“You Can’t Fight in Here!”: The 10 Scariest Nuclear Horror Movies To Make You Start Worrying About The Bomb, Ranked [Watch]
Kathryn Finch
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“… We thought we might start a chain reaction that might destroy the entire world… I believe we did.“
Towards the end of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, the eponymous scientist (Cillian Murphy) confides in his friend, Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), about his fears for a future containing his work: the atomic bomb. And he’s probably right. It’s a fear that has been ever-present for those of us born in the 78 years since its creation. The horror of the nuclear threat is unique in the pantheon of apocalypses. Instead of the cathartic violence and survivalist revelry of zombies, natural disasters, or selective plagues, the MAD nuclear threat is more like a ghost story: a gradually escalating set of hauntings, all precursors to the Big One.
Now that the summer of Oppenheimer has transitioned into autumn. So, it’s time to pick up where Nolan left off and wallow in the horror of human folly. So block up your windows, crack out the sandbags, and join me for ten films horrific enough to make a pacifist out of anyone.
10. 13 Days (2000)
“Let us hope that the will of good men is enough to counter this terrible thing that was put in motion.”
So ends a tense back-channel negotiation between Bobby Kennedy and Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin at a pivotal point in Roger Donaldson’s 2000 film, Thirteen Days. With the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union on the horizon and generals more suited to the last war than the next one, it’s a tense time in Camelot. Starring Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp, and Kevin Costner as JFK, RFK, and top White House assistant Kenneth P. O’Donnell, respectively, this dramatization of the Cuban Missile Crisis is an engrossing retelling of one of the most dangerous moments in human history.
9. Crimson Tide (1995)
Based on a real incident on a Soviet submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Crimson Tide is a thriller worthy of the name. After Russian ultranationalists threaten to launch nuclear missiles at the United States and Japan, an order to the US nuclear missile submarine, USS Alabama, is lost due to a damaged radio. That order is quickly followed by another to launch their own missiles at Russia, the situation quickly devolves into a battle of wills between the Captain (Gene Hackman) and his first officer (Denzel Washington), who wants to be sure before pushing the trigger on WWIII. Like many of the films on this list, the horror of Crimson Tide is just how close we were to the Big One.
8. On the Beach (1959)
There is a stillness that permeates the entire runtime of On the Beach, a tranquility that at first seems to sit awkwardly with the subject matter at hand. Set in a doomed, but still comfortable, Melbourne and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Fred Astair, On the Beach follows Commander Dwight Lionel Towers (Peck), the captain of a US naval submarine that had the dubious luck of being underwater for WWIII. The world of the 1959 film (based on the book by Nevil Shute) has already ended. The bombs have been loosed and the fallout is settling. By the end of the year, there will be nothing—at least nothing alive— left on the planet. Despite the desperate pleas of Mary (Donna Anderson), the overwhelmed wife of a pre-Psycho Anthony Perkins, there is no hope. The dwindling remnants of humanity are waiting patiently for their final end.
Despite its strangeness, On the Beach is perhaps the most relatable film on this list. The nihilism of the foregone conclusion at its heart is familiar to those of us paying close enough attention to certain real-life saber rattlers.
7. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb (1964)
After delighting in Benny Safdie’s slick turn as the Hungarian-American physicist, Edward Teller, in Oppenheimer, it’s a good time to revisit the film the real Teller partially inspired.
Originally based on Peter George’s novel Red Alert and taking at its heart the eternal human preoccupations of sex and war, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb, is fundamentally a satire of the paradoxical nature of mutually assured destruction. After Stanley Kubrick and Terry Southern found the truth of the political situation too ridiculous to successfully adapt into a non-comedic screenplay, they decided to lean into the absurdity, with undeniable results.
Despite being filmed in more of film noir style, Dr. Strangelove’s comedic kitchen-sink approach to its humor perfectly underlines the extremity of the subject matter. There’s a reason why this film is widely considered a classic.
By the time Vera Lynn’s rendition of “We’ll Meet Again” (a song so entrenched in the wartime buoying of spirits, that it was included in the Protect and Survive program as entertainment selected to be played in the event of a nuclear attack) begins to play, we can’t help but wonder whether we’re already past our use-by dates as a species.
6. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Referencing the Biblical Day of Judgment, unlike the more usual combination of political happenstance and bad luck, the world-ending explosions in James Cameron’s Terminator series are deliberately loosed with human extinction in mind. As we are told in the opening voiceover, in the late 1990s, the newly self-aware artificial intelligence, Skynet, provokes the nuclear exchange in an attempt to exterminate the human race in pre-emptive self-defense.
Although the films in the series are more generally concerned with book-ending the nuclear threat—focusing either on its prevention of the war set to follow it—Terminator 2: Judgment Day lends it the gravity it deserves. Its credit sequence depicting a playground in flames and the famous scene where Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) dreams of her own death in a nuclear blast present a grounded element to the horror looming over this action-heavy classic.
5. The Day After (1983)
Often credited as the film that ended the Cold War, The Day After is a 1983 made-for-TV movie starring Jason Robards, Steve Gutenberg, John Lithgow, and Amy Madigan. It follows a selection of everymen and upright citizens of the American heartland as they attempt to make the transition from their everyday lives to the irradiated horrors of the world post-nuclear exchange.
When it was first broadcast in 1983, it was accompanied by hotlines with counselors standing by and—perhaps in a more telling decision—without commercial breaks after the bombs dropped. Its reception was equally telling, with accusations of the defiantly anti-nuclear war film doing the work of the Soviets. On the opposing side, the film suffered from the (more accurate) criticism that the depiction of post-nuclear survival was not nearly as apocalyptic as any such event would be in reality. There is no discussion of nuclear winter (which would be theorized after the film’s production) and the all-American attitude of banding together to survive largely sidesteps the implications of societal breakdown.
Regardless, the profound effect of The Day After cannot be oversold. In his own memoirs, former President Ronald Reagan drew a direct correlation between his viewing of the film and the eventual signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the then-USSR, which resulted in the banning and reduction of the nuclear arsenal.
Despite its undeniable impact on world history, by the time the credits roll on The Day After you can’t help but agree with the filmmaker’s disclaimer that the real-life outcome of a nuclear war would be much worse than the events portrayed onscreen.
4. The Divide (2011)
While New York is being flattened by unknown forces, nine residents of a quickly collapsing apartment block find themselves locked in a bunker created and outfitted by the superintendent (Michael Biehn) of the building. What follows is an extremely disturbing portrayal of the degradation of the human body and spirit. As the survivors attempt to get used to their new way of life (and death), they begin to turn on each other in the most inhuman of ways.
Unlike many of the other films on this list, The Divide has very little interest in the political and global ramifications of the end of the world. With the exception of one event so out of step with the rest of the film that it seems imported from another genre, it focuses on the survivors’ deterioration as their bodies and minds succumb to the radiation, isolation, and monotony of the nuclear wasteland.
3. When the Wind Blows (1986)
Whereas the Keep Calm and Carry On campaign was never officially authorized by the British government, the populace was treated to the infamous Protect and Survive campaign. Between 1974 and 1980—and with recommendations including creating an inner refuge out of interior doors and sandbags and zero explanations—these guidelines became iconic representations of delusion in the face of nuclear extinction.
Jimmy Murakami’s 1986 film, When the Wind Blows, follows the distinctly British tradition of grounded horror. Hilda (Peggy Ashcroft) and James (John Mills), the elderly couple at the center of the story, are satirical representations of the much-lauded Blitz spirit, a bright-eyed optimism completely at odds with the realities of radiation. The precautions and actions taken by the couple are taken directly from the Protect and Survive pamphlet; their inevitable deterioration leaves no room for reassurance.
Murakami, a Japanese American who had relatives in Hiroshima, was interned during the Second World War and was forced to change his name from Teruaki. He artfully takes his source material to highlight the human cost of high-stakes foreign policy. Based on the comic by Raymond Briggs (the artist behind the only slightly less depressing Christmas classic The Snowman), the film asks the question: what would your sweet, elderly, grandparents be up to after the end?
Using a seamless blend of real sets, painted backgrounds, claymation, single-cell animation, and hand-drawing Murakami’s film is about as gut-wrenching and personal a work of art as there is.
2. The War Game (1966)
During its acknowledgments, Peter Watkins’ The War Game cites a variety of sources for its documentary-style (re)telling of the immediate effects of nuclear strikes on Britain. With an amalgamation of information from various sources, Watkins creates a film that is all the more devastating for its realism. Like any strong documentary, the film has a granular focus on its subject. From empty shelves preventing preparatory efforts to the inevitable class and racial tensions undermining true community cooperation, The War Game resolutely refuses to pull any of its punches.
Made on an impressively micro-budget of £7-10,000.00, The War Game was originally commissioned by the BBC but was withdrawn after it was deemed to be “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting” (though another explanation was that the Home Office demanded it be pulled). One can understand their position even as a modern viewer. From liquified eyeballs to complete psychological collapse, to view this film in a time of such international tension would have been overwhelming. But it was supposed to be.
In making The War Game, Watkins had a clear goal. He observed the bubble of complacency surrounding the nuclear threat, especially among the journalist class in which he existed. So close to the suffering and austerity of the Blitz and post-war economic woes, the silence around the rocketing potential for nuclear devastation was deafening. Watkins set out to light a fire underneath the people of Britain, to extinguish any hopes of surviving an atomic bomb. There is, as the film observes in its final moments, no hope in silence.
Despite being banned in its native United Kingdom for twenty years (the film was not broadcast until 1985), it went on to win an Oscar in 1967. With its intentionally aged style, remarkable effects, and chilling combination of acting and real testimonials, The War Game is a must-watch. Even if you can only watch it once.
1. Threads (1984)
The big one.
Since its first broadcast in 1984, Threads has only been broadcast twice on its native BBC. Once, in 1985, for the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing and then—18 years later—on the digital channel BBC 4. Director Mick Jackson and writer Barry Hines’ unflinching approach to depicting the realities of the nuclear threat results in a docudrama that is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of Threads is how clearly it communicates the futility of life’s myriad problems in the light of the nuclear threat. But in a gutting contrast to the more typical apocalyptic fare, there is no escapism to the loss of those daily concerns. Following Ruth (Karen Meagher) and Jimmy (Reece Dinsdale), a young couple navigating an unplanned pregnancy in their native Sheffield, the shadow of a potential nuclear conflict barely encroaches more than it does in our own lives… until it does. Covering everything from initial blasts right up to the long-term implications of a nuclear winter, this is a film that’s done its homework and the result is unrelentingly hopeless.
Threads is an important film; perhaps the most important film. Everyone should watch it at least once. Its horror is so profound that it’s impossible to convey without seeing it. No other film has ever been more successful in showing what would really happen if the threads of society were cut.
Categorized:Editorials
