10 Must-Watch Tornado Movies That Will Blow You Away

Disaster movies have a long, storied history in Hollywood, from hurricanes to tsunamis to earthquakes. But no natural disaster is more storied in cinema than the tornado, which evokes more fear and anxiety than any other storm. The sheer intensity of a swirling cyclone as it barrels towards you is simply unmatched in a cinematic sense, as its towering presence comes as close to a movie monster as any storm possibly could. So which tornado movies are the best? Which ones are essential for any movie buff? Or any lover of storms?

Hopefully, this list can help. I've compiled what I believe to be the ten best tornado movies. From classics to documentaries to B-movie spoofs, this list has it all. So if you're looking to be introduced to this sub-genre of disaster movies, these rankings can serve as your guide.

Top Tornado Movies

While tornadoes inherently create for great dramatic movies , the movies on this list, as well as many other tornado movies, cover a wide spectrum of genres. While there are plenty of family movies and storm-based thrillers, you will also find quirky comedies, ambiguous psychological thrillers and documentaries on this list. You'll even read about a famous B-movie that offers a hyperbolized take on the destructive power of tornadoes.

When it comes to the highest grossing tornado movies of all time, there are a few clear frontrunners. Far and away winner, however, the most lucrative tornado movie of all time is Twister, which pulled in $241.6 million domestically back in 1996 and $495.7 million worldwide. That easily beats the movie's sequel , the 2024 film Twisters, which pulled in $368.7 million globally. While Twisters technically made more money in its domestic run with $266.4 million, Twister's domestic total jumps to $589.4 million after we adjust for box office inflation—making it the 57th best domestic performance of all time.

Now on to our list. These rankings are purely subjective, based upon my personal tastes. When ranking these movies, I favored movies that used their tornadoes for emotional impact. So while not every movie on this list features a lot of tornado screen time, the tornadoes these movies do feature matter greatly to the story. All in all, I believe this list features a wide range of styles, so if you're looking for a great tornado movie, you've got several great options in this list.

Fictional stories can only do so much. So when a great documentary like Fatal Twisters: A Season of Fury comes along, packing some of the rawest video footage ever seen on film, you can't help but be astonished. This TV movie from HBO uses interviews with survivors, police audiotapes and footage of actual tornadoes to create a narrative around some of the most devastating tornadoes to impact the United States. We not only see the destructive power of tornadoes, but witness how these natural disasters upended people's lives, both physically and emotionally. Directed and produced by Vince DiPersio, this hard-to-find documentary actually exists on YouTube and Dailymotion, but nowhere else as far as I can tell. If you're interested in witnessing what a tornado is capable of, few documentaries have captured it better.

Here's where you can stream Fatal Twisters: A Season of Fury .

The year 2024 has had its share of box office smashes, from Inside Out 2 to Deadpool & Wolverine, but Twisters has quietly made some noise, ranking fifth in the yearly rankings at the domestic box office and ninth at the global box office. A sequel to what is the most classic tornado movie of all time, Twister, this update directed by Lee Isaac Chung follows Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a former storm chaser, who quits her profession after several of her colleagues are killed by a tornado. Five years later, her former teammate Javi (Anthony Ramos) convinces her to return for one last experiment with a new tornado scanning system. She teams up with Javi and YouTube storm chaser Tyler (Glen Powell) to develop a method to disrupt tornadoes, culminating in a risky final experiment against a massive EF5 tornado threatening a town. The increasingly dangerous storms they battle along the way mirror Kate's struggle with trauma as she tries to overcome her guilt and look past the unethical profiteering behind their research.

Here's where you can stream Twisters .

Can a movie be considered a "tornado movie" if there's barely any tornadoes in it? Well, it's all about the impact that a single tornado has—and boy, does A Serious Man pack a punch with its tornado. This film from Joel and Ethan Coen follows Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor in 1960s Minnesota whose life begins to fall apart. His wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), asks for a "get" (essentially a divorce for a Jewish couple) so she can marry a widowed man, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Larry also begins to lose touch with his disengaged children, who face their own troubles: his son, Danny (Aaron Wolff), owes $20 to his Hebrew school classmate for marijuana, while his daughter, Sarah (Jessica McManus), is preoccupied with her appearance and constantly misses school. To boot, Larry's brother, Arthur (Richard King), is homeless and sleeps on Larry's couch. Troubles continue to mount as the film twists towards its unpredictable, ambiguous ending that captures the randomness of life, the futility of caring about life's trivial problems.

Here's where you can stream Inside the Mega Twister .

Natural disasters have always been fodder for great B-movies, so it seemed inevitable that someday we'd get one that combined sharks and tornados for the aptly named Sharknado—which also happens to be one of the best shark movies ever. Produced by the Syfy network, this made-for-television disaster comedy directed by Anthony C. Ferrante and written by Thunder Levin (what an amazing name) starts with a hurricane off the coast of Mexico that launches a number of tornadoes. Tornadoes... filled with sharks, of course. As the storm reaches shore, the sharks flood the streets of Los Angeles, attacking anyone who gets in their way. That includes bar owner and surfer Fin (Ian Ziering), who teams up with with his friends to rescue his estranged wife, April (Tara Reid) and daughter, Claudia (Aubrey Peeples). Fin and his team encounter all kinds of battles, from rescuing children trapped on a school bus to navigating the waters of a flooded house, all while trying to survive and figure out how to stop the sharks.

Here's where you can stream Sharknado .

There are many great tornado movies that could have placed ahead of Into the Storm. But what makes this 2014 film directed by Steven Quale optimal for this list is the sheer amount of tornado scenes packed into its 89-minute story. The plot unfurls in Silverton, Oklahoma, where a local high school prepares for graduation just as a powerful storm begins to develop. As tornado after tornado rips through the town, we watch as everyone tries to survive, following a few key characters along the way. Storm chaser Pete and his team arrive in town, hoping to capture footage of tornadoes after a dry season, while vice-principal Gary is concerned for his sons, one of whom gets trapped at an old paper mill. As the increasingly dangerous tornadoes rip through Silverton, Gary teams up with the storm chasers in a desperate bid to rescue his son while the town braces for a massive EF5 tornado that threatens total destruction.

Here's where you can stream Into the Storm .

Sure, there are plenty of great storm movies. But what about a storm that... takes place inside someone's head? That's mostly what we see in Jeff Nichols' movie Take Shelter, which tells the story of a man named Curtis (Michael Shannon) who is plagued by terrifying dreams and hallucinations of apocalyptic storms. A husband and father in rural Ohio, Curtis begins to fear he, just like his mother, is developing schizophrenia. He channels that overwhelming anxiety into obsessively building a storm shelter, which strains his relationship with his wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), and jeopardizes his job. Before long, the entire community is questioning Curtis' sanity—including himself. It's all a build to a climatic scene where his family must finally take shelter and Curtis' visions must be reckoned with. The "storm" of Take Shelter serves as a reflection of mental illness and the sort of existential fear that grips us in everyday life.

Here's where you can stream Take Shelter .

While most tornado movies try to capture the sheer terror of the deadly storms and the emotional toll they take on innocent bystanders, Twister embraces a lighter, more satiric tone that aims for a tongue-in-cheek approach, that embraces weirdness and authenticity over drama and spectacle. Based on Mary Robison's novel "Oh!," this comedy directed by Michael Almereyda follows the quirky Cleveland family as they navigate life while a tornado strikes their isolated Kansas mansion. The family patriarch Eugene Cleveland (Harry Dean Stanton), who built his fortune from soda pop and mini-golf, lives with his adult children, Maureen and Howdy, along with Maureen's daughter and their housekeeper. Tensions rise as they navigate the hilarious tensions in their lives, from Maureen's ex-husband returning to win her over to Howdy's various artistic pursuits, all while they individually search for meaning.

Here's where you can stream Twister .

When it comes to movies with only one impactful tornado scene, there's simply no film that matches the sheer power of The Wizard of Oz. Set in rural Kansas, this classic Best Picture nominee directed by Victor Fleming centers on Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), who lives on a farm with her Aunt Em (Clara Blandick) and Uncle Henry (Charly Grapewin). After her dog Toto bites a neighbor, Almira (Margaret Hamilton), Dorothy runs away but is persuaded to return home—just as a tornado strikes. Knocked unconscious, she awakens in the magical Land of Oz, and in order to get home, she must find the Wizard of Oz. To help her get there, she befriends the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the Tin Man (Jack Haley) and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), who all seek help from the Wizard as well. Together, they face challenges from the Wicked Witch of the West (also played by Hamilton), all as Dorothy discovers what she's capable of and what home really means to her. The tornado ultimately serves as a wake-up call for her coming-of-age story.

Here's where you can stream The Wizard of Oz .

Tornado movies offer a glimpse into the lives of those on the brink of full-scale devastation. While a tornado can ruin a home, it cannot necessarily ruin one's spirit—that is, if one does not own the tenacity to persevere. And perhaps no tornado movie better captures that power of the human spirit than Places in the Heart, which gave Sally Field her second Academy Award for Best Actress. Set in 1935 during the Great Depression, this American drama follows Edna Spalding (Field), a widow who is left to raise her children after her husband, the town sheriff, is killed in an accident. Despite pressures from the bank after facing numerous financial struggles, Edna refuses to sell the family farm. With the help of her sister, Margaret (Lindsay Crouse), a drifter named Moze (Danny Glover) and a blind war veteran named Will (John Malkovich), Edna works to plant and harvest cotton to save her landall while facing many challenges, from tornadoes that threaten her livelihood to racial tensions that plague the community.

Here's where you can stream Places in the Heart .

There's simply no beating around the bush with a list like this: Twister is, without a doubt, the best and most classic tornado movie there ever was. While several of the films on this list feature very little tornado time, Twister is chock-full of the deadly twisters from beginning to end, making it one of the best action movies of the 1990s. This classic directed by Jan de Bont starts in 1969, when a young Jo Harding (Alexa Vega) witnesses her father's death after an F5 tornado strikes their Oklahoma farm. Twenty-seven years later, an older Jo (now played by Helen Hunt) becomes a storm chaser who leads a team of meteorologists (a team that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dusty Davies) that is determined to improve tornado prediction technology with a device that's been dubbed "Dorothy" (a nod to The Wizard of Oz). When her estranged husband and former-storm-chaser-turned-weatherman, Bill (Bill Paxton), returns to get Jo's signature on divorce papers alongside his fiancée Melissa (Jami Gertz), he inevitably gets drawn back into storm chasing. As they race to deploy Dorothy amidst the dangerous tornadoes that sprinkle across Oklahoma, rival chaser Jonas (Cary Elwes) competes for credit with his own tornado technology.

Here's where you can stream Twister .

Bottom Line

Tornado movies can come in all shapes, sizes and genres. This list compiles together all the most important entries into the tornado canon, offering several great films for fans of the sub-genre.