Movies

5 Best Disaster Movies To Tickle Your Nerves With Apocalyptic Vibes

5 Best Disaster Movies To Tickle Your Nerves With Apocalyptic Vibes
Image credit: New Line Cinema, Legion-Media

World-ending disasters have been a source of inspiration for many filmmakers over the years, resulting in a wide variety of disaster movies, so we've picked five of the best.

Disaster movies are an interesting genre, as most of them are not exactly cinematic masterpieces in terms of complex story or deep characters. But just like the Fast & Furious franchise, sometimes you don't need that to get pure epic disaster fun.

So if you just want to tickle your nerves with some apocalyptic vibes, these five are worth checking out.

Armageddon (1998)

A true disaster movie classic from Michael Bay, it follows a group of astronauts tasked with destroying an asteroid before it collides with Earth, leading to the extinction of all life on the planet. With an all-star cast including Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck and many others playing a colorful array of characters, it is a great movie that is not lacking in dramatic and heartfelt moments.

Twister (1996)

While most disaster movies deal with asteroids or deadly seismic activity, Twister takes a different approach by putting a tornado at the center of its story. While the plot and characters don't exactly shine, great special effects that still hold up today and a cool concept make up for it.

Don't Look Up (2021)

A rare case on our list, Don't Look Up relies heavily on its great characters and tragically comedic story instead of flashy scenes of destruction, although they are present in the movie. After Kate Dibiasky, played by Jennifer Lawrence, and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, discover a comet on a collision course with Earth, they try their best to stop it while struggling with moronic government officials.

2012 (2009)

Remember the good old days when the supposed apocalypse based on the Mayan calendar was the thing people were actually worried about instead of, say, a deadly pandemic? This movie is a product of that era, inspired by the phenomenon and delivering its own iteration of it, where the planet's core overheats, leading to a chain of catastrophic events with flashy special effects.

San Andreas (2015)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, this film took a similar approach to 2012, depicting the aftermath of a massive earthquake caused by the San Andreas Fault. The story is pretty basic, but the impressive visuals of massive destruction make for an overall nice disaster movie.