20. Frozen (2013)
The Pathetic Fallacy is a literary device in which the environment reflects the character’s mood. It’s the heart of the Disney animated classic that tells the story of a woman who is so irritated that she literally turns her surroundings into eternal winter. She is therefore responsible for unspeakable misery, especially the fact that her monotony directly caused Josh Gad’s invention of the annoying snowman.
19. The Shining (1980)
Perhaps the film that defines seasonal affective disorder. In The Shining, Jack Nicholson’s family suffers as they succumb to the madness of snowy isolation. Although the interior scenes give the film a scary reputation, it’s worth remembering that none of the incidents would have happened if the Overlook Hotel had been easy to escape. It’s also a timely reminder that snow makes mazes less fun.
18. Blade Runner (1982)
Ridley Scott’s classic is a masterpiece of design, with its rain-soaked, futuristic cityscapes playing as much a role as the actual characters. Will the constant rain affect the plot? No, not really. But you have to imagine that everyone would be a lot less miserable if the sun came out sometimes.
17. Force Majeure (2014)
Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure, remade in 2020 as Downhill, is about how people react to perceived weather rather than the weather itself. It follows the repercussions of a man who abandons his family and runs away, believing that an avalanche is about to hit. Everything is immediately canceled and what follows is extremely difficult to watch.
16. The Thing (1982)
Ultimately, weather isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of The Thing. Because it is nightmarish in all its grotesque glory. But imagine the movie set on a beautiful spring meadow and it immediately loses all its power. The Antarctic setting means that all characters are isolated and visibility is consistently low. This is what makes this movie a claustrophobic classic.
15. Hard Rain (1998)
An infamous flop upon release, Hard Rain is a film about a criminal gang attempting a robbery but being overcome by some pretty heavy rain. Morgan Freeman is miscast as the villain and Minnie Driver complains that she wasn’t allowed to wear a wetsuit because the producers wanted her nipples visible, but the movie tries too hard to be serious and ends up being hilariously silly.
14. Everest (2015)
Although it is now essentially a theme park for the rich and reckless, it is important to remember that several people die on Mount Everest every year. An all-star Poseidon Adventure-style ensemble piece, Everest tells the story of a real-life disaster that befell climbers in 1996. Eight of the climbers were caught in a blizzard and died on the descent. The movie shows how unsurvivable situations can be. In fact, just five months before the film was released, an avalanche occurred on the mountain, killing 22 people.
13. Take Shelter (2011)
Few partnerships in film are as satisfying as that of Jeff Nichols and Michael Shannon. Take Shelter is a perfect example. Shannon plays a man haunted by visions of a terrible storm. Is it a premonition or mental illness? This is a premise that allows both parties to play to their respective strengths. Shannon is tortured and haunting, and the amount of psychological tension that writer-director Nichols is able to elicit from the story is astonishing.
12. Into the Wild (2007)
Sean Penn’s retelling of the story of Christopher McCandless, an unprepared young man who ventures into Alaska, has inspired a few mortals over the years, many of whom ultimately had to be rescued. Into the Wild makes you wonder what kind of movie they were watching because it’s the story of a man who emerges unprepared for all kinds of storms, floods, and ice. Beautifully done, but probably better off staying home.
11. Impossible (2012)
Those who remember the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami will long be haunted by news footage of the aftermath, with bodies piling up outside hospitals. The Impossible is a dramatization of that event. Although it wasn’t widely acclaimed upon release (it was only eight years after the disaster, and the stars were Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, some criticized the film for whitewashing what really happened), the film remains a deeply shocking watch.
10. The Revenant (2015)
In 2015, Leonardo DiCaprio was so desperate for an Oscar that he landed a role in The Revenant, a movie in which endless terrible things happen to his character. Although it does result in a bit of slapstick at times (occasionally veering into Mr Bean cosplay territory), he ends up being inexorably hampered by the weather. There is a storm. It’s raining. It’s so cold that my beard freezes. It was all incredibly unpleasant, but it did the job and proved nothing can win you an Oscar faster than a little bad weather.
9. Twister (1996)
Twister and its recent sequel, Twisters, speak to America’s deep fascination with storms. While other movies depict tornadoes as something that can somehow be concealed, Twister turns them into a spectacle. Every character here is determined to chase after them, cheering and yelling no matter what. It’s a mid-90s blockbuster that respects the severity of the storm destroying houses and cars, but only the villains and supporting characters die. It’s a good tornado movie, but is it the best tornado movie? No, thanks to that…
8. Sharknado (2013)
Twister is fun, but you lose points for tornadoes that aren’t filled to the gills with legions of murderous sharks. This is not an accusation that can be leveled at Sharknado, a movie about a tornado full of killer sharks. Cheaply made to maximize the trend of ridiculous clone creature features that started with Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Sharknado is intentionally extremely absurd from start to finish. It’s worth a watch, but the same can’t be said for all the sequels, especially those starring Jedward.
7. Magnolia (1999)
Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is the director’s attempt to deal with his father’s death, but it’s so ambitious and expansive that it essentially ends up being about everything. This includes strange weather phenomena. The emotional climax of the film occurs when millions of frogs fall from the sky. It seems absurd at first. Then, when the frog gets hammered, breaking the window and causing the car to crash, it’s scary, disconcerting and awe-inspiring. It’s also more of a logistical nightmare than many of the films on this list. Because it’s much harder to clean up ankle-deep floods of frogs across the city than it is to clear snow.
6. Tomorrow (2004)
It would be surprisingly easy to fill this entire list with movies made by Roland Emmerich. Roland Emmerich has devoted his entire career to making films in which countless people are punished by incredibly harsh weather. But The Day After Tomorrow is perhaps the best microcosm of his work. It’s raining hail. A hurricane has occurred. The wind blows and it rains. Suddenly a new ice age arrives. Although not traditionally meteorological, there is a loose pack of wolves that is worth mentioning. Emmerich’s climate crisis film. It is a stern warning that if we do not change our ways, we will freeze to death or be eaten by wolves.
5. Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Fair warning: from this point on, the list starts to lean heavily towards people having a crappy time on boats. And with this in mind, it would be wrong to ignore the original story’s contention that people were wasting time on a boat. The film is about a luxury cruise ship capsized by a tsunami, and stars Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall, and other killers. The disaster movie that other disaster movies aspire to be, it was the highest-grossing film of 1973 and won two Oscars. But it’s a little strange to describe a movie about mass death as an adventure.
4. Noah (2014)
Darren Aronofsky has made a career depicting terrible things happening to people, so it’s only natural that he would end up making a movie about incredibly terrible things happening to everyone at the same time. Noah, a retelling of the Noah’s Ark story, is his highest-grossing film to date, but may also be his least remembered. Did you know Ray Winstone was in it? Did you know that Emma Watson appears in it? Did you know that several countries have banned it for religious reasons? Either way, you have to agree that this is a movie about really scary weather.
3. Mist (2007)
This is bound to be controversial because some people would be downright outraged if they saw a movie about water droplets floating in the air. In one corner there are fans of John Carpenter’s The Fog (a story about spooky things hiding in the fog), and in the other corner there are fans of Frank Darabont’s The Mist (a story about spooky things hiding in the fog). There’s room for only one of these on this list, and for me The Mist is right around the edge. This is partly because it’s based on a Stephen King novel, and partly because it has one of the most hilarious and over-the-top endings of any movie in history. Your email is welcome.
2. Perfect Storm (2000)
When a movie becomes part of your lexicon, you know it gets on your nerves. We live in a time where almost everything is portrayed as a perfect storm, and it’s all because of this movie. This is the story of how some fishermen off the Massachusetts coast were tragically caught up in a nightmarish combination of high pressure, a cold front, and a hurricane. It’s a good movie with strong performances from George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, but it becomes even more heartbreaking when you realize that this actually happened (in 1991).
1. All Is Lost (2013)
How beautiful this is. The only actor in All Is Lost is Robert Redford, and he speaks only 51 words in the entire film. All Is Lost is the story of a sailor who realizes that a storm is approaching and a hole has formed in his ship. The boat capsizes. He was thrown overboard. He gets on the raft. There’s another storm. Things aren’t entirely good. It might be Redford’s best film. As he quietly accepts his fate, his face gradually transforms into a crude monument to asceticism. It may not be the perfect storm, but it’s the perfect movie.