Excluding 1998’s Godzilla and 2013’s White House Down, which perhaps don’t quite make the cut, director Roland Emmerich has directed five pure disaster movies, making him one of the leading voices in the genre. His first, and arguably his best, came in 1996, as Emmerich helped cement Will Smith as a bona fide Hollywood star in Independence Day. Emmerich’s last disaster movie to date was a long-awaited sequel to Independence Day, subtitled Resurgence, which was far from the pop culture phenomenon of the original.

A young Jake Gyllenhaal‘s box office smash The Day After Tomorrow followed the first Independence Day, as a new ice age dawns, triggered by a sudden climate shift. The Day After Tomorrow is one of the highest-grossing films in the genre, earning $555 million in an impressive global box office run. But this haul would pale in comparison to the revenue earned by Emmerich’s next disaster movie, 2012. Released in 2009, Emmerich released 2012 to capitalize on the cultural craze that was the fear surrounding the supposed end of the world on December 21, 2012.

Tectonic shifts send the world into meltdown in one of Emmerich’s most ambitious movies, which he not only directed but also co-wrote. The film stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, and even Woody Harrelson in a reduced yet memorable role as a science conspiracy theorist. Against a huge budget of $200 million, 2012 was a huge success, scoring a global haul of $757 million, split between $166 million in domestic revenue and a further $591 million from international markets. 17 years later, you can now stream 2012 on Starz after it was added to the platform at the start of the month.

A Someone recognises me, and the temperature in the room drops without a single word being said.
B Loudly and warmly. I arrive with my people, and we’re already laughing about something.
C I’m the one who told everybody where to stand. I walked this room twice before anyone else arrived.
D By accident. I wasn’t supposed to be here, and now I’m the only one who can do anything about it.

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02

It turns physical. What does your fighting actually look like?
Choreography is character. Yours says something about you.