WatchMojo’s Ultimate Disaster Films A-Z – I question some of the logic…
Wow, the popular website WatchMojo.com posted their “Best Disaster Films Of All Time A-Z” on their YouTube channel this afternoon, and I have to say, as a lifelong disaster film buff, I find the list sorely lacking.
The popular list show channel placed a number of restrictions on the films they picked, including allowing virus-oriented films but not allowing films featuring aliens, monsters, or zombies, and that the disasters had to be accidental or natural, but no intentional mechanics, so no disaster-caused-by-terrorism films, apparently. No nuclear destruction films either, as I believe – correctly in most cases, IMHO – they consider those “intentional” , although you could make an argument for one or two, and one of those (“Special Bulletin“) is a TV movie. They also selected films that only implied disaster in some cases, or took place only AFTER the disaster has occurred in the past, where as far as most fans of the genre are concerned, the disaster has to take either front and center or top supporting role, and can’t be just an afterthought. Following that train of thought, a number of their picks wouldn’t qualify either.
They left off a number of classic films, and also found out how damn difficult it was to fill certain letters (like using an alternate title for their choice at “J”, a complete but comical cop-out at letter “X”, and a slide into a TV movie to represent “Y” instead of keeping it theatrical, among others) and also didn’t allow for numbers, which left SFX extravaganza “2012” to compete with about 10 other films under “T”. They also allowed more than one film about a real-life event, whereas I would think you should have to pick a definitive film of all made about one particular real-life event.
Anyway, we’ll talk more about this on the next CV, and if you want to check it out, here’s the video. And below, I’ll put the list, blacked out so you don’t have to see it if you don’t want to)….
WatchMojo’s Best Disaster Films Of All Time (A-Z) (Highlight to reveal the list and a few pithy comments, heh heh):
A- “Armageddon”
B – “Beasts Of The Southern Wild”
C – “Contagion”
D – “The Day After Tomorrow” (over “Deep Impact”….sad)
E – “Earthquake”
F – “Fearless” (1993)
G – “Gray Lady Down”
H – “Hard Rain”
I – “The Impossible”
J – “Jet” (correct title is “Ground Control”, BTW)
K – “Krakatoa, East Of Java”
L – “Last Night”
M – “Melancholia”
N – “A Night To Remember”
O – “Outbreak”
P – “The Poseidon Adventure” (original film)
Q – “The Quake”
R – “Runaway Train”
S – “San Andreas”
T – “Titanic” (WHAT?)
U – “Until The End Of The World”
V – “Volcano”
W – “The Wave”
X – “X-Men Apocalypse” (followed quickly by the comical remark “Oops! WRONG kind of Disaster”, a clever way of getting out of “X”, which I don’t think has a disaster film, but I could be wrong)
Y – “Y2K” (TV movie)
Z – “Zero Hour”
Just a FEW of the films they left off the list: “Airport”, “The Towering Inferno”, “Twister”, “Tidal Wave” (1974), “Dante’s Peak”, “Daylight”, FIVE other films about “Titanic”, and countless others…
That’s all folks!
