The Day After (1983)
Director: Nicholas Mayer. Starring: Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, John Lithgow. Audiences are briefly introduced to a representative cross-section of American life, including a doctor (Jason Robards), a young bride-to-be (Lori Lethin), a graduate student (Steve Guttenberg), and an academic (John Lithgow), before the Bomb hits nearby Kansas City. The ensuing destruction is utterly horrific, but a few manage to survive to struggle vainly with rising radiation levels and the slow, inevitable collapse of society.
Dr.Strangelove: or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963)
Director: Stanley Kubrick. Black comedy about a group of war-eager military men who plan a nuclear apocalypse.
Fail Safe (1964)
Director: Sydney Lumet. Starring: Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Ed Binns, Fritz Weaver, Henry Fonda, Larry Hagman. Fail Safe, made within a year of Strangelove and at the height of cold war atomic anxiety, posits a similar nightmare scenario. A U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered toward Moscow, ready to drop its load. The U.S. president (Henry Fonda) and various military and congressional leaders must then scramble to deal with the disaster. The movie enters unexpected territory in its final minutes; conditioned for feel-good endings, viewers are still genuinely shocked by the plot turns in the final reels. The climax comes as a sobering slap in the face, intriguingly staged by Lumet.
On the Beach (1959)
Director: Stanley Kramer. Radioactive fallout from a nuclear war has wiped out the entire northern hemisphere. With fallout expected momentarily, the Australians review their lives, establish new relationships and prepare for their tragic demise. 135 min.
Red Dawn (1984)
Director: John Milius. Starring: Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Darren Dalton, Jennifer Grey A fantasy about a Soviet takeover of the United States and a band of ragtag adolescents who metamorphose into freedom fighters.
Strategic Air Command (1955)
Director: Anthony Mann. Starring: James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Lovejoy, Barry Sullivan. Piloting a nuclear-armed bomber becomes just another suburban occupation in this flag-waving propagandist film from the coldest era of the cold war. Jimmy Stewart is a baseball star once an ace WWII bomber pilot. The Strategic Air Command, then and now America's main nuclear strike force, inexplicably finds itself short-staffed and recalls the aging Stewart to active duty.