Trailers (start):
Space Jam (1996)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Twister Soundtrack Promo
Taz-Mania Excerpts

Trailer (end):
FEMA PSA
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The Dark Side of Nature.

Don't Breathe. Don't Look Back.

Go for a ride you'll never forget!

The Beautiful yet Destructive side to life


Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt and Carey Elwes may be billed as the stars of Twister, but the film's real attractions are the cyclones themselves. Best experienced in a theater, the nail-biting, blow-the-audience-out-of-their-seats computer generated graphics, cutting edge sound and other special effects are designed to take viewers straight into the roaring funnel of a gigantic tornado. In order to focus on special effects and action, the story is simple and the characters are drawn in broad strokes with little depth. Jo Harding (Hunt) became a storm chaser (a meteorologist who photographs and scientifically studies tornadoes in the field) after a large twister sucked her hapless daddy into oblivion when she was a girl. Bill (Paxton) was a storm chaser too, but left to become a successful weatherman. His change of profession ruined his marriage to Jo. Before separating, the Hardings invented DOROTHY, a gizmo designed to release thousands of tiny sensors when a tornado passes over it. The Hardings hope the information transmitted by the sensors will provide insight into the nature of the whirling windstorms. Backed by a large corporation, the villainous Dr. Jonas Miller (Elwes) has created a similar machine. Neither gadget has been field tested and both groups of storm chasers are anxious to find tornadoes. At the peak of the worst twister season in decades, Bill shows up at Jo's truck with his prissy fiancee Melissa (Jami Gertz) so Jo can sign divorce papers. Suddenly a twister is spotted. With little hesitation, Bill rejoins the mad rush to reach it in time to activate DOROTHY. Jonas and his team are right behind them. Throughout the day the storms become worse and the rivalrous race becomes more intense. As they continue facing incredible dangers together Jo and Bill find renewed love while poor Melissa finds only an intense desire to get away from these storm-obsessed lunatics. ~

Twister is a 1996 American disaster drama film starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as storm chasers researching tornadoes. It was directed by Jan de Bont from a screenplay by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin. Its executive producers were Steven Spielberg, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald and Gerald R. Molen. Twister was the second-highest-grossing film of 1996 domestically, with an estimated 55 million tickets sold in the US.

It is notable for being both the first Hollywood feature film to be released on DVD format and one of the last to be released on HD DVD.[2] Twister has since been released on Blu-ray Disc.

In the film, a team of storm chasers try to perfect a data-gathering instrument, designed to be released into the funnel of a tornado, while competing with another better-funded team with a similar device during a tornado outbreak across Oklahoma. The plot is a dramatized view of research projects like VORTEX of the NOAA. The device used in the movie, called "Dorothy", is copied from the real-life TOTO, used in the 1980s by NSSL

The film received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a 58% "rotten" score at Rotten Tomatoes based on 52 reviews.[4] It holds a score of 68 at Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[5]

Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "You want loud, dumb, skillful, escapist entertainment? Twister works. You want to think? Think twice about seeing it".[6] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Somehow Twister stays as uptempo and exuberant as a roller-coaster ride, neatly avoiding the idea of real danger".[7] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "Yet the images that linger longest in my memory are those of windswept livestock. And that, in a teacup, sums up everything that's right, and wrong, about this appealingly noisy but ultimately flyaway first blockbuster of summer".[8] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, "But the ringmaster of this circus, the man without whom nothing would be possible, is director De Bont, who now must be considered Hollywood's top action specialist. An expert in making audiences squirm and twist, at making us feel the rush of experience right along with the actors, De Bont choreographs action and suspense so beautifully he makes it seem like a snap".[9] Time magazine's Richard Schickel wrote, "when action is never shown to have deadly or pitiable consequences, it tends toward abstraction. Pretty soon you're not tornado watching, you're special-effects watching".[10] In his review for the Washington Post Desson Howe wrote, "it's a triumph of technology over storytelling and the actors' craft. Characters exist merely to tell a couple of jokes, cower in fear of downdrafts and otherwise kill time between tornadoes".[11] The film has since developed a cult following.

Release Date: May 10, 1996

Distrib: Warner Brothers


Boxoffice: $241,721,524 2014: $435,317,500