Nuclear War Movies

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Dr. Strangelove

By Dawn's Early Light, Threads, and The Atomic Bomb movie. If you like video of nuclear tests, this is a great movie.

"Threads", in my opinion, is the best of the nuclear war genre. In fact, if they made a documentary about a nuclear war that happened in the past, it probably would be a lot like "Threads".

I forgot about "By Dawn's Early Light". I never saw it and cannot procure a copy, but I would be happy to have an opportunity to view it.

As for the 'Atomic Bomb movie', I believe the title is "The Atomic Cafe". I've never seen that one neither but I would like to view it in the future.

It may well be Atomic Cafe...I can't remember for sure. It was pretty awesome though, especially the 15 megaton test. There are some scenes of structures built in the test zone and the damage that occured.

I don't remember much about Threads now other than it gave me nightmares it was so well done.

The movie with the best collection of test footage was Trinity and Beyond, with music by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and narration by... William... Shat... ner. Most impressive was the Soviet "Tsar Bomba". (King of Bombs) It was a 50 Megaton device that was a testbed for a 100 Megaton bomb. The difference between the two is the Tsar Bomba had lead tamping around the fusion device, whereas the 100 MT version would use natural or slightly enriched uranium. This means that it was a fission-fusion-fission device, (The fission primary ignites the fusion device, which in turn causes the uranium tamping to fission with a very high efficency.) and thus quite dirty, even when not groundburst.

I liked "Trinity and Beyond", Another documentary that contains nuclear blast imagery is
"NAQOYQATSI (Life As War)". Weird, no dialog, no narration, just images and that somewhat
bizarre music composed by Phillip Glass. It is the third film in the "Qatsi" trilogy directed by
Godfrey Reggio. The first two are "KOYAANISQATSI (Life Out Of Balance)", and "POWAQQATSI
(Life In Transformation)".

The name of that documentary is "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie"; That's why it's title is confusing you

1964's "Fail Safe" is great... didn't see the remake.

When "War Games" came out, I really enjoyed it. It is dated now, tho... "Testament" was very good, but so depressing... Haven't heard of "Threads", have to check it out. But I can't find an "American" copy.

I'm old enough to remember nuclear test drills in school, and almost all of the hydrogen bomb tests in the South Pacific, plus the above-ground Nevada tests. Scary.

You've forgotten perhaps the most important film of this genre, "On The Beach", the 1959 Gregory Peck movie from Nevil Shute's book. Both book and movie hit the nation like a bomb - especially the book...