Deep Impact

Deep Impact (1998) is a sci-fi disaster drama you can watch online on iFILM. A comet is heading for Earth, and on live television the president tells the world there is roughly a year left before it hits.

Young reporter Jenny Lerner stumbles onto the secret the government has been guarding, and suddenly the whole planet knows. A spacecraft called the Messiah, flown by a joint American-Russian crew under grizzled veteran Spurgeon Tanner, is sent to plant nuclear charges and break the rock apart before it arrives. Back home, a national lottery decides who gets a place underground: one million people are chosen, and everyone else is left to wait by the water. The film keeps cutting between the White House, the ship, and ordinary families counting down the days.

Director Mimi Leder made a film less about explosions than about how people say goodbye. The cast brings together Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood and Vanessa Redgrave. That final wave rolling over the coastline still sticks with viewers. Stream Deep Impact (1998) online on iFILM.