Best Disaster Movies of All Time

Since you mentioned the odd detail of being divorced woman, perhaps these are good disaster movies:

An Unmarried Woman (1978): A chic Manhattan wife is left by her cheating husband, forcing her to confront the pleasures of singledom, her friends, and a new relationship.

Days of Abandonment (2005): An Italian drama where a wife's world collapses after her husband abandons her, sending her into a painful and self-destructive spiral.

You can call yourself "Anonymous," Dottie HInkle, but we know it's you, ya fuckin' whore!

R1, turn in your gay card.

Titanic

Hi OP. I'm the retired Whore Of Babylon. I suggest The Last Days of Pompeii, 1959, with Steve Reeves

It’s not the best disaster movie but the 1930s special effects are amazing in San Francisco (1936)

Disaster movies or 'disaster of a movie' ? If it's the latter, let's start with 'Two of a Kind' from 1983.

I loved "The Hurricane" (1937), directed by John Ford. I'll watch just about anything with Mary Astor, but Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour are both strikingly beautiful. Great direction, special effects, and an engaging story.

The Poseidon Adventure is the cream of the crop: a mix of Old Hollywood actors and the new vanguard, dazzling spectacle, hope, heartbreak, and dialogue that endures over half a century later: “In the water I’m a very skinny lady!”

It even inspired a fucking stage musical.

MAME of course.

We're Sammy and Jimmy. Hi guys! We're biracial conjoined twins, both gay, and thank God! cause we only have 1 set of junk.

Dottie, we love apocalyptic disaster and horror disaster. Shin Godzilla 2016 is a great one. Kiss from Phuket.

Yes, R10! Along with ISHTAR, GIGLI, and GLITTER!

The Towering Inferno!

Poseidon Adventure is on YouTube in full.

Deep Impact is better than Armageddon.

Glitter.

Earthquake is one of the *worst* disaster movies, OP.

The Towering Inferno (1974)

CHRISTMAS TWISTER

My favs:

1-The Poseidon Adventure

2-The Towering Inferno

3-Airport 77

4-Dante's Peak

5-Alive (based on a true story)

Cloverfield.

The Rains Came (1939)

Attention, OP! Attention! This is Miss Shuster. A swarm of killer bees are headed your way in THE SWARM!

Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) - filmed in Camp Verde, Arizona. I moved there that year and the walls of the town's buildings were still painted with tarantulas and there were plastic tarantulas all over the place. A lot of my friends were extras.

The High and the Mighty

I only liked the first one, Airport.

[quote] dialogue that endures over half a century later. . .

Belle, regarding Martin jogging along the deck: "He runs because he's lonely." 14 year old me burst out laughing at that line then and still do now.

Holy cow, R25. Watching that trailer had my interest level in the movie rise and fall like a roller coaster. When John Wayne popped up, I was "meh." Then Phil Harris showed and I said, "OK, I'm back in." The campy character descriptions gained more and more of my attention, and then Robert "Rex Cramer" Stack got pimp slapped and I was ALL IN. Thanks for giving me something to watch this weekend.

The 2006 movie [italic] Poseidon [/italic] has more exciting special effects and scenes than [italic] The Poseidon Adventure [/italic], especially at the point when the wave hit and the ship was turning over*, but it fell flat in dialogue and choice of characters. If it hadn't followed the much beloved classic, I think it would have received higher marks by critics and the public.

I felt sorry for the [italic] Poseidon [/italic] cast who likely had as arduous a filming experience as the original TPA actors but did not receive the same recognition after the film's release.

I liked the film score by Klaus Bedelt and have listened to the soundtrack many times, but it, too, received much criticism.

This is one movie that makes a bigger impact on a movie screen.

* link to video clip with that scene below

* Klaus BADELT

R29, I saw the Poseidon remake on a giant I-MAX screen on opening weekend.

It was an absolute bore. I was missing Shelley Winters the entire time.

Don't Look Up

Greenland is a good recent pick.

R25, that's a great choice with that incredible cast -- I mean, Claire Trevor, Jan Sterling, Paul Kelly (who had gone to jail for manslaughter in the 1920s), AND Robert Newton?

Side note: I read that Robert Newton essentially invented the "pirate accent" when he was cast as Long John Silver in Disney's "Treasure Island."

I'm unreasonably fond of "2012"

Airport 1975

The Poseidon Adventure

Airplane

Citizen Kane

The special effects for San Andreas (2015) are great even if the storyline lacks camp. Although what’s more camp than Kylie Minogue dying by walking off a collapsing skyscraper?

[quote] Side note: I read that Robert Newton essentially invented the "pirate accent" when he was cast as Long John Silver in Disney's "Treasure Island."

Robert Newton was from the county of Dorset in the UK, and grew up speaking with a strong West Country accent. He could mask it as an adult, but he emphasized it even harder than its natural state for the 1950 "Treasure Island," and his performance was so iconic that it became thought of as the standard for how pirates spoke.

Airport 75 is still my favorite. It is absolutely insane from start to finish, has some of the worst special effects ever (such as when Erik Estrada gets sucked through a hole in the cockpit), and it has the added pleasures of Linda Blair as the child with leukemia, Helen Reddy as the kindly singing nun, and (most unforgettable of all) Gloria Swanson as herself, speaking dialogue she wrote for herself.

But it's worth seeing if only for the hideous corporate logo and color scheme they designed for the airplane.

Might sound kinda lame, but "The Day After Tomorrow" should have a stronger gay following.

I mean... Jake Gyllenhaal...Austin Nichols...you know the rest.

Turbulence!

Ray Liotta is a prisoner being transported on a great big airliner on Christmas Eve - so there are just a few passengers (?).....

Lauren Holly is a stewardess and ends up bringing the plane in wearing just her half slip and bra while Liotta rages.

Sometimes just for myself I have a triple feature of Julie, Airport 75, and Turbulence.....

Threads

The Day After

Testament

Airplane (1980j and DL favorite, The Big Bus (1976)

For Titanic, I prefer the 1953 version with Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb.

Lauren Holly would be a flight attendant not a stewardess, R43. Or are you dialing in from 1958?

Unclench, r46.

You'll get out of the mailroom...someday, R47.

"The Towering Inferno".

For me, gotta be the original Poseidon Adventure......

Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno are the gold standards in my mind.

I compare all disaster movies to those two.

Moment by Moment, of course.

Ever Streisand movie after 1973.

[quote] Moment by Moment, of course.

This remind me of one joke Johnny Carson said during his opening monologue at the 1979 Oscars:

"Universal has just announced it's newest disaster film coming out, called 'Airport 1980'. And I want to tell you this is a harrowing epic, in which passengers aboard a 747 are held hostage for 2 weeks, while a madman keeps re-running the in-flight movie 'Moment by Moment'".

R46 I wrote "stewardess" only because the first movie in my triple feature was from 1956 - Julie with Doris Day as a stewardess......

I certainly didn't mean to denigrate the lovely flight attendants in the other two movies.

Just panties, what else do I need?

I rewatch Dante's Peak (1997) every year or two. The main characters are likeable and well-developed, and the affection between the two leads (Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton) is convincing. The family dynamics with the mother, grandmother, and kids are also believable. Because of that, you care about what happens to the people in the movie. The imagery of the volcano erupting and the destruction that follows is amazing and the action keeps the tension ratcheted up.

I score this movie 4 stars.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972) is my all-time favorite disaster film. I was 12 when the movie was first released and saw it at the theater 12 times that year. I'd love to see it at the theater again.

The granddaddy of all disaster movies, “Deluge”:

Independence Day was fun. I did laugh my ass off when that dog jumped into the tunnel, barely outrunning the bomb blast. 🤣

Independence Day and Armeggedon are (for me) feel-good, fun comedy/disaster movies which do not have to make sense to enjoy watching. They are favorites of mine.