Roland Emmerich has had an interesting career. Although he got his start making sci-fi and horror films, the worldwide success of Independence Day made him a household name known for destroying cities and famous monuments. Since then, Emmerich’s films have made billions of dollars at the box office, cementing himself as the king of the disaster movie genre.
While Emmerich has made some interesting choices outside of these movies (He made a film about Shakespeare!), all anyone ever wants to talk about is how he can’t stop himself from blowing some shit up with computer-generated effects. So with that in mind, here are the best (and worst) films from the master of disaster Roland Emmerich.
Cover Photo: Centropolis Entertainment
Roland Emmerich Disaster Movies (Moonfall)
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The Best: 'Independence Day'
Everything about Independence Day is iconic, so much so that it has remained the modern day template for every disaster movie that has been made since. Even Roland Emmerich himself has attempted to live up to his own standards, sometimes failing in the process. However, here’s no doubt that Independence Day is a stone cold sci-fi classic.
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The Worst: 'Independence Day: Resurgence'
20 years after the original was released, Emmerich decided to follow up his disaster-piece with Independence Day: Resurgence. While the sequel plays with some interesting ideas, the problem is that it does everything the original does so poorly that you can’t help but find a newfound appreciation for how effective the original is. Not to mention the sin of making a sequel to Independence Day without Will Smith. Talk about disappointing.
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The Best: 'The Day After Tomorrow'
The Day After Tomorrow isn’t a perfect movie, but it sure is an entertaining one. Emmerich’s movies are often metaphors for larger social issues, so the film acts as a thinly-veiled allegory for climate change. There’s something to be said about the sheer entertaining stupidity of some of Emmerich’s movies, and The Day After Tomorrow is arguably the exception to the rule on that front.
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The Worst: 'Godzilla'
Emmerich’s 1998 film is a terrible Godzilla movie, but a decent disaster movie. The biggest problem with the film is that it feels so far removed from Godzilla lore that it shouldn’t even be considered part of the canon. At the same time, if you were to look at the film as merely a monster movie (that definitely isn’t Godzilla), then it becomes much more enjoyable. This isn’t to say that the movie is good or even great, especially amongst Emmerich’s filmography, but there’s actually some good stuff here in terms of scale.
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The Best: '2012'
Even though calling 2012 “the best” of Roland Emmerich’s disaster movies is a bit of a stretch, it’s more of an in-between -- not great, but also not overwhelmingly terrible. The German director has the propensity to destroy American cities, yet in 2012 he goes worldwide. Sure, the idea of setting a disaster movie around the Mayan apocalypse isn’t the best look post-2012, but there’s something fun about seeing Emmerich blow his destruction load in just about every way imaginable.
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The Worst: 'Moonfall'
Moonfall is not very good, but there’s something interesting about seeing Emmerich attempt to create a film that attempts to create a “greatest hits” compilation of his disaster movies. While the first two acts are fun in a dumb b-movie kind of way, the third act is so preposterous that it makes you wish that he had just made another Independence Day sequel. Nevertheless, Moonfall proves that Emmerich has a hard-on for destroying planetary objects now (see Independence Day: Resurgence).
