25 Movies Like 2012 You Should Watch Now

Another Emmerich flick, "The Day After Tomorrow," hits a little too close to home since the disaster here is climate change, which threatens Earth. The film follows paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), who warns that an ice age is coming, but his theory gets dismissed. When he's actually proved right and Earth starts freezing over, it's too late for most of the planet. So, Jack sets out on a mission to save his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is trapped and freezing to death in New York.

Like in "2012," Emmerich uses outstanding visuals to showcase just how extreme and deadly the cold temperatures can be. At one point in the film, audiences watch a helicopter crash due to its pipes freezing. When the pilot exits the crash in the hopes of escaping, he freezes to death right before our very eyes. Aside from the extreme cold, "The Day After Tomorrow" includes other natural disasters, such as floods and hurricanes. The only issue you might have when watching this film is that it will probably make you feel incredibly cold.

Moving away from natural disasters for a moment, let's look at "Independence Day," the iconic film about aliens invading Earth. Starring Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum, "Independence Day" was released in 1996 and was a huge box office smash, taking in $817 million worldwide. Once again, Roland Emmerich — the king of disaster films — was in the driver's seat as the director of this alien disaster story.

"Independence Day" follows United States President Thomas J. Whitmore (Pullman), Captain Steven Hiller (Smith), and engineer David Levinson (Goldblum), as they attempt to fight off an alien invasion and save the planet ... just in time for Independence Day. The aliens' technology is decades ahead of humanity's. It seems as though all hope is lost until David builds a computer virus to attack the aliens. He and Captain Hiller travel to space and infect the mother ship with this virus, which allows President Whitmore to lead an attack of airships and destroy the invading force.

Directed by Alex Proyas, "Knowing" stars Nicolas Cage as MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler. He comes across a set of numbers that seem to have predicted the past 50 years of major catastrophes. Convinced that they mean something, he takes his son with him to find the author of the numbers. Eventually, he meets Diana (Rose Byrne) and her daughter, Abby (Lara Robinson), and he discovers that Diana's mother wrote the numbers decades prior.

While this film isn't your traditional disaster flick like "2012," it does showcase a world that is coming to an end and it features aliens, who have chosen to save John's son and Diana's daughter. The film ends with a solar flare destroying life as we know it, while the two children get sent to paradise as the last remaining members of humanity. The mystery surrounding the numbers is sure to keep audiences on the edge of their seats, while the destruction of Earth fits right in with the disaster movie theme.

Similarly to "Knowing," the catastrophic and destructive event of "Deep Impact" comes from space. However, in this movie, it's a comet that threatens humanity's survival. Directed by Mimi Leder and released in 1998, "Deep Impact" follows a crew of astronauts, who launch into space with the hopes of stopping a comet from hitting Earth.

The crew's goal is to land on the comet and destroy it by drilling nuclear bombs into its surface. Unfortunately, this doesn't work, and instead, the comet breaks off into two sections. The smaller piece hits Earth and destroys millions of lives. So, the crew decides to make one last effort to save the planet, and sacrifice themselves by destroying the larger piece of the comet before it can reach Earth. By the film's end, humanity must set all differences aside and come together to rebuild what they've lost from this horrific event. However, if it weren't for those brave astronauts on the ship Messiah, the death toll would have been a lot more.

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" presents a truly terrifying concept with a pretty bizarre execution. The world becomes infected with a toxin that causes people to commit suicide, and the film follows Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zoey Deschanel). All around them, Elliot and Alma see people kill themselves in brutal and horrific ways, and struggle to figure out what's going on. Well, this is where the film goes slightly off the rails. It's revealed that the toxin is a defense mechanism from plants, which has resulted in an impending global disaster. Yes, the plants. 

While this source of destruction in the film is perhaps an outlandish one, one must admit that the eerie tone of the movie, mixed with the theme of disaster, makes "The Happening" a heavy contender on this list. Director M. Night Shyamalan is known for his hit-or-miss films, and the ambiguous ending of "The Happening" leaves something to be desired. As with most of Shyamalan's work, you either love it or hate it.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Things really start to heat up in 2003's "The Core." Directed by Jon Amiel, "The Core" is a disaster film that shows a world where the Earth's molten core has stopped rotating. Scientists in the film theorize that unless the core's movement can be restarted, the Earth's magnetic field will collapse and expose the planet to solar radiation that would devastate life as we know it. Oh, and that this will occur in a couple of months.

Now, a team must travel to the Earth's core and release a nuclear bomb to restart the core's rotation. NASA enlists pilots Major Rebecca Childs (Hilary Swank) and Commander Robert Iverson (Aaron Eckhart) to lead the team on this mission. Unfortunately, they discover that this was no natural disaster. Instead, the molten core stopped rotating due to the top-secret project, "DESTINI" (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger INItiative).

DESTINI was intended to be a weapon for the American government. However, its testing backfired and affected the Earth's core, which has caused the devastation on the planet's surface. While most of the film takes place on the NASA shuttle Virgil, audiences still get to witness the natural disasters caused by the non-rotating core. So, the film showcases lightning storms in Italy and solar radiation, which destroys San Francisco. Turns out, this is a disaster movie after all.

Michael Bay's 1998 film "Armageddon" may not make much sense logistically, but it still is one heck of a good time! At the time, "Armageddon" was the third film that Bay had directed. It was an instant success, as it became the 2nd highest-grossing film of the year. And with stars like Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, and Billy Bob Thornton filling out the cast, it's no wonder the movie did so well.

"Armageddon" raises the stakes way up: An asteroid the size of Texas is on a direct route to crash into Earth, and its impact would effectively destroy all life. Oh, and it's supposed to hit in 18 days. So, NASA decides to send a group of oil drillers to save the day. Naturally. Instead of training astronauts how to drill into and destroy the asteroid threatening Earth, NASA instead decides to train drillers on how to be astronauts and then send them to space in order to split the asteroid in half. While the film has its cheesy and questionable moments, that doesn't stop it from being one of the best disaster films of the '90s.

This list has seen aliens, meteors, and natural disasters. So, it's high time that our favorite disaster movies like "2012" include zombies. "World War Z" was released in 2013 and was adapted from Max Brooks' 2006 novel of the same name. The film is a high-intensity action-packed story that sees the world abruptly overrun by a zombie virus.

The zombie disaster is seen through the eyes of Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a retired field agent with the United Nations. He's brought in to help understand the zombie outbreak and hopefully, to find a cure. He travels around the globe, from South Korea to Jerusalem, which allows audiences to see just how widespread this disaster is. While the film isn't as faithful to the original source material as fans of the book would have liked, "World War Z" is still a good time. The tense atmosphere and frightening moments make it a standout in the zombie genre and an excellent disaster film for this list.

Director Scott Derrickson's 2008 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a modern update of the 1951 film of the same name. The movie introduces the alien Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), who is sent to Earth to either eradicate humanity or to change humans' behavior. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is an interesting concept, which focuses on how humans have caused so much environmental damage to the planet. Klaatu's species believes that humans must be stopped by any means necessary.

While Klaatu sees the value in humanity, his other alien companions do not. In fact, they believe that they must save the Earth from humans. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a unique addition to this list because, while the aliens are intent on destroying humanity, their goal is actually to preserve life. Just not humanity's. The film dares to ask the question of who is really causing the disaster: aliens or humans?

Director Matt Reeves debuted  "Cloverfield" in 2008. When the teaser trailer of this found-footage monster film was first released, it had no title attached and the plot was shrouded in secrecy. Due to this unique marketing approach, "Cloverfield" had audiences guessing at what this mysterious film was all about.

Flash-forward a few years, and there have been three films set in the Cloverfield universe: "10 Cloverfield Lane" and "The Cloverfield Paradox" followed the first movie. While each film has offered a unique take on the Cloverfield story, one thing has remained the same: Aliens have landed on Earth to cause absolute mayhem and destruction. However, it's the original "Cloverfield" that most closely follows the idea of a disaster movie. 

In the movie, a group of young people happen to capture the events as they unfold. Their found footage showcases earthquakes, power outages, and the now-iconic image of the Statue of Liberty's head being tossed to the ground. As the film progresses, the survivors become fewer and fewer, with some getting infected after being bitten by parasitic creatures, and the others just straight up dying due to the chaos.

This list of movies like "2012" has seen aliens, meteors, natural disasters, and even power-hungry humans as being the cause for disaster films. However, "Crawl" takes things one step further as the disaster here is alligators. We promise that it's not as ridiculous as it sounds.

2019's "Crawl" was directed by Alexandre Aja and stars Kaya Scodelario as Haley Keller, a young woman who travels back home to Florida, where a Category 5 hurricane is fast-approaching. She's concerned because she can't reach her father, and she wants to get him, so that they can evacuate together. Unfortunately, with the hurricane just around the corner, most of her hometown has been flooded. Now, large alligators are swimming around the neighborhood and trap Haley and her father. 

Suddenly, it's a race against time for these two, as they must survive the alligators and escape before the hurricane hits. "Crawl" ensures that audiences experience the same panic as the characters, who bounce from one near-fatal moment to another. The entire world may not be in danger, but for these residents of Florida, their lives are.

Frank Gwo's "The Wandering Earth" is a Chinese science fiction post-apocalyptic film, which was released in 2019 and was loosely adapted by Liu Cixin's 2000 novel of the same name. In the film, the story is set in the not-so-distant future, when the sun is predicted to go supernova. This catastrophe would kill all life on Earth and obliterate the planet.

In order to combat this new form of extinction, the human race decides to shift the entire planet to avoid the supernova event. Unfortunately, moving the planet causes various natural disasters, such as tsunamis and a freezing of the Earth's surface, which causes the death of millions. The film does a time jump to show how humanity attempts to survive, as the planet travels through space towards its new home in the Alpha Centauri star system. While the story seems far-fetched, "The Wandering Earth" has amazing special effects and intense drama that all make the story believable. The film was a moderate hit with the critics and a sequel is in the works for 2023 (via Variety).

"The Impossible" is based on a true story from the 2004 disaster of the earthquake and tsunami, which devastated parts of Indonesia, Thailand, and India. María Belón detailed her family's experience about getting separated by the tsunami during a vacation to Thailand. Her family's story resulted in the 2010 film "The Impossible," directed by J. A. Bayona and starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, and a young Tom Holland in his film debut.

While disaster films are generally a fun time, "The Impossible" brings it back down to reality, as the film showcases a heart-wrenching tale of what living through one of these experiences truly looks like. "The Impossible" treats audiences to an emotional story that showcases people's strength, courage, and selflessness, all of which allows the family to reunite by the film's end. The story is a harrowing tale with exceptional acting that keeps audiences attached to every single character. Make sure you have tissues at the ready, as this is a beautiful yet devastating film to get through.