In the 1970s, Hollywood (re)invented a formula that, for a time, drew crowds: assembling a battalion of stars from across generations and exposing their characters to the terrifying consequences of a disaster – a plane crash, an earthquake, a fire, a typhoon and more. At the time, the genre (known in French as "film catastrophe") was criticized for being apolitical and ignoring the real threats facing humanity.

Half a century later, disasters have become political issues. The Camp Fire in November 2018, which destroyed the city of Paradise, California, was caused by the collapse of a high-voltage power line that was poorly maintained by the private company operating it. Months of drought worsened the situation, and the fire ultimately killed 88 people and ravaged 620 square kilometers.

In The Lost Bus, Paul Greengrass − the British director who did his training in broadcast news − depicts the first hours of the fire. Curiously, this seasoned practitioner of meticulous reconstruction through fiction (such as the final minutes of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001) seems to have decided, at least in part, to return to the melodrama of classic disaster films. His uneven approach blends the disaster genre with a documentarian's vision of the climate catastrophe.

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