Disasterpieces: Our 20 favorite disaster movies of all time

Forget “Titanic” and all its romance. For fans of action, there’s only one film about the sinking of a giant cruise ship that matters... and it contains a heck of a lot more excitement, suspense, and destruction. (And it wasn’t based on a true story, so there’s no need to feel bad about the events depicted.) That movie is 1972’s “The Poseidon Adventure,” which features Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, and Red Buttons struggling to survive after their luxury liner gets capsized by a tsunami. As the name suggests, it’s quite an adventure, and it also earned eight Oscar nods!

Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and George Kennedy headlined the all-star cast of “Earthquake,” one of a handful of films that are credited for launching the disaster genre. Although critics weren’t especially kind to the story, acting, or dialogue, most praised the special effects, which included a famous scene toward the end where Los Angeles’ Mulholland Dam collapses and floods the city. “Earthquake” was the third-highest grossing film of 1974, and it was eventually adapted into a ride at Universal Studios.

Wondering about the movie that ruled the 1974 box office and beat out “Earthquake” for the top spot? That would be “The Towering Inferno,” which featured an even more impressive all-star cast that included Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Robert Vaughn and Robert Wagner, among other notable names. The fire film banked $116 million in North America alone, which, against a budget of $14.3 million, added up to a resounding success. “The Towering Inferno” also received 13 Academy Award nominations (winning seven) and holds an impressive 71 percent score freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

We specifically didn’t include any pre- or post-apocalyptic films, as the disasters in those are either upcoming or already took place, respectively. However, “12 Monkeys” actually includes both, so we’ll let it slide. The 1995 sci-fi neo-noir film stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt (who perfectly plays a mental patient), and Christopher Plummer, and tells the tale of a group of scientists that use a primitive form of time travel in an attempt to prevent the intentional spread of a deadly virus that will wipe out nearly all of humanity and force the survivors underground. Director Terry Gilliam added an overall dark and twisted tone to the thriller, as well as numerous bizarre visual effects, which helped earn “12 Monkeys” two Oscar nominations and three Saturn Awards.

Not only are we huge fans of 1996’s “Twister,” but it’s also a darn good movie. It was co-written and co-produced by legendary suspense author Michael Crichton; it starred Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz and Philip Seymour Hoffman; it featured music by Eddie Van Halen; and it was 114 minutes of pure suspense (with just a bit of drama and comedy mixed in). Need more convincing? How about the $494.5 million it swept up at the box office? Still, “Twister” wasn’t the highest grossing film of 1996, as it was easily beat by another disaster flick...

In the Paxton vs. Pullman debate, the latter won in 1996, as he, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum led the cast of “Independence Day” to box office success to the tune of $817.4 million. Like the earnings, everything was over the top in this sci-fi disaster film, from the $75 million budget, to the size of the alien mothership, to the amount of destruction, to the acting by eventual hero Randy Quaid. Then again, after seeing what happened in Quaid’s real life in recent years, maybe he wasn’t pretending to be crazy.

You know what disaster doesn’t get a lot of screen time? Floods. It’s probably because natural floods are generally predictable and avoidable, unless you happened to be stuck in New York City’s Holland Tunnel when one unexpectedly occurs. That’s the plot of 1996’s “Daylight,” which involves numerous accidental explosions causing the collapse of one of the tunnel’s exits, and eventually a leak that allows river water to fill the passage. Sylvester Stallone stars in the film, which makes sense, as he’d be the one we’d want to lead us to safety... as long as we can understand him, that is.

We’ll admit it: the large-headed, funny-talking martians in 1996’s “Mars Attacks!” still totally creep us out. On the other hand, like most Tim Burton films, the movie was also quite funny (albeit in a very dark way), especially upon seeing big names like Jack Nicholson, Michael J. Fox, Jack Black, and Danny DeVito vaporized into red- or green-colored skeletons, or otherwise maimed.

After aliens but before asteroids, the fear du jour was death by volcano, for some reason. The year was 1997, and there were two major blockbusters that featured these magma-filled mountains, with the first being “Dante’s Peak.” It earned $178 million, which would have been impressive if it wasn’t helmed by established action stars Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton and didn’t cost $116 million to make. But hey, at least it was entertaining and more factually accurate than that other volcano movie.

Another advantage of “Dante’s Peak”? It had a much more creative name than the other volcano movie, “Volcano,” which was released two months later. However, that’s where the advantages end, as “Volcano” also had a strong cast (Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, and Don Cheadle), it had a smaller budget ($90 million), and it was better received by critics and fans alike. Still, the lava flooding the streets of Los Angeles might as well have been cheese, because man, was this movie ever cheesy — especially when it came to some of the special effects. Of course, we’d still absolutely recommend watching this Mick Jackson film, which will have you laughing in all the wrong places.

Well of course we have to include “Deep Impact,” the film that inspired this list. It may have received mixed reviews from critics, but it definitely had a deep impact (see what we did there?) on those of us who saw it at a young age and were scarred by the heaviness of some scenes. After all, a gargantuan asteroid smashes into the Atlantic Ocean and creates a huge tsunami that wipes out a bunch of cities and people, including some of the major characters. That being said, it was an entertaining flick, and it starred Elijah Wood!

Like “Deep Impact,” “Armageddon” focuses on a comet hurtling toward the Earth, features the destruction of numerous cities, and involves blowing up the comet as a way to save the planet. The difference? “Armageddon” has a stronger cast, including Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson, Steve Buscemi and Michael Clarke Duncan. Oh, and it was also directed by Michael Bay, which means you can expect not much substance, but plenty of action and explosions.

Although it came out 15 years ago, we’re still not sure what to think of “The Core.” It’s chock full of pseudoscience, the CGI quality makes one wonder where the $85 million budget went, and critics only gave it a freshness score of 41 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. (After all, this movie not only asserts that the Earth could stop spinning and cause cities to be destroyed by a combination of lightning and UV radiation, but also that it could be restarted with nuclear weapons.) Yet all those things actually end up contributing to the entertainment value, as “The Core” is laughably absurd at times, making us wonder if perhaps this big-budget blockbuster starring Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, and Stanley Tucci was supposed to be a B-movie all along.

Who needs good writing when you have Saturn- and BAFTA-nominated special effects? Of course, it probably helps that the generally lousy dialogue was delivered by Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward and Emmy Rossum. When all was said and done in the film, the president was dead and the world was destroyed, but “The Day After Tomorrow” ended up earning $544 million and won a BAFTA for Best Visual Effects, as well as an honor from the Visual Effects Society.

From the mind of J.J. Abrams came this tale of a giant beast that wreaks havoc on New York City... but in a found-footage format! Sure, it’s kind of a Godzilla rip-off, but it was well-made, pretty darn scary (especially after watching it in an NYC theater), and had an unbelievably complex viral marketing campaign. As for the two semi-sequels? We have mixed feelings there.

Remember when everyone thought the world would end in 2012 because the Mayans supposedly predicted it? What a silly time. (The Mayans didn’t even foresee their own downfall, how could they possibly know about the future of the entire world?) Capitalizing on this irrational fear, Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser penned the script for “2012,” a CGI-packed film that depicts the unfolding of a worldwide geological disaster. Those expecting a quality film because it starred John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson were sadly disappointed, but those looking for pure disaster eye candy left the theaters extremely satisfied.

In our opinion, when it comes to the best worst movies of all time, the holy trinity is “The Room,” “Troll 2,” and “Birdemic: Shock and Terror.” If you’ve never seen or heard of that last one, it’s a 2010 film about the birds of the world suddenly attacking humans. It’s kind of like Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” but with a lot more death and destruction, including widespread wildfires and birds capable of dropping acid on the people. Not only does this film have some of the worst writing, acting, and CGI to ever appear in a movie, but the birds don’t even appear until halfway through the 93-minute runtime... a runtime which, relatively speaking, seems like an eternity.

Watching 2013’s “Sharknado” for the first time is an interesting experience. At the beginning, for just a moment, you might legitimately think it’s actually going to be a good disaster flick. Then you quickly realize that is not the case. By the time you’re aware that the movie is a complete joke, you’ll probably already be laughing at the lousy CGI, the overacting of Tara Reid and Ian Ziering, and the very idea that a tornado could carry and deploy endless amounts of man-eating sharks. It has since yielded four sequels, with a fifth on the way this summer.

This list is missing two types of films: pure comedies and movies that actually show the apocalypse unfolding. Thankfully for us, 2013’s “This Is the End” checks both boxes. Like most disaster flicks, it also checks the all-star-cast box, as it features a who’s who of contemporary comedians, including Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride, as well as cameos from actors Michael Cera, Emma Watson, Aziz Ansari and Kevin Hart, among many others. Judgment Day has never been more fun.

Many people say 2015’s “San Andreas” was of poor quality, way over the top, and loaded with pseudoscience, but is that really a fair assessment? To us, it actually confirmed two undeniable facts: 1) the San Andreas fault will eventually cause the total downfall and destruction of California, and 2) someday, in the not-too-distant future, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will save us all. Okay, maybe the jury is still out on these predictions, but we should all be able to agree on one thing: despite its flaws, “San Andreas” absolutely delivered for fans of action films.