The first and only disaster film to win Best Picture, Titanic wipes away all previous pictures about the unsinkable ship. Featuring a sweeping romantic story, it won eleven out of fourteen Oscars. James Cameron is a wunderkind because of how he's able to blend the visual effects with cinema so effortlessly well that it all looks as one.

The king of disaster pictures, Airport is that good. The suspense is exhilarating and exciting. Until the moment disaster strikes, the heavy drama is what makes the movie intriguing, gripping, and not all that different from From Here to Eternity. The performances rendered by the all-star cast are excellent, and the standouts are Dean Martin and Helen Hayes who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Alive is a true story of human courage and the will to survive. It's the last ten minutes, from the trek to the helicopter rescue, that makes the film transcendental. In short, there's nothing like it. There are many other powerful scenes. As good as the cast is, Ethan Hawke gives a special performance as Nando Parrado.

If you can't get enough of Airport and The Poseidon Adventure, then, by all means, go for The Towering Inferno. People die when disaster strikes, and it's a fact of life. What helps a lot is the all-star cast. Of course, it's a battle between Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. So, who won? That's for you to find out.

The Day After presents a scenario of what it's like to deal with a nuclear holocaust. To this day, it remains the highest rated telefilm, registering over 100 million viewers on November 20, 1983. It's because the subject is fascinating and can happen for real, giving them something to think about.

The very first film to be released on DVD in the United States, Twister is purely on-the-edge-of-your-seat entertainment and is famous for one scene: the flying cow. It's cool to see that which does happen for real. So are the scenes when tornadoes are happening and trucks are riding alongside them.

Sorcerer is a unique motion picture from William Friedkin that's shot on location in the Dominican Republic. This isn't about the plot per se but an adventure of four men who are down on their luck and will do anything to turn their fortunes around even if it means life and death. Among the finest and most unforgettable scenes in cinema history is the bridge crossing, twice at that, which took three months to film.

This is the one that started it all. George Romero will forever be remembered for Night of the Living Dead which is an underrated American horror classic picture. Unintentional or not, it's also groundbreaking for casting a black actor as the main protagonist who's intelligent with a lot of common sense. Unique is the use of radio play to narrate what's happening at the moment.

Bringing back good memories of the 70's disaster pictures, Daylight is a respectable entry into the genre. A major flaw of such films is too much star power; the more big names there are in the cast, the worse the overall product is. But that's not the case in Daylight which is The Poseidon Adventure meets Cliffhanger. Plus, the Stallone effect is hard to beat.

Just like the Nobel Prize-winning book by John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath is a historically important picture that depicts the great migration caused by the Dust Bowl during the 30's, the class struggles between the haves and the have-nots, and workers' rights. It's just powerful stuff along with the superlative performances by Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, and John Carradine.

What matters the most to the red-blooded Americans is Super Bowl Sunday. The buildup to the anticipated climax is deliberate and methodical. The performances rendered by Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, and Marthe Keller keep Black Sunday moving to the incendiary point of no return. It's beneficial to have two teams, the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers, playing each other to heighten the realism.

Before there was James Cameron's Titanic, there was A Night to Remember that's based on the book by Walter Lord. Comparisons between both of these films are simply unavoidable. However, the director does a good job of creating a buildup that's similar to From Here to Eternity before the disaster strikes. It remains the most accurate version of what happened that night of April 14, 1912.

Irwin Allen wasn't named the Master of Disaster for nothing. The Swarm has been frequently called one of the worst movies ever made, but I disagree and think it's a well-made picture with some strong performances, an intriguing storyline, and excellent special effects which included 22 million real bees.

White Mile is full of life lessons, and the most important of all is: "Are you going to be in control or let yourself be controlled by others?" It's a business trip gone wrong with great whitewater rafting scenes. Everybody involved gets top marks for making them appear realistic. The cast is full of familiar faces, and Alan Alda plays a villainous character.

Losing none of the power, The Abyss is an underwater picture that's Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets The Day the Earth Stood Still. When I saw Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Titanic back then, I knew where the groundbreaking work in special effects and underwater photography came from, and that's The Abyss, hence the Oscar win for Best Visual Effects.