With the upcoming release of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Pompeii (in 3D!) this weekend, I decided to take this opportunity to discuss some of my favourite disaster flicks. This genre has proved very popular over cinema’s history, peaking in the 1970s with the commercial success of films such as Airport, Earthquake, and The Towering Inferno; this latter movie was especially well-received, as it was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture. After a brief lull throughout the 1980s, brought on by the success of genre spoof Airplane!, the disaster film returned with a vengeance in the ’90s, climaxing with the incredible box office returns and eleven Oscar wins of James Cameron’s Titanic. The genre has since remained fairly popular, with costly flops balanced out by enormous hits, but seems to be entering another waning period, with only a handful of high-grossing success stories; in fact, most disaster flicks these days are relegated to specialty TV channels, with increasingly ridiculous titles like Birdemic, Sharknado and the upcoming Airplane vs. Volcano. Whatever the pedigree, though, the template has always stayed relatively the same: large ensemble casts, high-concept catastrophes, and life-or-death stakes.
One final note before I reveal my top ten: I decided to focus only on natural disasters and not those of the man-made or extra-terrestrial variety. While some of the disasters in these movies are eventually revealed to be caused by human actions or interference, they all manifest in nature to begin with.
Cinema Charchuk 