The 18 Best Documentaries About Natural Disasters, Ranked By How Much They Capture Nature's Wrath

After the Wave is about the massive earthquake that hit Sumatra’s western coast in Indonesia on Boxing Day in 2004, triggering a tsunami that caused colossal waves to hit southern Thailand and the coast of Sri Lanka, claiming the lives of nearly 230,000 people.

The documentary, released in 2014, consists of interviews with survivors, footage of the disaster as it unfolded, and the forensic operation that took place in Thailand, when 5,000 bodies of residents and tourists were identified and returned to their families.

Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake is a three-part documentary that follows a group of climbers who set their sites on summiting Mount Everest in Nepal. Disaster strikes when an earthquake triggers a huge avalanche that devastates Kathmandu.

Released in 2022, the film features first-hand accounts from the climbers, and real footage as the avalanche strikes. The documentary serves as a reminder that no matter how long people have trained, or how much money they have spent, they cannot control natural disasters.

Children of the Tsunami is an hourlong film by Dan Reed that shows the effect of a 15-meter tsunami that hit Japan after a major earthquake in 2011. The film follows the children affected by the tsunami and the subsequent nuclear Fukushima disaster.

The 2012 film features a mix of real footage and interviews with the affected children and their firsthand accounts of the tragedy. The heart-wrenching insight into the chaos and destruction caused by the tsunami is a stark reminder of the fragility of human life and the immense power of nature.

In Fukushima: A Nuclear Story, released in 2015, a journalist delves into what happened to the nuclear plant after the 2011 earthquake and monstrous tsunami that followed.

Narrated by Willem Dafoe, the film includes footage of the explosion, interviews with workers from the nuclear plant, body-cam footage of the inside of the reactor, news footage of the firefighters attempting to calm the blaze, and high-quality anime-style reconstructions and graphics. The film was awarded the prize for best documentary at the Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts is a powerful four-part documentary by Spike Lee that follows the devastation left behind after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans's anti-flooding safeguards back in 2005.

Residents of New Orleans describe their experiences and accounts during and after the hurricane, particularly when government officials failed to help them. The documentary also shows real footage of the devastation, rescue missions, and interviews with those affected, TV journalists, musicians, actors, and even government officials. The harrowing and heartbreaking series won three Emmy Awards in 2007, a Peabody Award in 2006, and the Horizons award in the documentary category at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival.

Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche, directed by Jared Drake and Steven Siig, explores the Alpine Meadows Avalanche at Lake Tahoe, CA, that saw millions of pounds of snow break free and hurtle down the side of a mountain, burying the ski resort and parking lot, leaving eight people under an unfathomable amount of freezing snow.

The documentary revisits the deadly avalanche and the frantic search-and-rescue operation to locate the eight missing people. It features footage of the rescue mission, news reports at the time, and interviews with the only survivor, Anna Allen, and those who helped during the rescue mission.