The Noah’s Ark Principle (1984)
Dec 3, 2000Action Aboard a Weather Satellite
Roland Emmerich's first film, made while he was still a student, involving intrigue aboard a weather control station
Roland Emmerich
Making Contact (1986)
Dec 2, 2017Haunting/Psychic Child
Roland Emmerich's second film, a confused oddity that seems to be trying to model itself as a Spielberg film about a kid who gains psychic powers and whose toys come to life
Moon 44 (1990)
Jan 7, 2000Interstellar Prison
Early Roland Emmerich film with Michael Paré investigating pirates targeting a mining moon. As usual with Emmerich, the focus is on action while neglecting the plausibility of the scenario
Universal Soldier (1992)
Nov 19, 2000Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The first studio film from Roland Emmerich, a loud, noisy action featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as Vietnam Vets resurrected as super-soldiers
Stargate (1994)
Apr 26, 2001Intergalactic Portal/Planetary Adventure
The first of Roland Emmerich's special effects epics. Emmerich rehashes Erich von Daniken's Ancient Astronauts theories but casts it as a planetary adventure on an epic canvas with surprisingly entertaining results
Independence Day (1996)
Apr 12, 2003Alien Invasion
The film that made Roland Emmerich's name as a specialist in mass destruction spectacle. At heart, this rehashes a 1950s alien invasion film on a big-budget and adds blatantly sentimentalised American flag-waving
Godzilla (1998)
Jul 16, 1999Giant Atomic Monster
Much disliked English-language version of Godzilla from Roland Emmerich is a more watchable film than one might think. Emmerich does well when the film allows him to do what he does best - being a big, budget, massively scaled epic of mass destruction
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Jun 1, 2004New Ice Age/Environmental Disaster Movie
In another of his big budget disaster spectacles, Roland Emmerich embraces environmental concerns about Global Warming. Here he (unscientifically) imagines the abrupt onset of a new Ice Age worldwide
10,000 BC (2008)
Mar 8, 2008Prehistoric Drama
Roland Emmerich leaves epic mass destruction behind to make a prehistoric film, but this is one that soon collapses into a remarkable anthropological silliness
2012 (2009)
Nov 14, 2009The End of the World/Disaster Movie
Roland Emmerich mass destruction spectacle loosely based around the supposed Mayan prophecies about the end of the world in 2012. Mostly just an excuse for massively scaled disaster sequences.
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
Jul 2, 2016Alien Invasion
Roland Emmerich returns with more of the same. The problem is how to top the first film and here everything is so big and with so much happening that it cannot be taken in and slips into tedium
Moonfall (2022)
Apr 9, 2022Disaster Movie/The Moon on a Collision Course With the Earth
Roland Emmerich returns to mass destruction with a film about The Moon on a collision course with Earth, which heads in some conceptually challenging directions