By David Weiner
1:59 PM PST, February 15, 2013
Everyone' s talking about the 10-ton meteorite that screamed across the sky in Chelyabinsk, a Russian industrial city almost 1,000 miles east of Moscow, and the resulting shockwave that smashed windows, damaged buildings and injured 1,200 people – all caught on video. Of course, Hollywood has already made several movies with a giant, deadly fireball as the seed of destruction, and we're revisiting some of the best – and most infamous.
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Look Up! Look Out! Meteorite Movies

American International Pictures
Everyone' s talking about the 10-ton meteorite that screamed across the sky in Chelyabinsk, a Russian industrial city almost 1,000 miles east of Moscow, and the resulting shockwave that smashed windows, damaged buildings and injured 1,200 people – all caught on video. Of course, Hollywood has already made several movies with a giant, deadly fireball as the seed of destruction, and we're revisiting some of the best – and most infamous.
Armageddon

Touchstone
Bottom Line: Probably the best-known killer asteroid flick, this 1998 blockbuster action epic from director Michael Bay stars Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler and Owen Wilson in a race against the clock to save the world from destruction. With a Texas-sized "global killer" meteor on a collision course with Earth, NASA's best and brightest recruit a rowdy crew of roughnecks to land on the hurtling rock, drill deep and blow it apart -- with plenty of pyrotechnics, awesome special effects and entertaining moments to keep audiences riveted to their seats.
Best Line: "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder."
Watch the Trailer HERE
Best Line: "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder."
Watch the Trailer HERE
Deep Impact

Paramount
Bottom Line: Out the same year as Armageddon (yet another example of Hollywood's dueling movie mentality) this one directed by Mimi Leder (The Peacekeeper) is actually a deadly comet that cannot be stopped. Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell must reconcile with the end of the world when nuclear weapons fail to deter the killer celestial body, actually splitting it in two. One piece creates a cataclysmic tsunami, while the other piece is obliterated into smaller pieces, allowing the human race to survive – and Morgan Freeman to reign as president of the reconstruction. This one's pretty sappy, but the effects are still pretty cool.
Best Line: "Hey Leo, you're going to have more sex than anyone in our class!"
Watch the trailer HERE
Best Line: "Hey Leo, you're going to have more sex than anyone in our class!"
Watch the trailer HERE
Meteor

American International Pictures
Bottom Line: This 1979 bomb pretty much represents the last of the all-star, Irwin Allen-style '70s disaster movies with an all-star cast (Allen scored hits with The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, and the '70s were chock full of disaster films, from Earthquake to Airport and Tidal Wave). Sean Connery and Natalie Wood head this all-star cast who must bring war-mongering, Cold War countries Russian and the U.S. together to fend off a hurtling, five-mile-wide meteor with orbiting nukes. But politics block the ability to fully fend off the rock, and New York City takes it pretty hard, smashing the Twin Towers in the process.
Best Line: "If you think you can prevent it by burying your heads under a blanket of sh*t, fine. If you ever reach your decision I'll be in the bar across the street."
Watch the trailer HERE
Best Line: "If you think you can prevent it by burying your heads under a blanket of sh*t, fine. If you ever reach your decision I'll be in the bar across the street."
Watch the trailer HERE
The Day of the Triffids

Bottom Line: Truth be told, there aren't a lot of big-screen Hollywood films in which the meteor is the main villain. There a plenty of cheesy TV movies that have cornered that market, and more than a handful of films that feature a meteor shower as the catalyst for disaster (Night of the Comet brings about zombies, The Blob hitches a ride on a meteorite, The Monolith Monsters delivers killer crystals, a rogue comet in Maximum Overdrive prompts machines to come alive and attack us). My favorite was released in 1962 with The Day of the Triffids, in which a meteor shower liberally spreads killer crawling plant creatures around the globe – with everyone who has seen the shower going permanently blind.
Best Line: "All plants move -- but they don't usually pull themselves out of the ground and chase you!"
Watch the trailer HERE
Best Line: "All plants move -- but they don't usually pull themselves out of the ground and chase you!"
Watch the trailer HERE