Meteor (1979)

Sean Connery leads a team of asteroid-battling astronomers in Meteor, one of the last and most unusual examples of the disaster movie craze of the 1970s. In this one, a killer asteroid named Orpheus threatens to collide with the Earth, and Connery must come up with a plan to stop it. Cold war politics date the picture a bit, but they also add some weight to the impending doom facing humanity. Like any good disaster flick, it's populated by an all-star cast, including Karl Malden, Martin Landau, Natalie Wood, Richard Dysart, Henry Fonda, and Trevor Howard. Brian Keith plays Connery's opposite number in the U.S.S.R. While the pacing and special effects are weak compared to similar celestial menaces depicted in Armageddon and Deep Impact, Meteor displays all the benefits of its more powerful cast… not to mention Hank Fonda as President.