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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
2012
The Day After Tomorrow
There's no asteroid, no zombies and no attacking aliens in this movie. The "attacking force" is the planet's weather. Think that's not scary? Watch the cargo ships floating down NYC streets ... then freezing.
Armageddon
Deep Impact
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Airport '77
Air Force One
Airport
Decades before 9/11, packing a bunch of aging stars into a movie about a bomber aboard an airplane made for cinema-packing family entertainment. These days, that would seem too much like a news story to sell tickets.
Airplane!
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
War of the Worlds
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Arrival
Independence Day
This may be the greatest summer popcorn flick ever. It's full of giant explosions, rousing speeches, ugly aliens, wisecracking Will Smith, and Jeff Goldblum being his usual sort of weird, Goldblummy self.
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Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Twister
After "Aliens," this was the late Bill Paxton's best role, in my book. As a weatherman trying to get his storm-chaser wife to sign divorce papers, he brings a tone of folksy exasperation to this tornado-fueled flick.
Dante's Peak
The Perfect Storm
Sharknado
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
10 Cloverfield Lane
This stealth J.J. Abrams project, which was barely advertised before it hit screens, was a huge hit. I normally loathe the "shot on a handheld/found footage" style, but Abrams makes it work beautifully here.
The Day After Tomorrow
Godzilla
2012
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
World War Z
28 Days Later
Dawn of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead
"They're coming to get you, Barbara!" Who would have thought that this ultra-low-budget movie shot in suburban Pittsburgh would launch a worldwide movie phenomenon? George A. Romero built a career on brain-eating reanimated corpses ... what have YOU done with your life?
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Volcano
The Core
Dante's Peak
It's funny how often two disaster movies with the same theme come out in the same year. This one came out the same year as "Volcano" and was the more cerebral of the two. It couldn't help but be so, given that the leading man was Pierce Brosnan.
Deep Impact
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
When Time Ran Out...
It may have been 1980, but this movie hews to the '70s trend of putting a bunch of aging stars in a disaster flick. This time, it's Paul Newman and William Holden vs. a volcano.
Volcano
Earthquake
2012
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TMDB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
San Andreas
Earthquake
Deep Impact
This character-driven story of a giant rock headed for earth didn't have the star power of "Armageddon," but for my dollar it's a better movie. Tea Leoni does a creditable job as a journalist who breaks the story of the impending doom, and Robert Duvall is great as the crusty old astronaut who saves the day.
Dante's Peak
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Road
Alive
While the disaster in this movie isn't of a global scale, it's nonetheless very intense. It's based on the storm of the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team, whose plane crashed in the Andes. They were forced to eat the flesh of their dead comrades to survive before being rescued.
The Perfect Storm
The Day After Tomorrow
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The Movie FB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Deep Impact
2012
Meteor
Armageddon
Again, we have two movies on the same theme in one summer. "Deep Impact" came earlier in the year and was far more cerebral. This one had Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck and more explosions. Guess which one made tons more money?
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
United 93
It's hard to say this is based completely on a true story, since none of us really know what happened aboard Flight 93. However, the heroic tale of the passengers and crew who prevented terrorists from crashing the plane into a government target makes for riveting watching.
Airport
Airport '77
Air Force One
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Poseidon Adventure
Here is perhaps the best assemblage of random stars to populate a '70s disaster movie. You've got Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Gene Hackman, Roddy McDowall and a host of others in a movie about a capsized ocean liner. The tagline for the flick was "Hell upside down."
Airport '77
Titanic
Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
28 Weeks Later
Day of the Dead
Blood Feast
Dawn of the Dead
Where do you hide when the zombies rise? The mall, of course! This zombie flick included a sneaky satire of American consumer culture, with the hordes of reanimated dead massing at the local mall ... maybe for an Orange Julius?
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Volcano
The Core
This is the most geektacular disaster flick ever made. The earth's core stops spinning, and to get it moving again, some seriously hard science has to be perpetrated. One of the heroes is an acne-scarred kid hired to "hack the planet."
San Andreas
The Day After Tomorrow
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Skyline
Battleship
Battle Los Angeles
Aaron Eckhart must have gotten a taste for disaster with "The Core," because he leads the cast of this flick. Bad aliens attack, blow stuff up, seem invulnerable ... then Eckhart and his brave crew find a way to defeat them. The end is wide open for a sequel, which to date has not emerged.
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Day of the Dead
Zombieland
28 Days Later...
If you're accustomed to zombies of the shambling, stumbling variety, this flick will be a bit of a shock. The zombies here are hyper-fast, scrambling after their human prey like rotting velociraptors.
World War Z
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Titanic
I've made a lot of folks angry over the years with my explanation for why I've never seen this movie: I refuse to spend three hours of my life watching a movie when I already know how it ends. It made a ton of cash, though, and elevated DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to godhood.
A Night to Remember
The Poseidon Adventure
Ghost Ship
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Volcano
Earthquake
The Poseidon Adventure
The Towering Inferno
Irwin Allen, the master of the '70s disaster flick, really put an all-star cast together for this one. Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden and Faye Dunaway anchor the rapidly-crisping cast of flame-endangered skyscraper dwellers.
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Mars Attacks!
This Tim Burton effort is not a GOOD film by any stretch of the imagination, but that's kind of the point. Jack Nicholson and Annette Bening play the president and first lady, and the cast includes an amazing roster of stars ... including Tom Jones as himself.
Dr. Strangelove
War of the Worlds
The Day the Earth Stood Still
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
On The Beach
The Road
The Cormac McCarthy book on which the movie is based is one of the most depressing things ever put on paper, and the movie doesn't stray far from that. Viggo Mortensen plays the lead, a character known only as "Man" in the credits, as he crosses a blasted wasteland with a boy, known only as "Boy" in the credits.
The Day After
Mad Max
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Day After Tomorrow
Armageddon
The Day the Earth Stood Still
2012
Here's a disaster movie with something for everyone! John Cusack as a daredevil limo driver! Woody Harrelson as wacko end-times prophet! Earthquakes! Volcanoes! Tidal waves! It's got everything but a really good ending.
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Independence Day
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The War of the Worlds (2005)
Love or hate Tom Cruise, you have to admit he brings a certain manic intensity to his roles. That serves him well here, playing a father trying to get his son and daughter away from the alien menace that marches across the countryside.
Arrival
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Birds
Here's a movie that will make you scared to ever own a bird feeder. If you let it go empty, the next time you leave your house the birds will be in the trees, giving you their best beady-eyed stare.
The Crazies
Night of the Living Dead
Slither
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Dante's Peak
Volcano
With a great tagline - "The Coast Is Toast" - and Tommy Lee Jones playing a grizzled disaster official, this was pretty much a can't-miss project. My favorite scene was fire crews using Jersey barriers to redirect a lava flow.
The Mist
Daylight
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Youtube
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Day After Tomorrow
San Andreas
Flood
Sometimes British filmmakers want to destroy the world, too! In this one, a collision of events drives a catastrophic tidal surge up the Thames River, upsetting several teapots and generally being a spot of bother to everyone.
Deep Impact
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Outbreak
How can any world-threatening plague succeed when it's got Dustin Hoffman battling it? A monkey carrying a deadly virus stows away on a plane and gets loose in the United States, setting up a tense race between Hoffman's virus hunters and the military, which wants to drop a bomb and end the threat.
The Crazies
I Am Legend
Quarantine
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Night of the Comet
John Dies at the End
The World's End
Last Night
There's no giant explosions or tidal waves here, just a group of Canadians carrying on in a very Canadian manner, spending the last six hours before the end of the world fairly calmly. It's a refreshing, highly watchable break from the barrage of meteors and alien death rays.
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Thing (1982)
It's rare for a remake to outdo the original, but this one does on just about every count. Kurt Russell is magnificent as the hero, and the visual of a victim's head popping off and turning into a hideous spider-thing will haunt you for days.
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Crazies
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
28 Weeks Later ...
Shaun of the Dead
This is how most of us met British funnyman Simon Pegg, long before he was cast as Montgomery Scott in the new series of Star Trek flicks. It's a hilarious romp, with a cricket bat at one point used to fend off the living dead and a pub (of course) being where the survivors hide out.
Day of the Dead
Children of Men
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Flood
The Perfect Storm
White Squall
Hard Rain
An armored truck robbery goes wrong, leaving the crooks stranded in a town that's about to bite the (wet) bullet when a nearby dam collapses. If seeing a man locked in a jail cell that's rapidly filling with flood water makes you a bit claustrophobic, you might want to pick a different movie.
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
I Am Legend
The Road
The Quiet Earth
This New Zealand production takes a quieter look at the end of the world. A man wakes up and seems to be the only man left on the planet. Eventually, he finds a few others and they try to figure out where the other 4 billion or so humans went.
The Omega Man
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Perfect Storm
Based on a true story, this tale of high-seas peril and rescue focuses on a fishing boat crew caught in a freakishly intense storm. George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg lead a star-studded cast that includes Michael Ironside, my personal favorite "grim tough guy" character actor.
White Squall
The Mist
The Day After Tomorrow
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
28 Weeks Later
The End of the World
Cowboys vs. Aliens
Attack the Block
John Boyega, a few years before hitching his wagon to the "Star Wars" star, leads the cast of this South London-set alien invasion tale. A group of young thugs and a prim young woman make an unlikely resistance force against alien invaders. Worth a watch!
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
While the 1978 remake was full of tension and Donald Sutherland screaming, this original is a sly political commentary. In the era of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, the idea that your neighbor might overnight have become an agent of an alien (foreign) power was especially terrifying.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
From Beyond
War of the Worlds
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Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
It Came from Outer Space
When Worlds Collide
Invasion of the Saucer Men
The Day the Earth Stood Still
I first heard of this movie referred to in "Science Fiction Double Feature" on "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" soundtrack and immediately sought it out. It's a complete classic, with Michael Rennie as the well-meaning alien ambassador determined to save us from ourselves, and Gort, the giant robot, full of steely menace.
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Day of the Dead
Zombieland
One of the best zombie movies ever made is also the funniest. Jesse Eisenberg's rules (remember to double tap!) and Woody Harrelson's Twinkie-obsessed rages are brilliant. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin just about steal the show, though, as a pair of fellow survivors who repeatedly outsmart the boys.
Return of the Living Dead
28 Days Later
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Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Arachnophobia
Spiders are almost always good for a scare, especially when they're the size of the beasties in this movie. John Goodman absolutely owns the show playing an exterminator obsessed with finding the right toxic-chemical cocktail to do in the beasts.
Eight-Legged Freaks
Kingdom of the Spiders
Webs
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Hunt for Red October
The Abyss
K-19: The Widowmaker
This story of the first nuclear submarine launched by Russia shows just how close we came to ending things in the early '60s. The sub sank (more than it was intended, really) and the reactor almost went into a Chernobyl-style meltdown.
Black Hawk Down
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Deep Impact
10.5 Apocalypse
Night of the Comet
Meteor
Here's a fun double feature: Watch this and "Armageddon" back to back. Two movies about a giant rock headed for Earth, both of which require U.S.-Russian cooperation to divert? Sounds like fun!
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Mist
And now we come to the movie in our collection with what's without a doubt the biggest downer of an ending. Rather than spoil that for you, I'll tell you to watch for an amazing performance by Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody.
The Fog
The Crazies
The Colour Out of Space
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Day of the Dead
Island of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead
This is another case of a remake edging out the original, largely on the strength of Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley as a cop and a nurse who end up trapped in the mall with the rest of the survivors. The game of "spot the zombie" with the gun shop owner is worth the price of the rental by itself.
Return of the Living Dead
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Planet of the Apes
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
Beyond the Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
This first in the modern series of "Apes" movies is a great one. James Franco plays a scientist working on a drug to cure his father's Alzheimer's disease. It works, sort of, but also makes apes exposed to it hyper-intelligent. This is not a good thing.
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tmdb
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
It Came From Outer Space
The Thing
The Blob
Never in the history of cinema has a monster been more accurately identified by the title. This amorphous, carnivorous mass consumes all in its path ... but it has a low tolerance for cold.
From Beyond
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
War of the Worlds
This one was shot with a much lower budget than the Tom Cruise remake, but it's every bit as tense. The setting this time is a small California town, and add in a dose of Red Scare paranoia to make the soup perfect.
Attack of the Saucermen
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Forbidden Planet
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
A Night to Remember
This unromanticized portrayal of the sinking of the Titanic was based on an account from the ship's second officer, the most senior crew member to survive. It shows such famous tropes as the band playing until the very end, but also depicts the cowardly departure of the head of the White Star Line, who disregarded the "women and children first" order to save his own hide.
Titanic
The Poseidon Adventure
The Perfect Storm
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n/a
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Pod People
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
If this movie doesn't make you at least a little paranoid about your friends and neighbors, you're not paying attention. Donald Sutherland chews scenery and screams entertainingly as one of the few humans who realizes what's going on.
I Am Legend
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
The Road Warrior
The Road
The Day After
On the Beach
Saying an end-of-the-world flick is depressing might be stating the obvious, but this one really goes for broke on the pathos. While the bombs don't land in Australia, the people there have to come to terms with the fact that the fallout will wipe them out in a matter of months.
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The Movie DB
Which disaster movie is shown in this screenshot?
Dawn of the Dead
The Omega Man
Speaking of manic intensity: Charlton Heston has it here, as the seemingly sole survivor of a global pandemic. Most of the victims died, but many have been mutated into dark-dwelling psychotics with a taste for flesh. He's working on a cure ... or at least a combination sunblock/tranquilizer.
I Am Legend
Soylent Green
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