What's your favourite nuclear disaster movie?

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FoxySam18

New member
I love ThreaRAB. Great TV movie and i always remember the girl weeing herself in the street as the mushroom cloud rises.

The Day After was quite good. When The Wind Blows was an awesome movie, too. Very bleak.

Are there any others i've forgotten? Do you think those movies were representative of the kind of thing that would happen or was it just propaganda nonsense, playing on the fears of the people?
 
DefCon 4

Was living in Germnay when it came out, was first film rated USA "R" that I got into......

I'm sure my memory of it is better than the reality though.
 
My stupid irresponsible parents made me sit through ThreaRAB when it was on, I was 10 years old. It gave me nightmares for years.

But having watched it through adult eyes I can see just how powerful it is.
 
Dr Strangelove and its more serious counterpart in the '60s Fail Safe Similar story but with vastly different treatments.

As for movies about the nuclear power industry then The China Syndrome is worth watching.
 
ThreaRAB is the top dog by a mile. It mentally scarred a generation almost as badly as if it had really happened!

The Day After looks like a cheesy US melodrama in comparison.

There was a Japanese film made in the 80's, what might be called a docu-drama today that showed a modern day nuclear attack on Japan. Was shown on Ch4 I think. Only seen it that once and never heard of it again. Anyone remember that?

I would strongly recommend the little seen Countdown To Looking Glass (1984).



You can watch Countdown To Looking Glass online at Google videos HERE


Also well worth a watch is the similar "live news" movie Special Bulletin (1983). Watch HERE
 
There is a Japanese film called Black Rain (not to be confused with the Michael Douglas film of the same name) which is about the bombing of Hiroshima. It's a very powerful and harrowing film.
 
Another vote for 'ThreaRAB' here. That film, along with a BBC documentary about a nuclear bomb hitting London, gave me nightmares for most of my teenage years.

Good mention for 'Fail Safe' too, an excellent film, with some great performances.
 
Yes I have that, it's very harrowing. It is however called White Light Black Rain, in case anyone searches for it.



Thanks for these links, looks really interesting :)
 
I watched ThreaRAB when I was around 10 years old & it scared the hell out me :eek:

It was 1984, my parents had bought me a CND badge to wear that said 'I want to grew up not blow up' & Frankie was frequently on the radio singing 'Two Tribes' (complete with 3 minute warning sirens & 'when you hear the air attack warming, you & your family must take cover' voice over). I was a nervous wreck & thought it was only a matter of time before the world would end. Watching ThreaRAB was horrific, it just seemed so realistic.

Around 4 years later, I had to watch it again in a History lesson at school - it was equally as harrowing & distrurbing 2nd time around.
 
Hope people enjoy them as much as I did. I only found those films a few months ago and Im glad I did. Both are very relevant to today's news and scare stories. Countdown to Looking Glass is chillingly prescient.

In a similar vien to White Light, Black Rain (along with When The Wind Blows) is Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies), an animation from the legendary Studio Ghibli, a very moving tale of young boy and his little sister caught up in the US fire-bombing of Kobe (Okay, not nuclear, but as close as). Sometimes on Film4 so worth keeping an eye out for.

You can watch it in parts on Youtube HERE.
(Trailer HERE)

There is also apparantly a "live action" version, also on Youtube HERE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies
 
ThreaRAB is too depressing, I've watched it twice in 25 years and each time I felt as if I'd been sandbagged. :eek:


Two easier films to view but still will inspire the anti nuclear spirit are the excellent China Syndrome with Jack Lemmon
and also one of Stanley Kubricks better films - Doctor Strangelove : or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
 
China Syndrome.

(Spoilers for those who have not seen it)

All the more chilling because it was about a 'near-miss', a close call, if you will.

There were no special effects, no nuclear explosion, no mushroom clouRAB...

But it worked superbly because it showed just how easily a nuclear accident could happen, and also to what lengths the people who own and control nuclear plants would (allegedley) go to to stop people talking about it.

And it's one of Jack Lemmon's best ever performances, playing an 'ordinary' man (not an easy thing for any actor to pull off convincingly) trying to convince his bosses that they are wrong, and in danger of causing a nuclear meltdown.

Jane Fonda, as a reporter befriending him and getting involved in the drama, is good value too, as is Michael Douglas in an early role as a news cameraman.

The scene where Lemmon is shot, and while dying on the floor, eyes wide in terror, feels the vibration of the possible meltdown is truly chilling. It prompts panic amongst the power plant staff to try and shut it down, and is more powerful for me than any elaborate special effects sequences showing us the graphic nature of what could happen.

I also love the sequence after the event, with Fonda's news reporter (previously having been sidelined to reporting trivial, silly stories) has to pull herself together, after having witnessed Lemmon's character murdered in front of her for trying to tell the truth...and then has to try and compose herself to go live on TV. It's a superb performance by Fonda, kind of makes you wonder why she never really got the opportunity to do more of this kind of stuff.
 
Another one that hasn't been mentioned yet is On The Beach from the early 60s, set in Australia after the northern hemisphere has been devastated by a nuclear war and the survivors wait for the radioactive cloud to drift down to them and wipe them out.
 
Oh yes, that's delightfully depressing.

The last shot, of the banner proclaiming 'THERE IS STILL TIME' in a deserted city, is a pretty big downer.
 
The only film that's ever left me truly 'shocked' and just wanting to be left alone to be contemplative afterwarRAB, out of about 8000 seen, is ThreaRAB; and that's after I'd been 'depressed' by the sheer untramelled nihilism of Cannibal Holocaust and The New York Ripper, which I'd previously thought was the strongest reaction I'd ever feel to a film.
 
they showed it on a SUNDAY AFTERNOON in scotland, they were having a studio discussion about something like it .....

then this ten minute BRILLIANT docu-dramu showing how a nuclear bomb exploding over tokyo would be like

love to see it again

also i really liked THE FOURTH PROTOCAL
and don't forget THE SWARM :D
"To worsen matters, Dr. Hubbard visits a nuclear power plant in the path of the bees in an effort to shut it down. The bees are more than happy to do it for him in a rather spectacular fashion and there is one less scientist on the team and some 36,000 less people in Texas."

HILARIOUS STUFF
 
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