The Day the Sky Exploded

A space journey goes awry when John McLaren's "moon ship" malfunctions in "The Day the Sky Exploded" (1958). McLaren escapes with his life, but the ship's atomic booster blasts into an asteroid belt, sending hunks of cosmic rock hurtling toward Earth. Waters rise, winds blow—and someone whose supposed to help launch the missiles that may break up the asteroids is bent on sabotaging Earth's only hope for salvation…

The film's focus is on the human response to impending doom, earning it a place in the Disaster Film genre. As early as 1916, with the Denmark's "The End of the World", film has been used to explore the potential effects of a worldwide disaster. Directed by Italian Paola Heusch, the European film depicts nations coming together in a cooperative effort to save the planet at a time when Russia and the U.S. were deep in the Cold War freeze.