I searched far and wide for lists of best disaster movies of all time. Criteria included the movies being ranked, not just listed, and covering all time, not just a decade. The lists were generally created by groups, whether teams or committees or based on general public voting (like Ranker.com).

I was able to find 37 lists. I took the 37 lists and added all their content into a spreadsheet, noting the rank of every film. The total number was over 950 including all the repeats. I experimented with different formulas, trying to balance the value of being ranked high on any list and being included on the most lists. I ended up averaging the rankings each movie got (there were 118 that were on at least 2 lists) and dividing that average by a factor of the number of lists that movie was on. The lowest score meant a high ranking average on many lists. The complete spreadsheet is attached at the bottom.

The movies that were on the most lists (out of 37) were:

  • The Day After Tomorrow (2004) – 34 lists
  • Twister (1996) – 32 lists
  • Armageddon (1998) – 27 lists
  • 2012 (2009) – 26 lists
  • Deep Impact (1998) – 25 lists
  • Dante’s Peak (1997) – 25 lists
  • The Poseidon Adventure (1972) – 23 lists
  • The Towering Inferno (1974) – 22 lists
  • The Perfect Storm (2000) – 22 lists
  • San Andreas (2015) – 22 lists
  • Titanic (1997) – 21 lists
  • Contagion (2011) – 20 lists

Here are links to the lists I used along with dates the lists were created:

Best-Disaster-Movies-of-All-TimeDownload