Ah, the 1990s! Stable economy, relative global peace, rich hucksters appearing in The Little Rascals instead of politics. What did we have to worry about? Nothing, really. And that’s why we had to make up trouble and put it on the big screen! The 1990s weren’t the first heyday of the disaster movie. That honor goes to the 1970s when producer Irwin Allen churned out star-studded hits like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, earning the title “The Master of Disaster.” But the 1990s versions might be more interesting, coming at a unique time in Hollywood and in the country in general. The rise of the internet supercharged the paranoia of the ’90s, turning suspicion into outright skepticism of the government and society. Moreover the release of Jurassic Park in 1993 inaugurated the rise of CGI graphics, changing special effects forever. That transition, for better or for worse, is all over these movies. So if you’re tired of the bad things in reality, take a look at these ’90s disaster films and enjoy some pretend bad things for a while. 10. Godzilla (1998) At this point, what is there to say about Godzilla ’98 that hasn’t already been said? Yes, it’s as bloated as it is boring. Yes, it’s an insult to the venerable franchise it tries to reinvent for Generation X. Yes, all of the problems that existed in director Roland Emmerich‘s predecessor Independence Day (more on that shortly) stand out more here due to a lackluster cast and impossible pacing. Yes, a disinterested, check-cashing Steven Spielberg did this movie’s climax better a year earlier in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Really, the one last thing that needs to be said about Godzilla is that the poster rules. With its glowing green font, spotlights shining on a single shin, drawing the eye up above the buildings and into the darkness. That one image contains more awe and wonder than anything in the actual movie, and you don’t have to hear lame jokes about Roger Ebert’s weight to enjoy it. 9. Dante’s Peak (1997) There’s a mean streak to Dante’s Peak that sets it apart from 1997’s other volcano picture, the aptly-named Volcano. In the early “establish the hero’s trauma” scene, a piece of molten rock goes through the head of scientist Harry Dalton’s (Pierce Brosnan) wife. Later the children of Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton), mayor of the titular town, almost boil alive in hot springs overheated by lava, and even see the ghastly corpses of two lovers who couldn’t avoid that fate. On one hand, those types of shocks shouldn’t be so surprising, given that Dante’s Peak comes from Australian director Roger Donaldson who started out on the Ozploitation thriller Sleeping Dogs and went on to make skeevy Hollywood films Species and The Getaway. But Donaldson shoots and edits even the visceral parts of the story with such airlessness that the audience never feels scared, let alone shocked. Add in the rote story by screenwriter Leslie Bohem and the complete lack of chemistry between Hamilton and Brosnan, and Dante’s Peak fizzles on the screen. 8. Armageddon (1998) Certainly, some people love Armageddon and would place it perhaps at the top of this list. They love the outrageous concept of miners going to space to put a bomb in an oncoming asteroid that could destroy all life on Earth. They love director Michael Bay‘s maximalism, all explosions and chaos and hero shots and declarations of feelings. They love the ensemble cast that includes character actors Steve Buscemi, Will Patton, Michael Clarke Duncan, and William Fichtner, alongside stars Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, and Liv Tyler. But for anyone who doesn’t like the hyperactive nature of Bayhem, then Armageddon is a drag. Bay’s action scenes may be loud and flashy, but they’re incoherent, forcing the audience to guess at what’s going on behind all those explosions and lens flares. Even the fun character actor moments get interrupted by unnecessary cuts and get buried under a glossy sheen. There’s a fun disaster movie somewhere in Armageddon, but it’s not on the screen, which is the biggest disaster of all. 7. Deep Impact (1998) Deep Impact is the anti-Armageddon. Where Michael Bay goes for all explosions and chaos, director Mimi Leder emphasizes humanism, slowing down to let us get to know just what’s at stake. Written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin, Deep Impact looks at a wide swath of people as they deal with the oncoming asteroid, devoting so much attention to real people that even a subplot involving astronauts trying to blow up the rock (a plot beat that Disney stole for Armageddon) feels plausible. However, Deep Impact is very much like Armageddon in one way: it isn’t very good. No heartstring goes untagged in Deep Impact, no tear left unjerked. Every decision is made for maximum sentimentalism, from casting Morgan Freeman as a wise and even-tempered president to Elijah Wood and Leelee Sobieski as teen lovers making their final declarations. Deep Impact keeps the tone of disaster movies, but misses their point, devoting all of its over-the-top energy to sadness instead of fun. 6. Independence Day (1996) Okay, yes, Independence Day is an alien invasion story. But its central image, the one thing that everyone remembers about Independence Day, is that the aliens blow up the White House. And if disaster movies are about anything, they’re about razing familiar landmarks. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Moreover, Independence Day belongs on this list because it best embodies the spirit of the Irwin Allen disaster films of the 1970s. Like those hits, Independence Day has striking scenes of devastation; pure spectacle where a star-studded cast delivers great one-liners that stick in our memories. But also like those movies, Independence Day drags between set pieces, devoting way too much time to military men and scientists talking in rooms. Whenever everyone shuts up and the aliens start blowing stuff up, then Independence Day becomes a joy ride again. 5. Volcano (1997) With just its poster alone, Volcano signals two things that it does better than Dante’s Peak. First of all, there’s the title. No haughty literary pretensions. No embarrassment about its premise. It just tells the viewer what they’re going to see. Then there’s the star Tommy Lee Jones, deep in his breakout run, ready to be grumpy about being in a volcano movie. That no-nonsense approach makes Volcano still a delight today. Director Mick Jackson, working from a screenplay by Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray, does no-frills yeoman’s work. Every set piece has clear stakes, every shot establishes the spacial relationships between people and molten lava. Every character goes on a clear, if obvious, arc. Volcano has a simple promise and it delivers, which is all we really want from a disaster flick. 4. Daylight (1996) Daylight came during something of a renaissance for star Sylvester Stallone. With movies such as Cliffhanger in 1993 and especially Cop Land in 1997, Stallone was trying to recover some of the acting promise he showed before losing himself to ’80s excess. Even though the script by Dante’s Peak screenwriter Leslie Bohem and the direction from Rob Cohen lean hard into B-movie territory, Stallone plays his emotionally wounded former EMS chief with genuine pathos. Of course mid-’90s Stallone hasn’t forgotten how to do spectacle, which makes Daylight so much fun. The same is true of the character actors playing the survivors that Stallone’s Kit Latura has to lead to safety when the NYC tunnel they’re in collapses. Amy Brenneman, Viggo Mortensen, Jay O. Sanders, and others give just enough energy to their victims to make us care about them, but not so much that we’re not enjoying the peril. It would be going too far to call Daylight a “smart” disaster movie, but it does have more emotion than any of the lower entries on this list. 3. Outbreak (1995) If Deep Impact errs on the side of being too grounded for a fun disaster movie, Outbreak almost errs on the side of being too thrilling, especially at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. When director Wolfgang Petersen’s film about a virus sweeping across the country matched real-world events, it became way less fun and way too real, breaking the escapist contract that the best disaster movies make. Now with the worst of the pandemic behind us, we can approach Outbreak as the big, fun Hollywood nonsense that it was meant to be. The director of Das Boot and The Perfect Storm, Peterson knows how to do big, sweeping adventure, and he’s brought along the perfect cast, including New Hollywood vets Dustin Hoffman and Donald Sutherland and big stars of the era, Morgan Freeman and Renee Russo. Outbreak is all spectacle, something that needs to be enjoyed at the proper distance from the actual events it portrays. 2. Twister (1996) In many ways, director Jan de Bont’s Twister is the ideal ’90s disaster movie. The screenplay by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin has just the right mix of science and tropey character growth to carry the audience along. The cast, if somewhat overstuffed, is full of ringers, from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Lois Smith to Alan Ruck and Jami Gertz, to all-time “that guys” Patrick Fischler and Sean Whalen. And it has the ideal leads for a big budget B-movie of the era in Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. Most importantly, Twister has twisters, giant tornadoes that rip through the landscape in incredible set pieces. De Bont understands the inherent comedy of cows flying across the sky, and the terror of a room exploding around a person. He knows how to portray the ecstasy that follows a life-threatening event, so that we viewers, like the thrill-seekers onscreen, can’t wait to chase down another tornado, jumping right back into the disaster we just survived. 1. Titanic (1997) As great as the last few entries on this list are, let’s be honest—there’s an iceberg-sized gap between even Twister and our number one, Titanic. And it all comes down to James Cameron, a filmmaker whose ambition, sensibilities, and talent demand a budget that scares Hollywood, and then provides even greater returns. With each passing year, as the celebrity furor around Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet fades and the Celine Dion megahit drops from our radios, the filmmaking brilliance of Titanic stands out more. The first half of the film does the heavy lifting so effortlessly, we don’t even realize we’re being taught the character relations, the class structure, and the layout of the ship. When the boat starts to go down, we’re never confused about where the characters are, allowing us to sit back and feel: feel the tragedy of the love story, the anger at arrogant injustice, and the awe of everything falling apart. Titanic truly is the king of the disaster world.