Volcano is a 1997 American disaster film directed by Mick Jackson, written by Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray, and produced by Neal H. Moritz and Andrew Z. Davis. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones in the lead role, Anne Heche, Don Cheadle and Keith David. It tells the story of an effort to divert the path of a dangerous lava flow through the streets of Los Angeles following the formation of a volcano at the La Brea Tar Pits. The story was inspired by the 1943 formation of the Parícutin volcano in Mexico.