Disaster moviesare calamitous by their description, but some of them end on particularly dour notes that can be hard to stomach. A disaster movie is any thriller, horror, or action-driven movie that revolves around a mass casualty event or catastrophic mishap, from meteor impacts and massive earthquakes togigantic kaiju monstersand supernatural apocalypses. Some disaster films have specifically dark endings that make the most of their widespread terror, leaving an impression on audiences long after credits roll.
Considering how many of them end with the entire planet being annihilated, it can be hard to determine which disaster movies are the most bleak. However, even in cases where the death tolls are in the millions, some of the films offer some sliver of hope with a handful of survivors, and others still end with the entire impending crisis averted. The most haunting disaster films aren’t justmovies where everyone dies in the end, but stories that offer a depressing outlook on the future of humanity as a whole.
One of the more underrated pieces ofNicolas Cage’s filmography,Knowingis an interesting mix of supernatural thriller and apocalypse disaster movie. The film stars Cage as an MIT astrophysics professor whose son uncovers an eerie string of accurate predictions made by a child in 1959 thanks to a time capsule opened at his school. Among the predictions is a catastrophic extinction level event, and as the family races to escape it, eerie supernatural beings begin to stalk the young child.
It turns out that these voices are actually aliens with a vested interest in humanity’s survival. The film ends with a solar flare completely annihilating the human race, save for the two children abducted by the aliens and taken to repopulate humanity in a verdant extraterrestrial paradise. What comes off as a hopeful message for the survival of the species becomes more grim when it sinks in that these two kids are essentially forced to be together in order to become the new Adam and Eve, removed from everything and everyone else they’ve ever known.
For the majority of its runtime,The Mistis a standard Stephen King adaptation affair centering on a bizarre supernatural disaster. When a mysterious fog rolls in to a small town, the locals are terrorized by a series of eldritch monsters lurking within. As a group of survivors attempt to hold out in a barred-off supermarket, they slowly succumb to the madness of the situation, their own stress-caused infighting, and the creatures themselves.
The movie ends with protagonist David making a mad dash through the mist to safety with his son and three other survivors, only to soon realize the futility of escape when his car runs out of gas. He makes the difficult decision to mercy kill everyone else with his remaining bullets, including his own son, only for the military to arrive and save him alone. The idea ofa man killing his son in hopes of sparing him of pain only to find rescue moments later defines one of the most memorably brutal film endings ever conceived.
Kicking off the erratic andloosely-connectedCloverfieldtrilogy, the original found-footage disaster movie is relatively straightforward compared to the later films using its name. The film centers on a farewell party that is disrupted by the arrival of a gargantuan alien monster in New York City that wreaks havoc on the populace. One by one, the friend group perishes in the widespread chaos and destruction caused by the beast, somehow capturing all of it on a shaky hand-held camera.
What makes the ending ofCloverfieldparticularly bleak is the idea that the government is willing to raze Manhattan to the ground in an effort to kill the monster. Even more upsetting, the attack doesn’t seem to finish it off, with a voice recording saying “It’s still alive” played in reverse over the final credits. Few other giant monster movies are willing to pass on such a futile hope for survival to the featured humans.
Don’t Look Upmight be derided as overly-preachy by some audiences, but there’s no denying that the Netflix-original disaster movie presents one of the most saddeningly realistic responses to an actual impending apocalypse. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as astrophysicists who realize a massive comet is on a collision course for Earth and do their best to warn the public about it. While the black comedy does offer plenty of laughs, it ultimately concludes with most of humanity being destroyed by the initial impact.
The only people to actually escape the meteor’s destruction in the end are a cabal of wealthy elites who make an attempt to colonize an alien planet. Sadly for them, they’re quickly eaten after waking up from stasis by avian alien creatures. While this is a bit of comedic punchline, the message that running away from the Earth to populate the stars isn’t the hopeful solution the elites thought it would be is a disturbing endorsement of hindsight.
No Godzilla movie is as horrific asShin Godzilla, right down to its ominous ending that suggests the terror isn’t yet over. A return to form showing the King of the Monsters as a force of destruction rather than a fighter of evil alien invaders,Shin Godzillamakes it clear that even Godzilla itself is a victim, a screaming, mutated animal lashing out in pain without the awareness to understand what is happening to it. The film acts as a criticism of the Japanese government’s response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in real life.
Despite this criticism, the government of the film is ultimately able to contain Godzilla with a blood coagulant that freezes it in place. Yet this doesn’t seem to be a permanent solution, as eerieGodzilla-plated humanoids sprout from its tail, promising some other horror to come with the beast’s evolving form. That’s not even to mention the fact that Godzilla is merely stunned, not truly defeated, and will be bombed along with the city should it ever re-awaken.
As if a giant meteor or comet striking the Earth to lay waste to humanity isn’t bad enough,Melancholiasupposes that an entire planet might do the same. Titled after the rogue planet that it sets on a collision course with Earth,Melancholiais an artsy, experimental film that divides itself into two distinct parts. Part Two: Claire ends with Melancholia smashing into the Earth, assuredly destroying all life in the universe.
Thanks to the statements of a character demonstrated to have a strange form of precognition, this can be taken as a definitive fact, as she reveals thatEarth is the only planet to harbor any life in the entire universe. Thus, not only does Melancholia destroy humanity, but the very existence of living beings at all. All the worse is the fact that the destruction blindsides most people on the planet, not even giving them proper time to say goodbye.
While many disaster films rely on natural phenomena, just as many explore the horrors of artificially-created catastrophes on a global scale. Of all thenuclear apocalypse movies, there might not be one that can rival the dour ending ofThreads.Taking place in the United Kingdom, the movie centers on a married couple who try to find a means to survive as mushroom clouds loom on the horizon in the wake of a nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
Though Ruth and her daughter Jane might survive the bombs, what comes next might be more horrifying than death in a fireball. In the span of only a decade after the bombs drop, Britain reverts to a medieval society where most people are illiterate, the English language itself has devolved, and society breaks down into a Darwinistic struggle for survival. The last shot of the film sees Jane look at her own infant child for the first time, only to be repulsed in horror by whatever lurks beneath the swaddle.
Yet another asteroid impact movie,These Final Hoursexamines the terror of knowing that a final clock is ticking down on humanity’s doom. Taking place in Perth, Australia, the film supposes that a world-ending meteor has struck the planet in the Northern Hemisphere. This means that the residents of Australia have 12 hours to live as they see fit before being consumed by the approaching firestorm, leading to mass suicides, depraved parties, and all manner of last-minute debauchery.
The conclusion of the film is simple enough, with the wave of doom coming right on schedule and annihilating the remainder of the Earth’s population. It’s the lead up to this ending that makes things so disturbing, withthe lack of any lasting consequences unlocking the twisted hidden desires of all humanityin a manner not unlike thePurgemovies. Of course, any ending that sees the annihilation of all life on the planet is a depressing one, indeed.
Not every disaster movie needs to take place on a global scale to leave an impression. One of the most underrated films ofLiam Neeson’s career,The Greyposits the IrishTakenstar as a professional hunter for an oil rig operation. Considering suicide on his way to work, Neeson’s character is thrust into a desperate situation alongside his co-workers when his plane crashes in the wilderness, subjecting the survivors to the brutal elements of the Alaskan wilderness and, more importantly, a pack of ferocious grey wolves.
The Greyoffers many startling views on masculinity and depression that leave it a dour affair throughout, and the ending is no different. Neeson sees himself injured and on the brink of collapse, facing down an alpha wolf with nothing but a small knife and an ad-hoc knuckleduster made of broken plane-sized liquor bottles. It would be one thing if this was a noble sacrifice to save someone else, but by this point, the rest of the party has fallen, leaving Neeson’s character to die alone.
Another powerful small-scale disaster movie that leaves no survivor’s is George Clooney’sA Perfect Storm.After being ridiculed for his poor hauls, Clooney’s fisherboat captain Billy Tyne goes out on one last ill-advised final voyage for the season, skirting around a dangerous tropical storm. When the ship gets stuck in between two weather fronts rapidly developing into a hurricane, her crew is picked off one by one in the destructive inclement weather.
The film ends with every sailor drowning to his death beneath the waves, including Captain Tyne. What makes this ending so remarkably bleak is just how preventable it was. The last-minute trip was ill-advised in the first place, butif they prioritized survival over hurrying back to shore before their catch spoiled, they might have lived. It’s this tragic nature of folly that makesThe Perfect Stormsuch a compellingdisaster movie.
