Volcano (1997)
Disaster Movie/Volcano Erupts in L.A.
A disaster movie made early into the CGI era based around the ludicrous notion of an active volcano suddenly appearing in Los Angeles
Catastrophe
A catastrophe refers to a vast and cataclysmic event that disrupts society. This can be everything from Nuclear War to Alien Invasion, from Plague and Pandemic to Monster Movies and the zombie apocalypse to list some of the most common examples.
A catastrophe is anything that wrenches life out of the everyday and affects society on a wide scale. Society can refer to everything from the entire world, a whole country to a city or a small town. Catastrophes can range from widespread mass destruction to environmental ones to those on a small scale where people unexpectedly lose their senses or memory.
The Catastrophe film is often related to the Disaster Movie, which is a more melodramatic form featuring clearcut characters and their dramas as they are caught in the midst of a catastrophic event, although it should be made clear that not all catastrophe films are disaster movies.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)
Super-Submarine Adventures
The film that inspired the popular tv series. As always with Irwin Allen, stolid dramatics, bad science and colourful spectacle
The Wandering Earth (2019)
Moving the Earth/Mass Destruction Spectacle
Chinese attempt to make a Roland Emmerich-type mass destruction spectacle about the moving of the Earth. Much effects spectacle but the film suffers from plain absurd science
The Wandering Earth II (2023)
Moving the Earth/Mass Destruction Spectacle
Prequel to the Chinese spectacular about the construction of an engineering project to move the Earth, this comes with some epic-sized effects sequences
War of the Worlds (2025)
Alien Invasion/Modernised H.G. Wells Adaptation
An adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic alien invasion novel modernised into the era of mass data surveillance, social media and Amazon delivery drivers. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
We Need to Do Something (2021)
Family Trapped in a Bathroom During a Mysterious Catastrophe
A horror film made as an allegory for Covid with a family trapped inside a bathroom without supplies as a mysterious catastrophe happens outside their door
When Worlds Collide (1951)
Planetary Collision/End of the World
Classic George Pal produced effects spectacular where Earth faces destruction in the face of collision with an oncoming planet and the efforts to build an ark so that some might survive
Where Have All the People Gone (1974)
Mysterious Catastrophe/Last People on Earth
One of the first films about a mysterious catastrophe that empties the world of all but a handful of survivors that formed the template of later films like The Quiet Earth
White Noise (2022)
Satire/Toxic Cloud
Noah Baumbach makes a bitingly satiric adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel about the panic caused by a toxic cloud
Without Warning (1994)
Live TV Broadcast/Possible Alien Arrival
Made for the anniversary of the Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, a tv movie that simulates a a live newscast as alien craft arrive around the world