Intro

I mean, why not? Let’s talk about some movies with rain or stormy weather.

These are all movies in which the weather plays a major role. No, the storms don’t get any lines in the credits, but they’re important to the movie, trust us.

And I get it: maybe you’re stuck inside on an especially stormy weekend and feel like taking a look at how much it could be worse.

Maybe you’ve been saddled with chronic sunny weather and you’re just sick of it, desperately wanting to see some rain or snow or tornadoes that could ruin your whole day.

We won’t judge. We’re just here to provide some of that very good content in exchange for views. That’s like THE THING to do today, right?

Cool.

Here are six movies with rain or stormy weather, listed from FINE to PRETTY GOOD.

Most Fine

Sharknado – 2013

Sharknado is not a good movie. That shouldn’t really come as a surprise if you’ve been alive at all over the past few years.

The sequels are also not good movies.

And in this reviewer’s opinion, the series also doesn’t fall into the category of being so bad it’s good.

These are shoddy movies all-around that also happen to be marginally entertaining at certain points.

I actually would have enjoyed these movies more if they’d been shot entirely in front of a green screen, with no practical sets whatsoever.

The effects and lighting are ugly throughout, but that doesn’t lessen the fact that the movie features a tornado that spits out live sharks.

It’s hard to get too upset about that premise. We should be grateful that a movie like this can find any kind of funding, enough to spur the creation of many, many sequels.

Snow Day – 2000

Snow Day is a Nickelodeon original movie that I actually remember pretty well despite the fact that I haven’t actually seen it for nearly 20 years now.

A bunch of kids get an epic snow day and want to keep it going by stopping an especially mean and sadistic snowplow driver.

But the plot really isn’t that important. The memorable parts of this movie are the ones where the kids are just enjoying their snow day in radical ways.

I mean come on, they have a snow tunnel leading to a hideout complete with snacks and video games.

Just a quick side note: Chevy Chase is in this movie. I dunno, I guess he needed some cash at the time.

The stakes are also pretty low here: the best-case is getting one more day off school. But as a kid, those were very high stakes indeed.

Twister – 1996

Remember this one? Did you have to read this book in school? No? Ok, we’ll talk about the movie then.

Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton want to chase down some storms, and at a certain point that includes a hefty tornado that threatens to sweep them up in the process.

More importantly, Philip Seymour Hoffman is in this movie, as Dusty. It was one his first major flicks and apparently I feel that’s worth mentioning.

Oh, and Van Halen did the main theme for the movie. It’s pretty though not to mention that.  

Most Pretty Good

Cast Away – 2000

Is this THE Tom Hanks movie? Nah, I guess that would have to be Forrest Gump. Or maybe Toy Story. Or maybe BIG.

Regardless, Cast Away is up there. Tom Hanks plays a guy with a name who’s on a FedEx delivery plane that hits some pretty rough flyin’ and goes down in a huge storm, out in the middle of the ocean.

This movie is like Lord of the Flies but without all the characters.

And ironically, the weather stays pretty nice after the initial crash, leaving Tommy Boy without much to do other than talk to his volleyball friend Wilson, a character I may or may not have tried to recreate one dull summer when I was about 12 years old.

The movie’s also worth seeing for his struggle to readjust to normal life when he gets back home. I think we’ve all felt that confused and tired at some point, with a similar appreciation for ice cubes.

The Truman Show – 1998

Boy oh boy, this is a good movie. And at the time of publication, it’s also on Netflix, meaning you should watch it, or rewatch it, right now.

It’s a movie filled with social commentary that doesn’t make you cringe. Everything makes sense within the scope of this little artificial world.

Jim Carrey turns in one of his best dramatic performances (rivaling his role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is also on Netflix right now and why aren’t you already watching it?) and the set design pulls you right into the Dome.

It’s impossible not to get invested in the character of Truman. And that’s why the third act of the movie will break your heart every time.

The storm in this one is entirely artificial and entirely deadly. The storm is an attempt to keep Truman within his constructed universe, his fake life that exists for the purpose of making ad revenue.

A character who’s terrified of water takes to the ocean to sail his way out of his former life. You really can’t ask for a better climax than that.

The Ice Storm – 1997

Ang Lee has had a pretty peppered career. He made some intimate dramas, i.e. Eat Drink Man Woman, but he also made a Hulk movie that’s … fine. Then he kinda brought things back around with Life of Pi.

Instead, we’re gonna focus on his film adaptation of The Ice Storm, based on the 1994 novel of the same name by Rick Moody.

And just like in The Truman Show, the storm itself here is mostly metaphorical, although the literal storm does kill some folks.

It’s a movie about the American family, the struggle to find happiness and the destructive powers of personal insecurities.

Just like Threads (mentioned in our article on post-apocalyptic movies) and Enemy (mentioned in our article on giant spider movies) The Ice Storm will probably leave you feeling pretty filthy and sad.

Still worth a watch, for sure, but you’re not gonna come out of this one clicking your heels.