3. TITANIC (1997)

The one disaster movie that's also a primal work of popular art. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet strike romantic sparks, but the beauty of James Cameron's epic is that it knows all too well their breathless affair wouldn't have lasted had it not been for that iceberg. In Titanic, it's death that makes love eternal (and worthy of 100 hankies). The sinking of the ship, which plays out in what feels like real time, is one of the cinema's great spectacles of beauty and dread.