A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster (such as a damaged airliner, fire, shipwreck, an asteroid collision or natural calamities) as its subject.
These films typically feature large casts of well-known actors and multiple plotlines, focusing on the characters' attempts to avert, escape or cope with the disaster and its aftermath.
The genre had its greatest box office success during the 1970s with the release of Airport (1970) The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974).