If you live anywhere near the Eastern seaboard, then you’re probably looking out the window wondering what new unholy snow/slush/sleet/rain/wind mixture they’ll come up with next. While New York City’s current “it’s raining slush” phenomena doesn’t earn us a snow day, it certainly begs us to celebrate the elusive phenomena that is The Good Movie About Bad Weather. While schlocky disaster films like The Day After Tomorrow set the tin-standard for bad movies about bad weather, the good ones only come around once in a great while. You know, like El Niño.
Here are my Top 5 Good Movies About Bad Weather, based purely on a vague intuition that kicks in whenever the weather turns to sh*t:
1. Twister (1996)- Twister is possibly the greatest movie about bad weather of all time. When tornadoes hit in real-life, the human compulsion is to get as close as possible and take a picture, then pray to the gods you can get away before dying. Unfortunately, most of us are too scared to actually try this. Well, Twister was the first to realistically let you live out that fantasy and survive.
2. The Ice Storm (1997)- Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm is that rare movie that somehow genuinely explores the political and cultural issues of dysfunctional family life during the early ’70s, while using bad weather (yes, an ice storm) as the vehicle that allows all these meaningful revelations to occur. It’s quite simply a beautiful movie.
3. White Squall (1996)- I’m not sure if this movie is actually good or not, but when I first saw it back in 1996, it introduced me to Ryan Phillipe and that guy from “Party of Five”. Really bad weather forces everyone to take their shirts off at sea.
4. An Inconvenient Truth (2006)- Because you know you’re thinking to yourself that the weather outside HAS to be manmade. Rain-slush cannot possibly be natural. Al Gore will make it better.
5. Touching the Void (2003) – Let’s face it, all mountain climbing survival movies involve bad weather. But Touching the Void is different. Not only is this movie based on an unbelievable true story of human survival, the special features actually enhance your horror at the psychological costs of survival. You won’t be able to decide at the end if you’re glad to be alive, or if you want to kill me for advising you to watch this movie.
Related: The Coming Winter Storm is Called “Snowicane,” In Case You Were Wondering
