For those of us that grew up in the 70's and 80's at the height of the Cold War between the East and West we lived under a different umbrella of end of way scenarios. We didn't talk about Climate Change or holes in the Ozone layer. We dealt with the nuclear end game. With terms like MAD, and Nuclear Winter, concepts like the doomsday clock making regular appearances in the news, and events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and proxy wars between the East and West. This topic seemed to fascinate film makers who speculated what the end of the world by Nuclear fire would look like. Most of the time these movies were based around strict political commentary. How did these fools and idiots get a hold of the nuclear button, and how would the world end.
With that I wanted to look at a few of the more horrifying or thought provoking end of the world movies that don't focus around the after effects as much as those moments when the nuclear genie was released from the bottle.
1) The Day After (1982) - probably one of the more horrifying movies that I've ever seen. This was a made for TV movie watched by over a 100 million people and if I remember right no commercial braks in the second half.
The movie starts with the usual tensions between the East and West, that are heard as various families and characters watch TV or hear them on the radio while they're living their normal lives. The tensions escalate to a full out shooting war with the use of tactical nuclear weapons, which eventually leads to a full nuclear exchange between the Super Power. The actual nuclear attack is effectively portrayed as you see people disintegrating and cities destroyed. A lot of this movie focuses around the aftermath of the war. We see survivors huddling in basements around radios listening to a very Ronald Reganesque voice assuring them that they still have a government. We see the devastation of radiation sickness and the breakdown of society. The ending is especially frightening as one of the character uses a short wave radio to try to talk to survivors and finds none.
In terms of a real world scenario basis here this was a close as we would get to understanding what nuclear war was all about. The film was savaged by some as a anti American piece of propaganda while praised by others for its bleakness and nobody wins ending. Having rewatched this a couple of years back its still a frightening watch.
2) Dr Strangelove or how I stopped worrying about the Bomb (1964) - a wicked comedy and wicked piece of social satire that unleashed the awesome powers of Peter Sellers. The premise of the war itself was as zany as it comes as General Jack D Ripper in command of the 843rd bomber wing launches an attack on the Soviet Union because he believes the Soviets have poisoned the American Water supply with floride to pollute the precious bodily fluids of America. To prevent the recall of American Bombers Ripper givves then a 3 digit code that only Ripper knows which means the Bombers can't be recalled.
A great deal of this movie takes place in the war room and we see a debate between Hawks and Doves with General Buck Tugideson played by George C Scott arguing that they need to let this war play out to eliminate the Soviet threat. Meanwhile the Soviets inform the American's of an automated doomsday device that will launch an end of the cobalt nuclear explosions if it detects a nuclear attack on Russia.
This leads to a race against time as the Russians and Americans try to shoot down the American bombers before they can reach their targets. This ultimate fails as one American bomber piloted by Slim Pickens drops its bomb.
The Americans plan to evacuate Americans to a deep bomb shelter but with tha female to male ratio of 10 to 1 to start a breeding program. But Turgidson worries about a mineshaft gap as surely the Russians will do the same thing. The movie ends with Dr Strangelove standing out of his chair, proclaiming "Mein Fuhrer I can walk, the Doomsday device activates and we see a series of nuclear explosions to the song "We'll meet again".
This was quite a fun movie to watch and a lot of it was played for laughs in the war room. The scene of Slim Pickens riding to his death on a nuclear bomb wile screaming yahoo was both terrifying and hilarious.
Like The Day After this movie was built around the concept of the biggest idiots hold the fate of the world in their hands. This is still a must see movie when it comes on TV.
3) Fail-safe (1964) - This was almost the same file as Doctor Strangelove but without the Comedy.
The basic premise is that a mistake has caused American Bombers to attack Russia. The American's try to desparatetly stop the bombers themselves but fail. As the bombers approach Moscow the Soviet Premiere warns of a mass retaliation if the American's succeed. To avert war the American President sends a US nuclear armed bomber to attack and destroy New York as a sign to the Premiere that the attack is in error and to prevent a Soviet counter strike. efforts to recall the Bombers or stop them fail and the link between the Premiere and the President are cut off and the President orders the destruction of New York. The movie ends with people in New York going about the daily lives with no idea what is to come.
This was a good counter movie to Strangelove. The premise is based around the possibility that a mistake could end the world. At times the movie was dry and the effects were few and far between but the interactions between Henry Fonda and the Soviet leadership was really well done and the tension of the movie ramps up to a horrifying ending.
4) On the Beach (1959) - One of the most depressing movies that I've ever seen. It takes place in the months following a massive Nuclear War between the super powers and is based in Autralia. Though the war is over and has been for months a massive cloud of Nuclear fall out is headed to Australia and everyone is going to die. Everyone tries to go through their normal lives as the end approaches. We get stories of multiple different characters. The Crew of a US Submarine that had sheltered in Australia but decides to head back to the States to either find survivors or die at home. But in the dd returns to Australia to see the end of the world. We have families carry on their normal lives. One of the saddest scenes in the movie is a group of fishermen singing Waltzing Matilda. We have characters committing suicide to avoid radiation sickness, and the crew of the sub decides in the end that they'd rather die at home.
The last scene in the movie shows the last pockets of humanity dead and we see the empty streets of Melbourne and a forgone banner that states "There's still time - Brother".
This was an amazing movie for its time and incredibly depressing. It shows how people respond as death approaches and an especially bad death. I remember bawling during the fishman singing scene as I knew they were all doomed to a horrible fate.
5) War Games (1983) - I don't think that I need to go into the plot of this excellent movie. But its not as much a critism of man's abiltiy to destroy itself as it is that man is always trying to find a way to make it easier to kill each other while removing themselves from the responsibility of that decision. Thus creating an AI to do the thinking for them. This is a movie that does an amazing job of escalating tension and the race between the code and the tic-tac-toe game was brilliant, though the machine reaching the conclusion that nuclear war was not a game to be played was incredibly heavy handed.
Honorable mentions
Ladybug Ladybug (1963) set during the Cuban Missile Crisis and focuses on a group of students at an isolated school. This movie has a powerful ending as a child looks up at the sky as the teachers are evacuating the students and screams "Stop" over and over again as Bombers fly over head.
When the Wind Blows (1986) - a really depressing animated film about a elderly couple in Britain who survive a nuclear strike in their home made bomb shelter. However they realize that the government guidelines on preparation and suvival are wrong and they slowly get sick and die.
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I've put no thought into it, but when I saw the title of the thread, I thought I'd pop in a talk about The Day After, but it's your #1!
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Threads, grim BBC TV movie from 1984 that was more about life after the attack, by the end of it you were utterly certain you did not want to survive the first 5 minutes of the war, remarkably effective considering it was made on about 5 quid and a couple of bottle caps
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Threads, grim BBC TV movie from 1984 that was more about life after the attack, by the end of it you were utterly certain you did not want to survive the first 5 minutes of the war, remarkably effective considering it was made on about 5 quid and a couple of bottle caps
I used to have vivid nightmares about nuclear war as a kid, so I've avoided a lot of movies on the subject. Didn't see The Day After until years after it aired. It's pretty graphic, and I've heard Threads is worse (There's a clip on Youtube where the manager of CKY TV says Threads makes The Day After look like a walk in the park). Can't bring myself to watch it.
There's a movie called Testament from about 1983 which is supposed to be completely heart-ripping. Miracle Mile from 1988, too.
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Last edited by Puppet Guy; 01-28-2022 at 03:53 PM.
My parents didn't let me watch the Day After when it first aired, but I remember some of my classmates talking about it the next day. I probably would've had nightmares for ages if I had watched it at that age..
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Dr Stangelove is the best film of the bunch by far (the movie poster is framed and hung on the wall beside me). The writing, Kubrik’s direction, the performances - all top-notch.
The Day After had a big impact on me and everyone I knew when it came out - everyone talked about it for days. We simply don’t have any 100 million people shared experiences anymore.
Threads is just ####ing depressing. And it impressed on me that if we do ever face a catastrophe on that order, I want to go in the first wave.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Dr. Strangelove is the best movie on the list but The Day After absolutely defines this genre. I was pretty young when i watched it and it affected me in a way that stupid horror movies didn't.
There are some other movies on the periphery of this genre. Like ID4 when they nuked Houston. Or the Planet of the Apes sequel where they worshipped a nuke (that freaked me out). Broken Arrow was a passable action movie IIRC..
I used to have vivid nightmares about nuclear war as a kid, so I've avoided a lot of movies on the subject. Didn't see The Day After until years after it aired. It's pretty graphic, and I've heard Threads is worse (There's a clip on Youtube where the manager of CKY TV says Threads makes The Day After look like a walk in the park). Can't bring myself to watch it.
There's a movie called Testament from about 1983 which is supposed to be completely heart-ripping. Miracle Mile from 1988, too.
Threads came out a year after The Day After and it was somewhat inspired by it but in typical British fashion as they had little money to spend they had to make it about people, it was a psuedo documentary it sort of follows the story of the people living in Sheffield as it is all but wiped out while also following the futile efforts of the local council trying to cope with it all, the images that still stick with me 40 years later were of a middle aged woman holding her shopping bags and wetting herself as she watches the first bomb go off, it was just this very ordinary middle aged women standing their with a puddle of urine spreading out below her, you just didnt see anything like that on TV, their is also the image of the traffic warden covered in bandages with a gun guardinga food depot, it was all so incogruous, we would laugh at traffic wardens but in this hellish future they will be armed and shooting people for almost anything as there will be so little authority left.
It scared the bejusus out of the whole country, we all knew in a war the UK would be screwed, it's basically one big military base/stationary aircraft carrier for the US so we knew we were all dead in a few minutes and in my teens I never thought I would survive into my thirties, I always assumed I would be killed by a nuke.
Last edited by afc wimbledon; 01-28-2022 at 06:00 PM.
I still remember in junior high social studies we studied the cold war at length. I did a report on the effects of a atomic bomb on Calgary, and just playing that out was scary as hell. You'd almost wish for the instant death caused by the thermal wave.
Its hard to believe that the prevalent strategy was if both sides built enough bombs to blow up your enemy 10 times over that it would prevent their use.
MAD was just a crazy concept but weirdly enough it did kind of work.
At no point was there a possibility of a winnable nuclear war.
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Its hard to believe that the prevalent strategy was if both sides built enough bombs to blow up your enemy 10 times over that it would prevent their use.
MAD was just a crazy concept but weirdly enough it did kind of work.
At no point was there a possibility of a winnable nuclear war.
It did work. It would have been insanity for either power to start not only a nuclear war but a conventional war.
The real risk was an accident. I recently read a sobering book on the subject, Command and Control. The vulnerability of the nuclear arsenal to sabotage or accidental discharge was horrifying. There were dozens of plane crashes with nuclear weapons aboard and dozens of inadvertently jettisoned bombs.
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It did work. It would have been insanity for either power to start not only a nuclear war but a conventional war.
The real risk was an accident. I recently read a sobering book on the subject, Command and Control. The vulnerability of the nuclear arsenal to sabotage or accidental discharge was horrifying. There were dozens of plane crashes with nuclear weapons aboard and dozens of inadvertently jettisoned bombs.
There were lots of near misses and I'm going by memory.
1983 - there was a tech error in the Russian nuclear warning system, it reported the launch of 5 nuclear missiles from the United States. A Russian Col kept his cool and didn't acknowledge the threat until he got actual confirmation.
1979 - a computer error at Norad and strategic air command reported a large scale missile launch from the Soviet Union. The President was put on warning and SAC postured their bombers. Fortunately an American Satellite couldn't confirm that misiles were in the air. When the American's investigated I think they found that someone had left a war game simulation running .
1967 - A solar flare blinded the Norad Radars. This was interpreted as intentional jamming by the Soviets and again American Bombers were prepped and manned.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet Sub was harrassed by American Naval Forces. The Captain of the sub loaded one of his nuclear torpedoes designed to destroy a US Carrier group. The sub was having electrical and life support problems and couldn't contact Moscow. The Captain interpreted this as Moscow being attacked and destroyed. The Sub's political officer agreed with the Captain and they managed to contact the Commander of Russian naval forces in the area and asked for permission to fire. The area commander convinced the Captain that Moscow was still there and he needed to calm down and surface his boat and contact Moscow.
In 1995 Boris Yeltsin activated the Russian Nuclear briefcase after Russian rads detected the launch of a research rocket that looked like a first strike. Russian Ballistic Missile Submarines were give prepatory launch orders which means they came to launch depth, spun up their missiles and put up their antennae to wait for fire orders. This is pretty much a cocked gun with pressure on the trigger.
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New list - Best of the nuclear war movies
