Twisters
IMDb Rating
60K+
IMDb Votes
76%
Rotten Tomatoes
$370M
Box Office
Synopsis & Review
Kate Cooper, a gifted storm chaser haunted by a deadly encounter from her college years, now studies storm patterns safely from a desk in New York City. She's lured back to the open plains by her old friend Javi, who is testing a groundbreaking new tracking system. There she collides with Tyler Owens, a reckless social-media storm-chasing celebrity whose loud, theatrical approach to "tornado wrangling" couldn't be more different from her own cautious, scientific methods, as an unusually intense storm season sends multiple converging systems straight at the heart of central Oklahoma.
A legacy sequel in spirit if not in direct narrative continuity to 1996's Twister, Lee Isaac Chung's film smartly understands that audiences aren't showing up for nuanced character drama — they're showing up to watch tornadoes tear through the screen, and on that count, Twisters delivers with real conviction. Chung, working from a script credited to Mark L. Smith, stages each storm sequence with a tactile, ground-level intensity that favors practical effects and on-location Oklahoma photography over wall-to-wall CGI spectacle, and the result is some of the most visceral disaster filmmaking in years. Daisy Edgar-Jones brings genuine emotional grounding to Kate's survivor's guilt, while Glen Powell's Tyler — a charismatic, attention-seeking storm chaser who turns out to have more depth than his social-media persona suggests — gives the film its most purely entertaining element and a credible romantic spark with Edgar-Jones. The human plotting around corporate land-grab schemes and small-town devastation is functional rather than memorable, but as a piece of pure, big-screen spectacle engineered for communal theatrical viewing, Twisters mostly earns its place among the year's most purely enjoyable studio entertainments.
Why Watch This Movie?
Some of the Most Visceral Storm Sequences in Years
Director Lee Isaac Chung favors practical effects and real Oklahoma locations over wall-to-wall CGI, producing tornado sequences with genuine tactile weight and intensity.
Glen Powell's Star-Making Performance
As the charismatic, social-media-savvy storm chaser Tyler, Powell delivers the film's most purely entertaining element and a breakout leading-man turn.
Daisy Edgar-Jones Grounds the Spectacle in Real Emotion
Her performance as a storm chaser haunted by past trauma gives the film's loudest set pieces real emotional stakes beneath the noise.
A Legacy Sequel That Respects Its Audience's Expectations
Rather than chasing nostalgia for its own sake, the film delivers exactly the kind of communal, big-screen disaster spectacle that made the original Twister a theatrical event.
Cast & Crew
Director
Lee Isaac Chung
Screenplay
Mark L. Smith
Studio
Universal / Warner Bros.
Kate Cooper
Daisy Edgar-Jones
Tyler Owens
Glen Powell
Javi
Anthony Ramos
Original Score
Benjamin Wallfisch
Official Trailer
© Universal Pictures / Warner Bros. Pictures. Trailer embedded via YouTube.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to watch the original Twister (1996) before this one?
No. Twisters is a standalone legacy sequel that doesn't directly continue the original film's characters or plot, functioning as a spiritual successor rather than a direct continuation, so newcomers can follow it without prior viewing.
Is Twisters based on a true story?
Not directly, though it draws on real storm-chasing culture and the increasing presence of social-media-driven storm chasers documenting tornadoes for online audiences, a phenomenon the film's Tyler character is explicitly built around.
How much of the tornado footage is real versus CGI?
The production relied heavily on practical effects, on-location Oklahoma filming, and large-scale physical sets, supplementing rather than replacing these elements with digital effects, a deliberate choice by director Lee Isaac Chung to ground the spectacle in tactile realism.
Is there a sequel to Twisters planned?
No sequel has been officially announced as of this writing, though given the film's solid box-office performance, further entries in the loosely connected Twister franchise have not been ruled out by the studio.
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