Moviemakers will never stop thinking up ways in which our world could meet its end, and — most of the time — ways in which a few brave souls could put their heads together and save it. Some of these end-of-the-world movies end on a downer with the planet or its human population actually getting destroyed (looking at you, Deep Impact), but others are more hopeful, imagining how an unlikely group of heroes could turn the tables on whatever catastrophic situation is bearing down on them.

These movies are popular for a reason. Who doesn’t enjoy a story about beating the odds and winning a seemingly unwinnable scenario. In these movies, we’re always the underdogs, and yet we always come out on top. It’s even more fun when the scenario is so extreme that we really have to suspend our disbelief in order to follow what’s going on, and further suspend it to accept the improbable solution. These movies are usually very silly, but also pretty special, capitalizing on the audience’s love of spectacle above all else. Who cares if none of this would or could ever actually happen? It’s cool!

In these movies, the climax has to harness all of that silly, impossible energy to deliver a solution that matches the problem’s inherent goofiness. These movies send blue-collar workers into deep space, kill entire alien races with giant robots and terrible songs, and harness the natural forces of our own planet to capably save its inhabitants. It’s not about whether we believe in it. It’s about whether it makes us get up and cheer at the end.

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