps the prime example.
• Developing Doomed Characters: Half of the movie will usually be spent on setting up the characters before the disaster takes out a large chunk of them.
• Doomed Contrarian: Many characters (but most probably the Hate Sink) will continue to go against the heroes regardless of how sensible the heroes' decisions are (or out of a sense of extremely cold pragmatism) up until the disaster kills them off.
• Ensemble Cast: These movies tend to feature a large number of minor characters.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Particularly in the case of localized disasters (earthquakes, fires, crashes, etc.) the action tends to unfold over the course of one or two days at most.
• Fight to Survive: Most disaster movies will at some point have the characters that are left struggling to stay alive.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Applies to some examples in the aftermath of subsequent Real Life disasters. May tread on Distanced from Current Events if the timing is poor.
• Hate Sink: The main antagonist is the disaster itself, but since one cannot hate a force of nature, a Jerkass character will often be added to serve as an outlet for the bad-guy-hating.
• Heroic Dog: If there is a medium or large sized dog in the film, it will rescue someone. (typically a child) If it appears to die offscreen during the effort, after twenty seconds of children shedding tears to depressing music, it will be revealed to have survived — happily panting, barking, and wagging its tail and without any apparent injuries.
• Hollywood Science: After all, you can't let little things like the laws of physics get in the way of some awesome destruction.
• Ignored Expert: Most films of this genre (except those that focus entirely on civilian survivors), will have a scientist warning authorities of the potential for disaster in the early scenes and not being taken seriously.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Large parts of the audience watch it solely for the disasters themselves, rather than the character subplots around it.
• Made-for-TV Movie: Since the advent of video tape, TV production has often been cheaper than film. This allows more money for an All-Star Cast and Stuff Blowing Up. (Sometimes called the Movie of the Week or Million Dollar Movie.) Even in the 1970s there were about as many made-for-TV disaster movies as theatrical ones, another reason the genre initially burnt out at the turn of the 1980s.
• Meteorite of Doom: Has become a staple of the genre, since meteorites can cause world-ending damage and are really hard to stop.
• Monumental Damage: Because The White House getting blown up is a lot more awesome than your neighbor's house getting blown up. Unless you really hate your neighbor...
• Natural Disaster Cascade: Why have just one disaster in the same movie when you can have multiple.
• Nightmare Fuel: One wonders why none of these movies ever get mentioned when anyone makes a list of the scariest movies of all time, considering how much they work off of common fears like acrophobia and claustrophobia.
• No Antagonist: The main conflict in these films is caused by a natural disaster, so unless the film adds additional human adversaries to overcome (who often fall in the Designated Villain category), there are effectively no antagonists.
• One-Word Title: It seems to be popular for the title to be just the name of whatever's trying to kill the heroes i.e. Earthquake, Avalanche, Volcano, Twister, Meteor, etc.
• Outrun the Fireball: Often many times in a single movie. Substitute "tidal wave", "fault line", "lava flow", Wave-Motion Gun, etc. for fireball as necessary.
• Popularity Polynomial: Disaster movies went out of fashion twice — the first time being after the genre burned itself out in the late '70s, and the second being the result of September 11th attacks. The 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina didn't help either.
• Primal Fear: If you're claustrophobic, acrophobic, pyrophobic, or any number of other phobias, you will not have a good time.
• Red Shirt
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: What better way to integrate the obligatory romantic subplot into a story about a disaster?
• Ripped from the Headlines: Releases of these films tend to coincide with real life disasters (give or take six months depending on severity of destruction or death tolls)
• Rule of Cool: See Hollywood Science.
• Scenery Gorn
• Shocking Moments: The disaster sequences will most definitely do their damnedest to shock the audience.
• Spreading Disaster Map Graphic
• Stuff Blowing Up: First rule of Hollywood: "Anything can explode".
• Suit with Vested Interests: They're willing to ignore an imminent disaster to protect their investment.
• Summer Blockbuster: With the budgets that most disaster movies have, it's only natural that they're released in the summer.
• Token Romance: Most common with films released in The '90s and onward, and very often involves the protagonist's prior unspecified divorce or an upcoming unspecified divorce. It is assumed that their issues get resolved shortly after the film ends.
• Villainy-Free Villain: The real conflict is the disaster, but writers don't seem to want this film to go without an outright bastard in the cast who antagonizes the heroes (without doing much besides being a Jerkass) and will often receive a Karmic Death.
• Visual Effects of Awesome (or Special Effect Failure if done wrong)

Examples of disaster movies:

• 9/11: Real Life documentary that it's actually not that far off - a film crew embedded with the fire department responding to a minor call just happens to capture an incredibly destructive terrorist act and follows the firefighters into harms way, recording the whole time. In the end, despite thousands dying, the entire main cast survives. If you wrote a movie with that plot you'd have fanboys telling you it's unrealistic.
• 10.0 Earthquake: A new fracking project sets off tremors all over the Los Angeles basin area, ultimately threatening to destroy the entire city.
• 10.5: An NBC Miniseries about massive earthquakes destroying the West Coast. Its 2006 sequel, 10.5 Apocalypse, had a massive fault line opening up in the Midwest and splitting North America in half.
• 13 Minutes (2021): Four families deal with their own personal issues (a married TV meteorologist and emergency management official raising their deaf daughter, a young adult daughter of a teen mom dealing with whether to keep her unplanned pregnancy, a closeted gay teen struggling to come out to his socially conservative parents, and a hotel employee trying to start a new life with her undocumented immigrant fiancée) as a monster tornado descends upon their small Oklahoma town. An independent film featuring Amy Smart, Anne Heche, Peter Facinelli, Paz Vega and Trace Adkins.
• 2012: The Mayan prophecies of The End of the World as We Know It start coming true. Lots of stuff blows up. An aircraft carrier crushes the White House and St. Peter's dome imitates a bowling ball.
• After Darkness: A rich family hunkers down and tries to survive the aftermath of the sun going out.
• After The Shock: TV movie. Dramatization of the 1989 World Series earthquake in San Francisco and the race against time to free and rescue those trapped on the partially-collapsed Nimitz Freeway.
• Aftershock: A group of people surviving the aftermath of an earthquake in Chile.
• Air Crew: An evacuation of earthquake victims leads to a Midair Repair.
• Airplane!: The Parody of the disaster genre. So effective, it made it nearly impossible for disaster movies to be taken seriously for another thirteen years.
• Airport: The Trope Codifier. Started the first boom of disaster films in the '70s. Stars Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, George Kennedy and Jacqueline Bisset. Had three sequels, each one progressively worse (but still successful... at least, until the fourth one finally killed the series). They are, in order;
  • Airport 1975 (1974): A mid-air collision kills the flight crew, forcing another pilot to have to board the plane in mid-flight.
  • Airport 77 (1977): A luxury private 747 is hijacked and crash lands in the Bermuda Triangle before sinking, triggering a massive search-and-rescue mission to rescue the stranded survivors before they drown.
  • The Concorde Airport 79 (1979): A goodwill flight to Moscow via the Concorde is put in danger by a corrupt businessman's repeated efforts to have the plane shot down as one of the passengers is a reporter equipped with a story that will ruin him.
• The Andromeda Strain: After a deadly extraterrestrial micro-organism is brought to Earth on a crashed military satellite in the Southwestern U.S., a team of scientists assembles in an underground facility to investigate the organism and contain its spread.
• Apollo 13: The true story of the manned space mission that never made it to the Moon.
• Armageddon (1998): An asteroid the size of Texas is headed for Earth, and our only hope is Bruce Willis and his team of deep core oil drillers. Makes Volcano look like a scientific documentary, though that’s to be expected from a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay. Duel with Deep Impact.
• Ashfall: About a volcano whose eruptions have devastating consequences for the Korean peninsula.
• Asteroid (1997): TV mini-series about two large asteroids headed for Earth. Kansas City ends up flooded and Dallas is obliterated when an attempt at destroying the larger asteroid only breaks it up. Concentrates mainly on the role that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (or FEMA) would play in the face of such a catastrophe. Features very impressive model effects for a TV mini-series of the time.
• Atomic Train: A train carrying explosive chemicals and a nuclear bomb becomes a runaway, and it's up to an NTSB agent and a train operator to prevent the train from crashing and the bomb exploding in Denver.
• Atomic Twister (2003 TV): The employees of a nuclear power station rush to prevent a catastrophic meltdown after tornadoes damage several of the plant's power generators.
• Avalanche: An airplane crashes in the mountains above a ski resort, burying it under the snow.
• The Big Bus: Genre parody. On the maiden voyage of a luxury transcontinental coach (nuclear-powered, double-decker, equipped with a bowling alley, cocktail lounge, swimming pool, and dining room) the crew must deal with a series of disasters and sabotages.
• The Cassandra Crossing: A terrorist infected with plague is on a train, so authorities send it in the direction of a bridge too weak to support it. Can the passengers who don't succumb to the illness save themselves?
• Category 6 Day Of Destruction: Another Miniseries, this one from CBS and starring Randy Quaid and Brian Dennehy. A massive storm (which is, for some reason, referred to as a hurricane) develops over Chicago and destroys it. Its release just six months after The Day After Tomorrow must be a coincidence.
• Category 7 The End Of The World: The Movie of Day of Destruction. The storm from the original moves east and destroys New York and Washington, while similar storms destroy Paris and Egypt. Meanwhile, a televangelist and his wife exploit the storms to gain new converts. Starred Gina Gershon as the head of FEMA, as well as Shannen Doherty, James Brolin, and a returning Randy Quaid.
• The Chain Reaction: A young couple in rural Australia must inform the public of a radiation leak following an earthquake before the corrupt corporate executives responsible can intercept and silence them.
• Challenger: A dramatization of the events leading up to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, with particular emphasis on the personal lives of the astronauts and the safety issues regarding the shuttle's booster rockets that failed so catastrophically during its launch on January 28, 1986.
• Chernobyl is a mini-series that focuses on the eponymous nuclear plant accident and its aftermath and crosses the line with Historical Fiction due to both being based off real events and eschewing the disaster genre's clichés (it could well be classified as Horror as well).
• The China Syndrome: An odd variant, since it's about the narrow aversion of a disaster (a meltdown at a nuclear plant) and the attempts to cover up what nearly led to it.
• City on Fire (1979): An unnamed Midwestern city suffers a massive fire when an oil refinery worker loses it and sabotages the place.
• Cloverfield is a disaster movie in a sense. Unlike most Kaiju movies, they focus more on the horrors of encountering a gigantic rampaging monster, thus giving them many disaster movie aspects. Helps that "Clover"'s attack had many aspects of 9/11 in it.
• Contagion (2011): A disaster movie dealing with a global pandemic.
• The Core: Earth's core stops rotating thanks to a top-secret military project Gone Horribly Wrong, eliminating Earth's magnetic field and causing it to get hit by solar storms. Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank go down into Earth's interior to restart the core with nuclear bombs. Stealth Parody of disaster films.
• The Crash Of Flight 401: 1978 TV movie starring William Shatner. Dramatization of the 1972 crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401, the first hull loss of the Lockheed 1011-Tristar.
• Crawl: A young woman and her father battle a hurricane and alligators.
• Cyclone (1978): A cyclone devastates the coast of Mexico, bringing down a plane, leaving a glass bottom tour boat adrift, and forcing a group of fishermen to Abandon Ship. The survivors of all three groups are left trapped at sea with little food and water to go around, especially once they come into contact with each other and have to share.
• Dante's Peak: A volcano erupts in the Pacific Northwest. Surprisingly for a disaster flick, it's notable for its relative scientific accuracy. Starred Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton. Dueled with Volcano.
• The Day After: A very different sort of disaster movie, which is the reason it was able to escape Airplane!'s shadow. It was a TV movie made for ABC about nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. It doesn’t go well, to put it lightly. And the kicker is that for as grim as it gets, the ending clarifies that the events depicted are less severe than they would be in real life. It, along with its British equivalent, was effective enough at showing the result of a nuclear war that it is widely credited (by, among other people, Ronald Reagan) for inspiring the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987.
• The Day After Tomorrow: Global Warming destroys the world. Starred Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal.
• The Day of the Roses: An Australian two-part miniseries about the real-life Granville Rail Disaster and the subsequent investigation, with viewpoints shared between recollections of the disaster and its aftermath and the investigators dealing with the political implications of their findings.
• The Day the Earth Caught Fire: London journalists gradually discover that simultaneous A-bomb tests on opposite ends of the globe have knocked Earth off its axis and sent it hurtling toward the Sun.
• DC 9/11: Time of Crisis: Dramatization of how the U.S. government responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
• Daylight: The Holland Tunnel floods following an explosion, and Sylvester Stallone goes in to save the people trapped.
• Deep Impact: The Dante's Peak of the Dueling Works scenario with Armageddon, down to the effort to be more scientifically accurate. Also considerably more serious and melodramatic. Several characters deal with a comet that’s heading towards Earth, while President Morgan Freeman does everything in his power to ensure humanity survives.
• Deluge (1933): A very early example. Most of the film was thought to be lost, save for a scene of New York getting destroyed by earthquakes and tidal waves. In the late 1980s, however, a complete print dubbed in Italian was discovered in a film archive. One scene, showing the Statue of Liberty getting hit by a tidal wave, would be copied over seventy years later by Deep Impact and The Day After Tomorrow.
• Don't Look Up: A Deconstructive Parody of how a planet-killing meteor scenario would likely play out in real life with a modern-day political and social landscape, with their answer being that government corruption, greed, and a dash of willful ignorance would ultimately screw everyone over.
• Earth vs. the Flying Saucers: Aliens lay waste to Washington D.C. during a worldwide alien invasion. Features special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
• Earthquake: An earthquake destroys Los Angeles. Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and Lorne Greene try to survive. This was the first of a handful of '70s films to use Sensurround, a special surround sound system with a powerful bass line. When the city started to rumble, crumble, and tumble, the bass kicked in to literally shake up audiences.
• Aftershock Earthquake In New York: A two-part TV movie about a major quake in a place no one expects!
• End Day: An hour-long docudrama offering four (or five, depending on the cut) ways that natural disasters could cause the end of the world (or even just massive loss of life and property): megatsunami, meteor strike, pandemic, supervolcano eruption, and formation of a killer strangelet in the Large Hadron Collider.
• The End We Start From: A very lowkey example after London floods and makes the city uninhabitable for thousands of people.
• Exit (2019): A terrorist releases a slowly rising toxic gas throughout downtown Seoul, which forces the citizens to head to the roofs. A rare comedic example.
• Fire 1977: Another Irwin Allen-produced TV movie and his final successful disaster film. A convict's carelessly-discarded cigarette starts a forest fire which quickly rages out of control, putting a nearby town, it's sawmill, and a missing 1st grade girl all in danger. It's up to forest rangers and firemen to tackle the blaze and save those in peril. Notably starring Ernest Borgnine in his second of three films for Irwin Allen.
• Fireman Sam has two movies (The Great Fire of Pontypandy and Heroes of the Storm) that detail series of emergencies, such as a forest fire threatening Pontypandy and a hurricane hitting the Welsh town of Pontypandy.
• Firestorm 72 Hours In Oakland (1993): TV movie about the 1991 Oakland wildfire. A fire chief new to the job finds his work cut out for him when a massive forrest fire puts several communities at risk. Notably contains footage of actual firefighting and evacuations from the real-life event.
• A Fire In The Sky: 1978 TV movie. The joy of discovering a new comet is cut short when calculations determine that it's due to impact Pheonix, Arizona in eight days. When ICB Ms fail, an urgent evacuation is undertaken though some cannot make it out and must seek shelter within the impact zone. Not to be confused with the alien abduction film Fire in the Sky.
• Fire Twister: A group of ecologists are prompted to stop a firenado destroying multiple cities in California after witnessing its spawn. It notably stands out from other disaster movies in that the disaster in question, rather than occurring naturally or out of nowhere, was actually man-made and planned, courtesy of a CIA bomb exploding at a storage tank.
• Firestorm (1998): When a convoluted prison escape scheme causes a massive forest fire, it's up to a smokejumper and a plucky ornithologist to save the day.
• Five Came Back: About a plane with eleven people aboard that crashes into the Amazon jungle, is another early example.
• Flight Crew: A mid-air rescue between two planes fleeing a volcanic eruption.
• Flood 1976: A TV movie produced by Irwin Allen. Recent heavy rains in the mountains push a man-made dam to its limits, a problem only exacerbated by the mayor refusing to believe there's any danger, causing the dam to fail and a flash flood to hit the nearby town.
• Flood 2007: A British film based on a 2002 novel by Richard Doyle, it followed a the events of a flood caused by storm surge from the North Sea that overwhelms the Thames Barrier, flooding London.
• Geostorm: Centers, as the name implies, on a series of global meteorological disasters caused by weather-controlling satellites. It's the sort of premise one might expect from a director who's worked extensively with Roland Emmerich in the past.
• Godzilla (1954) are disaster movies in a sense. Unlike most Kaiju movies, they focus more on the horrors of encountering a gigantic rampaging monster, thus giving them many disaster movie aspects. Helps that Godzilla was supposed to be a walking representation of the atomic bombs.
• Goliath Awaits: A cruise ship sunk in World War II has managed to conserve enough air to keep the survivors alive for decades afterwards, with there being mixed reactions when a rescue party (originally meant as a salvage party) finally arrives, and some of the survivors can't conceive of leaving.
• Gorath: A rogue planet of gargantuan size is hurtling towards the solar system, threatening to destroy Earth with its sheer gravitational pull.
• Gravity: The destruction of a satellite leads to Disaster Dominoes as each piece of debris impacts other satellites and space stations, with a Minimalist Cast of two astronauts trying to survive it.
• Gray Lady Down: A nuclear U.S. Navy sub sinks after colliding with a Norwegian freighter, trapping its crew and necessitating a dangerous rescue effort.
• Greenland (2020): A structural engineer (Gerard Butler) and his family seek shelter against an oncoming planet killer of a meteor.
• The Hamburg Syndrome: About the sudden outbreak of a deadly disease in Hamburg and the West German government's attempts to quarantine the city and stop its spread.
• Hard Rain (1998): Concerning an armored-car robbery that takes place during a cataclysmic Midwestern flood.
• The High And The Mighty: An Unbuilt Trope example of the genre from 1954. Starred John Wayne, who was also co-producer. Its plot, about a plane that suffers engine failure on a flight from Honolulu to San Francisco, would later be copied by Airport.
• The Hindenburg (1975): Why did this Real Life disaster happen? The fictional story chronicles the possibility that it was sabotage. A rare case of a Disaster Movie that holds off on the actual disaster until the finale. Notable for the sets being extremely loyal to the real Hindenburg, to the extent that the spectacular, dreamlike airship steals the show. George C. Scott heads the cast.
• The Hurricane (1937): Mostly a drama of interracial romance and unjust imprisonment on a Polynesian island, but climaxes with the eponymous storm. Directed by John Ford and unsuccessfully remade in 1979.
• Hurricane 1974: A TV movie loosely based on Hurricane Camille. A husband and wife find themselves stranded in the eye of a hurricane with their boat running low on fuel. Meanwhile, the National Guard evacuates the town in the hurricane path, though a group of people stay behind to host a literal "hurricane party".
• The Hurricane Heist: A group of rogue treasury agents plan a heist in the midst of a hurricane.
• The Impossible: Based on a real-life disaster (the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami) but instead of spectacle, the film is driven by the film's performances and the story of a family fighting to see each other again (which was based on a true story, by the way).
• Independence Day: Aliens blow up the White House, among other world landmarks, and humanity has to figure out how to stop them from doing even more damage. Along with Twister, it helped reignite interest in the disaster flick, and also turned Will Smith into a movie superstar.
  • Independence Day: Resurgence: The sequel to Independence Day set 20 years later, where humanity has made vast technological progress by reverse engineering the aliens’ tech. Unfortunately for them, the aliens made vast technological progress too, and are back with a vengeance.
• Into the Storm (2014): A Found Footage Film following a number of people trying to survive a barrage of super-tornadoes. Much Stuff Blowing Up ensues, like the tornadoes razing a fully loaded airport, and even one making a gas main explode, turning into a massive firenado.
• It's a Disaster!: In this Black Comedy, four brunching couples wait for the end after learning that the U.S. has been attacked by poison bombs.
• Japan Sinks 1973: Based on a book by the great sci-fi novelist Sakyo Komatsu, earthquakes and volcanoes destroy Japan and cause it to sink into the ocean. Considered to be one of the best Japanese disaster films. Subjected to a particularly bad Importation Expansion when it was released in the US as Tidal Wave in 1975. Has been remade twice as...
  • Japan Sinks 2006: A remake of the highest grossing disaster film Japan ever produced, it flopped compared to the 1973 original. Earthquakes and volcanoes destroy Japan and cause it to sink into the ocean. It was notable for actually exploring the consequences of such a disaster with more than just passing reference.
  • Japan Sinks: 2020: A second remake. Often regarded as the worst of the three adaptations largely due to poor animation quality.
• The Johnstown Flood: The Ur-Example. A fictionalized account of the Real Life Johnstown Flood aka Great Flood of 1889, in which a dam outside Johnstown, PA failed, killing 2200 people.
• Kanojo wo Mamoru 51 no Houhou has all the hallmarks one expects from the genre. The story follows two young adults trying to survive after Tokyo is hit by a magnitude 8.1 earthquake. The manga also has a strong Romance element, showing how love and kindness can blossom even in dire circumstances.
• The Kentucky Fried Movie: Three years before they did Airplane!, the ZAZ team included a shorter-form parody of the disaster genre in this movie with the segment "That's Armageddon!" (Featuring Donald Sutherland as the clumsy waiter!)
• The Killer That Stalked New York: Very Loosely Based on the 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak. The film focuses heavily on the public health response with the authorities trying to contain the outbreak, though there is also a subplot about Patient Zero Sheila Bennet's personal life which is more like a typical Film Noir.
• The Last Voyage: An ocean liner sinks in the Pacific following an explosion in its boiler room. Notable for being filmed aboard an actual decommissioned liner (the Ile de France) which was due for scrapping.
• The Last War (1961): The Federation and Alliance world powers' brinkmanship provokes a nuclear war, with innocent Japan caught in the middle. From the people behind the Godzilla movies, featuring many of the same production crew members, as is Gorath below.
• Mars Attacks!: A parody of '50s Alien Invasion films, which overlapped into the disaster genre. Directed by Tim Burton, and starred Jack Nicholson, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, and Sarah Jessica Parker, with early roles by Jack Black and Natalie Portman. Had the misfortune of arriving a few months after Independence Day, and barely made back its budget.
• Metal Tornado: An energy company called Helios World tests its new power generation technology, harnessing energy from a solar flare. An accident involving a power overload causes a magnetic vortex to pinch off, and spiral out of control into something like a tornado headed straight for Philadelphia.
• Meteor: A bunch of nukes built by Sean Connery and Brian Keith versus a giant asteroid. Not as cool as it sounds, sadly.
• The Monolith Monsters: A meteor hits a California town and scatters fragments. Said fragments get exposed to water and turn into giant crystals that keep growing until they collapse by which point it becomes a cycle where more shattered fragments turn into even more giant rocks.
• Moonfall: A mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit and sends it hurtling on a collision course with Earth. Makes 2012 look like a scientific documentary.
• Morning Departure: A submarine on routine patrol is sunk by an old Sea Mine. The survivors are trapped on the sea floor, awaiting an uncertain rescue.
• Night of the Twisters: TV adaptation of the 1984 young adult novel of the same name, itself based on the 1980 tornado outbreak that struck Grand Island, Nebraska. Starring Devon Sawa and John Schneider, a young boy attempts to reunite his family while their town is bombarded by a tornado outbreak.
• A Night to Remember: An accurate portrayal of the doomed RMS Titanic perhaps the Trope Codifier and served as the inspiration for James Cameron's Titanic (1997).
• No Blade of Grass: When a new strain of blight destroys all members of the grass family, society descends into chaos as hundreds of millions starve.
• Noah: A loose adaptation of Chapters 6-9 of the Book of Genesis. All the usual disaster movie tropes, set in biblical times.
• Outbreak: An extremely virulent Ebola-like virus is brought to the U.S. by an infected capuchin monkey sold as a pet and threatens to decimate a small town in California.
• The Perfect Storm: Dramatization of the hurricane that hit the Atlantic coast of North America in October 1991, and the sinking of the commercial fishing boat Andrea Gail.
• Pompeii: Disaster epic giving a fictionalized account of the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of the eponymous city. A slave-turned-gladiator fights to rescue his beloved from the clutches of a corrupt Roman senator with the help of a fellow gladiator when Mount Vesuvius begins erupting.
• Poseidon: A remake of The Poseidon Adventure, directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss.
• The Poseidon Adventure: An ocean liner is capsized by a giant wave and left floating upside down. The first of Irwin Allen's disaster movies stars Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, and Leslie Nielsen in a non-comedic role. Had a sequel in 1979 (Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, which doesn't fall under this trope), a 2005 Made-for-TV Movie remake, and a big-screen remake in 2006 as Poseidon.
• The Poseidon Adventure (2005), a made-for-television adaptation of the book, the second film to be based on it after the 1972 classic.
• Prophecies of Nostradamus: Japanese movie. Earth goes through a disaster gauntlet, ranging from mutant slugs, to city-engulfing firestorms, to the sky filling with green shit.
• Quantum Apocalypse: A strangelet, which the movie portrays as a gravity vortex pulling in only one direction, moves towards Earth. Russia tries to solve the problem by nuking the Poles, which only causes more destruction.
• The Rains Came: Starring Myrna Loy, George Brent and Tyrone Power, this 20th Century Fox Studios motion picture was the first to win an Academy Award for Best Special Effects. A rich socialite meets a New Old Flame while setting her eyes on a handsome young Indian doctor right in time for the monsoons.
• San Andreas: The Big One finally hits California.
• San Francisco (1936): Depicting the historical 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy.
• Sharknado: A series of Affectionate Parody films about a tornado of sharks. Has a gloriously ridiculous and over the top premise combining two entirely unrelated and incompatible disasters together.
  • Sharknado 2: The Second One
  • Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!
  • Sharknado: The 4th Awakens
  • Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
  • The Last Sharknado: It's About Time
• Shattered City The Halifax Explosion (2003): Canadian TV mini-series dramatizing the 1917 disaster that struck Halifax during during World War I and was the largest man-made blast until the invention of nuclear weapons. A fictional subplot involving German spies and one of the ship captains involved being depicted as a Dirty Coward are among the embellishments.
• Shin Godzilla has disaster movie aspects akin to its 1954 predecessor, taking cues from (and a few potshots at) the Japanese government's response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
• Short Walk To Daylight: A 1972 TV movie, where an earthquake strikes New York and a group of passengers in a subway, led by a cop played by James Brolin, must try to find their way back to the streets above after realizing nobody will be looking for them. Quite well liked despite being rather obscure, with a low budget, and notable for taking place entirely underground.
• Silent Night (2021): A group of Britons try to enjoy a farewell Christmas dinner party before a climate-change induced toxic storm arrives to kill them all.
• Skyjacked (1972): A jumbo jet piloted by Charlton Heston is held hostage when a mad bomber threatens to blow up the plane and kill everyone onboard if the plane is not flown to Moscow. Heston is determined to do whatever it takes to ensure the survival of his passengers. MGM's only disaster movie.
• Smallpox (2002)^note yes, the date is part of the title: Aired on The BBC in 2002, but didn't air in America till 2005. About a (fictional) smallpox pandemic spread by a bioterrorist.
• Snakes on a Plane: An Affectionate Parody of Airport and its ilk. Was subject to Memetic Mutation even before its release, thanks to the fact that it starred Samuel L. Jackson.
• Songbird: By the year 2024, COVID-19 has mutated into an even deadlier form known as COVID-23, claiming more than 110 million lives worldwide and forcing those infected to be placed in quarantine zones where they are left to die.
• SST: Death Flight: A Made-for-TV Movie where a crisis breaks out on the maiden flight of a supersonic airliner after a disgruntled employee sabotages the hydraulics.
• St Helens (1981): TV movie about the build-up to the eruption of Mount St. Helens that aired on the eruption's 1-year anniversary. Starring Art Carney as cantankerous lodge owner Harry R. Truman and featuring music by Italian Progressive Rock legends Goblin.
• Storm of the Century: TV Mini Series about an island town riding out a hurricane in the late-1980s when a sinister figure shows up and begins making unusual demands. While the storm is not the main focus, the destruction it causes is given plenty of attention. Written by Stephen King.
• Super Comet: After the Impact: A Speculative Documentary produced by ZDF and the Discovery Channel about what would happen if a comet hit Earth in the same place the asteroid that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs did.
• Supervolcano: A docudrama aired on the Discovery Channel about the Yellowstone Supervolcano unexpectedly erupting.
• The Swarm (1978): In another Irwin Allen effort, killer bees attack Texas. Yeah. The genre began dying out with this movie's failure.
• The Terrifying Revelations of Nostradamus: A Happy Science film which uses Nostradamus' prophecies as a Framing Device for a story about a Secret War between angels and demons, with the latter side winning as people turn away from faith and God. It is the angels' mission to spread the truth about the Spirit World before the spiritual decay triggers Earth's consciousness into causing a cataclysm that wipes out humanity.
• Terror On The40th Floor (1974): TV movie about an office party in a high-rise put in jeopardy by a fire that begins working it's way up the building. A shameless TV mockbuster capitalizing on the hype surrounding The Towering Inferno which would hit cinemas four months later.
• Testament (1983): Another made-for-TV film about the impact of nuclear war, this time for PBS, similar to The Day After. The key difference is that rather than focusing on the direct effects of a nuclear exchange like its network counterpart (in fact, outside of a bright flash, said exchange is never shown onscreen), it focuses on a small California town that manages to initially escape being destroyed by the bombs, only to soon deal with the collapse of the outside world, and eventually radioactive fallout. Much less intense and well-known than The Day After, but nonetheless heartbreaking and just as, if not more so critically acclaimed, to the point of actually getting a theatrical release.
• This Is the End: A disaster comedy parody film that focuses on a house party filled with celebrities trying to survive the end of days.
• Threads: The Transatlantic Equivalent of The Day After, with the added horror (thanks to advances in understanding the effects of nuclear war between 1983 and 1984) of showing the long-term effects of worldwide nuclear war (short version: those who die in the blasts are the lucky ones).
• Titanic (1953): Hollywood's first dramatization of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. A divorced couple's argument over who keeps custody of their children is interrupted when Titanic strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and begins to sink.
• Titanic (1997): James Cameron's answer to the question, "What happens when you combine a disaster movie about the RMS Titanic with a Chick Flick?"
• Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: A disaster anime about an 8.0 earthquake in Tokyo, though with a surprising focus on human drama and emergency procedures rather than spectacle. Harsher in Hindsight after 2011.
• Tornado 1996: TV Mockbuster of Twister, down to the lead being a tornado chaser who's invented a device designed to increase tornado warning time. Starring Bruce Campbell and Ernie Hudson. Aired just four days before Twister hit theatres.
• The Tower (2012): A fire breaks out in a luxury skyscraper in central Seoul on Christmas Eve.
• The Towering Inferno: The world's tallest skyscraper is built in San Francisco, but on the day of its dedication, it catches fire and traps partygoers on the top floors. The second of Irwin Allen's disaster movies, and often considered to be one of the best. Stars Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, and Fred Astaire among others.
• The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal (1979): TV movie dramatization of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City. Historical accuracy takes a backseat to fictional characters and plotlines.
• Tunnel: On a routine trip home from work, Lee Jung-soo is trapped by a collapsing tunnel. With only two bottles of water, a birthday cake, and his phone on 78% battery, he must survive long enough to be rescued by emergency services.
• Twister: Tornadoes in Oklahoma. Had a hand in reviving interest in disaster films alongside Independence Day, and raised public interest in storm chasing.
• Twisters: Tornados in Oklahoma, part 2. A standalone sequel to Twister with a different cast but still set in the same universe.
• Virus (1980): Based on a novel by Sakyo Komatsu, a man-made virus wipes out the human race, save for a group of Antarctic researchers who must take on the task of preserving some sense of civilization. At the time it was the highest budgeted Japanese film, with an All-Star Cast including Masao Kusakari, Sonny Chiba, and Olivia Hussey.
• Volcano: A volcano erupts in Los Angeles. Not so notable for scientific accuracy. Starred Tommy Lee Jones.
• The War of the Worlds (1953): The first film adaptation based on the famous novel by H. G. Wells, Martians conduct a worldwide invasion against the Earth using heat rays and manta ray-shaped fighting machines.
• The Wave (2015): An unstable mountainside collapses into the Geiranger fjord, sending a 300 ft wave towards Geiranger, Norway. Based on plausible future events.
  • The Quake: A sequel which centers around a major earthquake striking Oslo, the capital of Norway.
• Westworld: Humanoid robots go murderously haywire at a futuristic amusement resort visited by Richard Benjamin and James Brolin.
• When the Wind Blows (1986): A elderly couple survive a nuclear attack and attempt to survive until help arrives... if any is even coming.
• When Time Ran Out...: A volcano in the South Pacific threatens a resort, an oil rig, and a volcano observatory. The final nail in the coffin for the first cycle of disaster films, and Irwin Allen's final theatrically-released film. Even the cast (which included Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, and William Holden) hated it.
• When Worlds Collide: A star called Bellus is expected to collide with Earth. A group of astronomers are tasked with constructing a ship that could save whatever remains of the human species.
• Y2K (2024): A disaster horror comedy presenting an Alternate History where the Millennium Bug is unleashed, leading to a tech uprising.
• Zero Hour! (1957): Most famous today for serving as the primary model for Airplane!.

Creators:

• Many SyFy Channel Original Movies tend to be disaster flicks. Why they go for the genre with such a meager special effects budget is unknown, but it may have to do with Canadian and German tax credits.
• Makoto Shinkai's three most recent films: Your Name, Weathering with You, and Suzume have been anime disaster movies mixed with varying elements of Magical Realism, Romantic Comedy, Dramedy, and Coming of Age Story. Additionally, Suzume downplays the romantic elements (though they are still there) in favor of an Urban Fantasy action-adventure film with a Road Trip Plot, while keeping the disaster movie elements.