The catastrophe is tirelessly repeated in Hollywood cinema. The genre of the disaster movie hints at the collective psyche of the respective historical epochs. The perspective of a postmodern longing for moments of spectacular destruction, which briefly interrupts the dull monotony in late capitalist consumerism, shows how contradictory postmodern pop culture is. The disaster movie is symptomatic for the longing to overturn the status quo as well as the opposite desire to find it instantly restored.