Hollywood has had a ravenous appetite for pummeling our poor planet with all manner of cosmic debris.
Whether it's those dirty interstellar snowballs we call comets, massive hunks of heavy space boulders catalogued as meteors, or annihilating asteroids, they're all intent on slamming their tonnage into our planet and causing destruction on a monumental scale. We're not fussy on the terminology for this list; if a big thing from space is hurtling towards Earth, we're counting it.
So, to celebrate the Lyrid meteor shower (peaking tonight!), let’s delve into the popular "death by space rock" subgenre and round up the 10 best asteroid movies where Earth is targeted by these hurtling hellions bent on impacting our lives.
10. "Night of the Comet"
Release date: November 16, 1984 | Cast: Kelli Maroney, Catherine Mary Stewart
The '80s were an incredibly fun time to grow up watching movies, and this campy, cult horror comedy that mixes sci-fi with a zombie uprising is a true classic.
Two Southern California Valley Girl sisters survive Earth's passage through the tail of a comet, reducing most animals and most humans to dust. The remaining people have become flesh-feasting zombies, and the sisters must team up to make it through the armageddon event.
The asteroid is really just a McGuffin to make zombies, but it's got big hair, vintage video games, shopping malls, mad scientists, shiny spandex, automatic weapons, and a catchy soundtrack of tunes.
And best of all? It's available to watch for free on YouTube Movies & TV.
9. "Ice Age: Collision Course"
Release date: July 22, 2016 | Cast: Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo
The fifth movie in the popular "Ice Age" series of animated films, this time with the ragtag troop facing an accidental launch of deadly meteors to Earth. We say “accidental” because it took place while one of the characters was trying to bury an acorn — yes, we're serious, you’ll just have to watch it.
It's a kids' film, so you’ll have to accept the dodgy science explanations as they come, but it is a cute attempt to explain everything involving aliens, electromagnetic properties, and a few other things as prehistoric animals try to stop the incoming threat.
8. "Don't Look Up"
Release date: December 24, 2021 | Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep
Political parodies can be hit or miss, but this hilarious Netflix sci-fi feature about two camps of believers and non-believers strikes nearly the right balance.
Clearly a satire on climate change deniers, it also lampoons the science world, clueless politicians, society's absurd reactions to an impending apocalyptic disaster, big media, and big tech.
Writer/director Adam McKay has never been one to hide his allegiances, and here he's not holding back on his global warming warnings for this killer comet black comedy that still manages to make you laugh despite the dire message.
7. "Seeking a Friend For the End of the World"
Release date: June 22, 2012 | Cast: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley, Melanie Lynskey
Starring a sweeter Steve Carell than we're used to from his more famous role as Michael Scott in "The Office," the movie sees these two people forming a special relationship just before a killer asteroid named Matilda hits Earth.
Co-starring Keira Knightley after her breakout role as Elizabeth Swann in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, the movie focuses more on the strange adventures of the duo in what we think are the final days of their lives.
It's a charming tale, and the ending is sure to make you want to reach for a box of tissues.
6. "Coherence"
Release date: June 20, 2014 | Cast: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon
Get ready for doppelgängers galore and parallel dimensions aplenty for director James Ward Byrkit’s unsettling sci-fi romp.
The movie centers on a group of friends at a dinner party to celebrate the passing of Miller’s Comet when things start to go a bit haywire! These eight 20-somethings begin to suffer mental anomalies and memory issues as the cosmic flyby causes some kind of weird quantum entanglement.
A word of warning: Stay sober for this one, and try to keep track of who’s who in this surreal indie delight! It's hard to believe that this little mirror universe gem only cost $50,000 to film and produce!
5. "Lifeforce"
Release date: June 21, 1985 | Cast: Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, and Patrick Stewart
Not exactly a killer comet or asteroid in the strictest sense, but this highly underrated ‘80s sci-fi horror offering directed by "Poltergeist's" Tobe Hooper capitalizes on the Halley’s Comet mania that was ramping up towards its real-life 1986 appearance.
Adapted from Colin Wilson’s novel, "The Space Vampire," "Lifeforce" sees a space shuttle crew flying into the tail of Halley’s Comet, where they discover an alien craft with life-draining extraterrestrials aboard. Once they return to Earth, all hell breaks loose in Olde London.
It’s also got an "Alien" connection as its screenplay was co-written by Dan O’Bannon, one of the writers on Ridley Scott's seminal 1979 sci-fi flick.
4. "Deep Impact"
Release Date: May 8, 1998 | Cast: Robert Duval, Elijah Wood, Tea Leoni
"Deep Impact" was the first of the two in an infamous blockbuster double bill of asteroid/comet movies released in 1998, and it's the more subdued of the two.
While "Armageddon" went all in on the Hollywood action, "Deep Impact" focused more on the survival selection and preparation elements of the disaster, but still served up some sweet catastrophic scenes of destruction.
It follows several storylines as families are torn apart, reunited, and cast together in unlikely combos, all while a 7-mile-wide comet takes aim at Earth and folks stampede toward protective shelters.
It's certainly more intelligent (and scientifically accurate) than its sister movie, but it's also often kinda boring, offering more treacly melodrama than mayhem. Still, director Mimi Leder's entry has some great scenes and definitely deserves a spot on our list!
3. "Meteor"
Release Date: October 19, 1979 | Cast: Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Martin Landau
Following on from the success of movies like "The Poseidon Adventure," "The Towering Inferno," and "Earthquake," the storied era of the classic 1970s disaster movie craze ended with a huge bang with "Meteor".
Packed with an all-star cast of film and TV stars of various notoriety and trotted out during the height of the Cold War with the USSR, this spectacle delivers on every level with its gigantic cast and decent visual effects for the time.
"Meteor" offers a thrilling tale of mutual cooperation between the superpowers as they target their space-born arsenal of nuclear missiles at the Earth-bound Orpheus comet.
2. "Armageddon"
Release Date: July 1, 1998 | Cast: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler
Sure, it's cartoonish, brash, and sometimes just plain silly, but "Armageddon" is the classic asteroid movie done with all the bravado and big booms you'd expect from a Michael Bay-directed project.
This outrageous movie often comes up for its illogical premise of training oil rig workers to be astronauts instead of training astronauts to drill into an asteroid to plant explosives to knock the rocky intruder off course. However, it's pure buttery popcorn fun, and if you don’t think watching Steve Buscemi jump an eight-wheeled hot rod space buggy across a chasm in zero-g isn’t awesome, check your pulse!
Plus, you know you're a sucker for that Aerosmith song!
1. "Greenland"
Release Date: December 18, 2020 | Cast: Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin,
Recency bias? Perhaps, but director Ric Roman Waugh's "Greenland" is one of the more realistic and intense cosmic disaster flicks ever released.
Here, Butler plays John Garrity, a man desperately trying to get his family to a survival bunker in Greenland after being chosen by the Department of Homeland Security for entry into a colossal underground facility before the Clarke Comet arrives in a most unwelcome manner.
Grounded in a gritty sense of near documentary-style action sequences and a perfectly plausible narrative, "Greenland" hits hard and remains one of the best examples of the sub-genre. Kudos to composer David Buckley’s atmospheric score, too, which he replicated for the sequel "Greenland 2: Migration."
