Introduction: Disasters have been the subject of film-goers' fascination since the time of silent film epics, and this interest continues to exist up to the present time. Films have often depicted large-scale natural disasters (weather-related usually) or man-made calamities (a wreck at sea, an airplane crash), often accompanied by massive crowd scenes. Other disasters may be planetary-related, criminally-instigated, nuclear-related, millennial-related, or involving alien or mutant invasions of some kind. They can be either impending or ongoing, or they can exist locally or globally.

The focus of such films is on the spectacular calamity and a small group of people in imminent danger, and how they must cope or devise a method of escape. Tension is developed by concentrating on the miraculous means of rescue and whether all the characters (usually in an all-star cast) have the inner strength to survive the ordeal. Also see this site's writeup on the Greatest Disaster Films.

(See this site's Film Terms Glossary for definitions and examples, the History of Film by Decade, and an extensive timeline of other Milestones and Turning Points in Film History.)

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.

Outbreak (1995)

A deadly, Ebola-like monkey-borne virus from Africa re-emerged in the US through an illegally-smuggled infected animal, with Dustin Hoffman as the infectious disease expert called to eradicate the deadly airborne virus spreading in a small California town. One digital effects sequence effectively demonstrated how the virus could quickly spread by a sneeze (and its particle-filled viral spray) in a crowded movie theatre.

Daylight (1996)

With Sylvester Stallone as the disgraced former head of Emergency Medical Services, who formed a rescue operation when a traffic accident triggered an explosion that sealed both ends of the tunnel under the Hudson River in New York City. Advertised as: "No Air, No Escape, No Time". Death may come through suffocation, by fire, by being crushed, or by drowning. With only one Academy Award nomination: Best Sound Effects Editing.

Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)

Jan de Bont's race-against-time follow-up to Speed (1994) was about an out-of-control cruise liner aimed at a Caribbean resort town. Willem Dafoe played the copper-poisoned, vengeful wacko villain who hijacked the ship with his laptop computer. The film's most expensive sequence was the liner's slow crash through a pier and a couple of buildings in the resort harbor town.

Armageddon (1998)

One of two competing "killer asteroid" films of 1998 (see also Deep Impact (1998) below) in which a mining team raced to plant explosives on a gigantic meteor. The film featured smaller meteorites devastating New York City. Like Meteor (1979), it featured now-disturbing imagery of a damaged World Trade Center -- and rogue meteors causing the complete destruction of Paris and Shanghai. With four Academy Award nominations: Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Song, and Best Visual Effects (defeated by What Dreams May Come (1998)).