The rescue mission was still underway when the first US film company showed up. "I see this as a major Hollywood film with A-list stars," says Pure Flix CEO Michael Scott. Survivors of the 2010 mining accident in Chile whose story was filmed have already warned the Thai kids, saying they will have no means of dealing with the spotlight and the media. "We couldn't, and we were adults."

Dramatic events and disasters have always moved Hollywood. The 1936 film "San Francisco" starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy set standards for future generations. The film is based on the massive earthquake that shook San Francisco in 1906 and the firestorm caused by burst gas pipelines. The film was extremely realistic at the time.

This legendary airship offered its passengers pure luxury on two decks. The Hindenburg had already flown across the Atlantic several times, it had been to the USA and Brazil. On May 6, 1937, 35 people were killed when a hydrogen tank caught fire. Only 65 people survived the inferno, some of them with serious burns. The historical drama by director Robert Wise was released in 1975.

"Houston, we have a problem": This legendary sentence refers to an oxygen tank that exploded on board Apollo 13 on a trip to the moon in 1970. What could have been a total disaster was turned into a film in 1995 starring Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon in the leading roles. The mission's real astronauts acted as consultants during the shooting.

When the Titanic was launched in 1912, the largest ship in the world was considered unsinkable. Cabins and berths were in high demand for her maiden voyage - a veritable death sentence. When the ship collided with an iceberg, 1,541 of the 2,200 people on board died because there were not enough lifeboats. The disaster was turned into movies several times, most recently in 1997 by James Cameron.

In 1963, 11 miners were rescued from a two-week ordeal holding out in complete darkness in a collapsed iron mine in Lengede, near Hanover. Throughout their ordeal, the miners had to tolerate boulders falling from the ceiling. Decades later, in 2003, their rescue was made into a two-part film for German television, that saw more than 11 million people glued to the screen.

In recent decades, nothing has shaken the self-image of the US as much as the September 11, 2001 attacks on the towers of the World Trade Center. Oliver Stone's 2006 film shows the events from the perspective of some of the firefighters (photo: Nicolas Cage) who, while searching for injured people in the rubble, end up buried themselves.

In 1998, an Austrian girl was kidnapped on her way to school. She spent eight years in the hands of her kidnapper, only managing to escape when she was 18. Her story became a major media event. "In their sensationalist greed, the tabloid reporters were far off the mark," she once remarked. She published a book about her imprisonment in 2010, the film followed in 2013.

In 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped in a mine for 69 days, struggling to survive until they were finally rescued with escape pods. The mine drama starring Antonio Banderas was turned into a Hollywood movie in 2015. Many of the workers suffered from the media hype: "First everyone talks about you, you're on TV and on the front pages of newspapers. And then ... nothing."

This film is based on a miracle water landing. In 2009, shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport in New York, both engines of an Airbus failed due to a bird strike. Pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger risked a water landing on the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew survived. Tom Hanks (photo) stars as "Sully" in the 2016 film, directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood.

The film by German director Katja Benrath tells the true story of an Islamic attack on a bus in Kenya. The head of the terrorist group forces everyone out: "Muslims and Christians apart," he shouts. Some of the passengers are shot dead, but that doesn't diminish the solidarity among the remaining passengers. In 2017 "Watu Wote" won the Student Academy Award.

In 1976, left-wing terrorists hijacked an Air France plane from Tel-Aviv to Paris with 250 passengers onboard. They demanded the release of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel and intended to free members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) from prison. Director Jose Padilha spoke to some of the former hostages. For many, the drama is still as real as if it had happened yesterday.

After deliberating over how best to rescue the boys and their coach - considering even whether to teach them how to dive, or wait for the monsoon waters to recede months later - rescue workers finally settled on pumping out as much water as possible, sedating those trapped and strapping them to a diver who shepherded them to safety.

Rescue divers initially found the 12 young soccer players and their coach alive on July 3 after they went missing in a Thai cave 10 days earlier. Fighting against time, rain and low oxygen levels, rescuers managed to free the first four boys successfully on July 8. The rescuers faced a complicated and dangerous diving mission to free the rest of the team and their coach.

Families of the teenage soccer players expressed their joy over the discovery of the boys nine days after they went missing. Outside the cave, the mother of one of the boys said she was "glad" for a glimpse of her son. "He's thinner," she said, as she ran her finger over the image of her son on a television screen.

Thai rescuers were assisted by an international team comprising experts from China, Australia, the USA and Britain. A video from the Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page showed the group several kilometers inside the 10-kilometer (6-mile) cave network on a small wedge of dry ground. The boys moved 400 meters further in as the ledge had become covered by water.

The boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach entered the cave to celebrate one of the player's birthday. They became trapped in the cave, a local tourist spot where similar incidents have taken place in the past, when sudden rainfall flooded its entry on June 23. It was later reported that some of the boys could not swim, further complicating the rescue.

The rescue mission proved difficult for divers whose efforts were continually hampered by rising water that filled sections of the cave, often forcing them to stop. Getting trained divers into the cave was easier than getting untrained kids out.

The entire nation was glued to the media coverage of the rescue mission, and Thai authorities insisted they will not compromise on the safety of the trapped group. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha (above, at right) thanked international experts who helped find the boys.

The first four boys were rescued by a team of 13 foreign diving experts and Thai Navy SEALS, who helped them navigate the flooded cave tunnels. The head of the rescue operation said they were the healthiest in the group. The rest of the boys and their coach would be rescued from the cave over the next two days.

Doctors who treated the boys after their rescue reported that while they had lost weight, the otherwise appeared to be in good health. The dozens of divers and hundreds of other rescue workers have been celebrated around the world as heroes, especially 38-year-old former Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan, who died after bringing the group supplies of air on July 5.