Disaster movies: definitions, filmography and three analyses

Disaster movies are seen to describe society's collective fears, contextualized by recent tragic real events or transposed onto historical or fictitious backgrounds. As a genre, they can hint at how disasters are perceived by movie makers and audiences. This chapter discusses the concept of "disaster movies" from a genre approach to delineate how various scholars have described and categorized disasters and disaster movies. A brief historical outline of the genre follows, tracing the depiction of catastrophic events on the big screen. From the early days of film making to the present, we follow the change of the industry's interpretation of disaster over time. Finally, three more recent disaster movies from different countries are analysed: The Icebreaker, Pandora's Box and Contagion with special emphasis on discussing how the selected works of fiction define and portray disaster as a concept and interact with the real life of disasters.