Titles to get you paranoid about nuclear weapons, and nuclear power
by Progressive-Element | created - 31 Oct 2012 | updated - 31 Oct 2012 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Atomic Twister (2002 TV Movie)
PG | 86 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
The staff of a nuclear reactor must struggle to avert a disaster when tornadoes cause damage that threatens to start a meltdown.
Director: Bill Corcoran | Stars: Sharon Lawrence, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Carl Lewis, Jonathan Blick
Votes: 1,776
2. Broken Arrow (1996)
R | 108 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
Terrorists steal nuclear warheads from the U.S. military but don't count on a pilot and park ranger spoiling their plans.
Director: John Woo | Stars: John Travolta, Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Delroy Lindo
Votes: 105,159 | Gross: $70.77M
3. By Dawn's Early Light (1990 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 100 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
A non-NATO nuclear missile is fired from Turkey at USSR, where it detonates. Soviet response is automatic as it's seen as a NATO missile. Can continued escalation be avoided? We follow the US president and a bomber crew.
Director: Jack Sholder | Stars: Powers Boothe, Rebecca De Mornay, James Earl Jones, Martin Landau
Votes: 4,089
4. Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
R | 86 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Six tourists hire an extreme tour guide who takes them to the abandoned city Pripyat, the former home to the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. During their exploration, they soon discover they are not alone.
Director: Bradley Parker | Stars: Jesse McCartney, Jonathan Sadowski, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Nathan Phillips
Votes: 68,609 | Gross: $18.12M
5. Countdown to Looking Glass (1984 TV Movie)
90 min | Drama
Dramatic doomsday scenario in which the Cold War fully escalates. The story is told through a live news report that follows the apocalyptic world-ending nuclear exchange between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.
Director: Fred Barzyk | Stars: Scott Glenn, Michael Murphy, Helen Shaver, Patrick Watson
Votes: 713
6. Crimson Tide (1995)
R | 116 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
On a U.S. nuclear missile sub, a young First Officer stages a mutiny to prevent his trigger happy Captain from launching his missiles before confirming his orders to do so.
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington, Matt Craven, George Dzundza
Votes: 123,185 | Gross: $91.40M
7. Damnation Alley (1977)
PG | 91 min | Sci-Fi
In a post-apocalyptic world, a group of survivors travel and find other settlements in huge custom designed all terrain vehicles.
Director: Jack Smight | Stars: Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard, Dominique Sanda, Paul Winfield
Votes: 5,868 | Gross: $8.72M
8. The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
Unrated | 99 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
When the U.S. and Russia unwittingly test atomic bombs at the same time, it alters the nutation (axis of rotation) of the Earth.
Director: Val Guest | Stars: Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Michael Goodliffe
Votes: 6,192
9. Dirty War (2004 TV Movie)
TV-MA | 90 min | Thriller, Drama
A terrorist group detonates a radiological dispersal device (RDD) in Central London. Due to a lack of preparation, training, and resources, chaos ensues.
Director: Daniel Percival | Stars: Gavin Abbott, Joanne Adams, Shamshad Akhtar, Dean Ashton
Votes: 1,616
10. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 517,559 | Gross: $0.28M
11. Fail Safe (1964)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Thriller
A technical malfunction sends American planes to Moscow to deliver a nuclear attack. Can all-out war be averted?
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Fritz Weaver, Dan O'Herlihy
Votes: 24,381
12. Fail Safe (2000 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Thriller
Cold War tensions climb to a fever pitch when a U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered to drop a nuclear warhead on Moscow.
Directors: Stephen Frears, Martin Pasetta | Stars: Walter Cronkite, Richard Dreyfuss, Noah Wyle, Brian Dennehy
Votes: 6,573
13. Godzilla (1954)
Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable dinosaur-like beast.
Director: Ishirô Honda | Stars: Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirata, Akira Takarada, Momoko Kôchi
Votes: 39,539 | Gross: $2.42M
14. GoldenEye (1995)
PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
Years after a friend and fellow 00 agent is killed on a joint mission, a secret space based weapons program known as "GoldenEye" is stolen. James Bond is assigned to stop a Russian crime syndicate from using the weapon.
Director: Martin Campbell | Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen
Votes: 270,076 | Gross: $106.60M
15. K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
PG-13 | 138 min | Drama, History, Thriller
When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Stars: Harrison Ford, Sam Spruell, Peter Stebbings, Christian Camargo
Votes: 67,352 | Gross: $35.17M
16. Miracle Mile (1988)
R | 87 min | Action, Drama, Romance
A young man hears a chance phone call telling him that a nuclear war has started and missiles will hit his city in 70 minutes.
Director: Steve De Jarnatt | Stars: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar, Lou Hancock
Votes: 12,327 | Gross: $1.15M
17. On the Beach (1959)
Approved | 134 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
After a global nuclear war, the residents of Australia must come to terms with the fact that all life will be destroyed in a matter of months.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins
Votes: 14,396 | Gross: $11.00M
18. Planet of the Apes (1968)
G | 112 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans
Votes: 192,844 | Gross: $33.40M
19. Silkwood (1983)
R | 131 min | Biography, Drama, History
A worker at a plutonium processing plant is purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing worker safety violations at the plant.
Director: Mike Nichols | Stars: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson
Votes: 22,176 | Gross: $35.62M
20. Special Bulletin (1983 TV Movie)
103 min | Drama
A TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC... See full summary »
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Ed Flanders, Kathryn Walker, Roxanne Hart, Christopher Allport
Votes: 1,324
21. Testament (1983)
PG | 90 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
The life of a suburban American family is scarred after a nuclear attack.
Director: Lynne Littman | Stars: Jane Alexander, William Devane, Rossie Harris, Roxana Zal
Votes: 7,207 | Gross: $2.04M
22. The Children's Story (1982 TV Movie)
30 min | Drama
A just-established totalitarian government places a new teacher in a classroom of young children while the old teacher is sent away. The new teacher challenges the students' view of their ... See full summary »
Director: James Clavell | Stars: Mildred Dunnock, Michaela Clavell, James McCall, Michelle Francoeur
Votes: 75
23. The China Syndrome (1979)
PG | 122 min | Drama, Thriller
A reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant.
Director: James Bridges | Stars: Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Scott Brady
Votes: 32,994 | Gross: $51.72M
24. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
PG-13 | 164 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
Eight years after the Joker's reign of chaos, Batman is coerced out of exile with the assistance of the mysterious Selina Kyle in order to defend Gotham City from the vicious guerrilla terrorist Bane.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman
Votes: 1,825,280 | Gross: $448.14M
25. The Day After (1983 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 127 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
The effects of a devastating nuclear holocaust on small-town residents of eastern Kansas.
Director: Nicholas Meyer | Stars: Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum
Votes: 18,115
26. The Manhattan Project (1986)
PG-13 | 117 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller
A high school prodigy builds an atomic bomb with stolen plutonium to win the 45th National Science Fair and expose a nuclear weapons lab posing as a nuclear medical research facility in Ithaca, NY.
Director: Marshall Brickman | Stars: John Lithgow, Christopher Collet, Richard Council, Robert Schenkkan
Votes: 6,860 | Gross: $3.90M
27. The Peacemaker (1997)
R | 124 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
A US Army colonel and a civilian woman supervising him must track down stolen Russian nuclear weapons before they're used by terrorists.
Director: Mimi Leder | Stars: George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Marcel Iures, Aleksandr Baluev
Votes: 62,308 | Gross: $41.26M
28. The Sacrifice (1986)
PG | 149 min | Drama
At the dawn of World War III, a man searches for a way to restore peace to the world and finds he must give something in return.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún Gísladóttir
Votes: 30,923 | Gross: $0.30M
29. The Sum of All Fears (2002)
PG-13 | 124 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
CIA analyst Jack Ryan must stop the plans of a Neo-Nazi faction that threatens to induce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and Russia's President by detonating a nuclear weapon at a football game in Baltimore, Maryland.
Director: Phil Alden Robinson | Stars: Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Ian Mongrain, Russell Bobbitt
Votes: 124,338 | Gross: $118.91M
30. The War Game (1966)
48 min | Drama, War
A docudrama depicting a hypothetical nuclear attack on Britain.
Director: Peter Watkins | Stars: Michael Aspel, Peter Graham, Dave Baldwin, Kathy Staff
Votes: 7,292
31. The World Is Not Enough (1999)
PG-13 | 128 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
James Bond uncovers a nuclear plot while protecting an oil heiress from her former kidnapper, an international terrorist who can't feel pain.
Director: Michael Apted | Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards
Votes: 209,883 | Gross: $126.94M
32. Thirteen Days (2000)
PG-13 | 145 min | Drama, History, Thriller
In October 1962, the Kennedy administration struggles to contain the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Director: Roger Donaldson | Stars: Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Shawn Driscoll, Drake Cook
Votes: 62,646 | Gross: $34.59M
33. Threads (1984 TV Movie)
TV-MA | 112 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
The effects of a nuclear holocaust on the working class city of Sheffield, England and the eventual long-term effects of nuclear war on civilization.
Director: Mick Jackson | Stars: Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale, David Brierly, Rita May
Votes: 20,013
34. True Lies (1994)
R | 141 min | Action, Comedy, Thriller
A fearless, globe-trotting, terrorist-battling secret agent has his life turned upside down when he discovers his wife might be having an affair with a used-car salesman while terrorists smuggle nuclear war heads into the United States.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton
Votes: 280,614 | Gross: $146.28M
35. Under Siege (1992)
R | 103 min | Action, Thriller
An ex-Navy Seal turned cook is the only person who can stop a group of terrorists when they seize control of a U.S. battleship.
Director: Andrew Davis | Stars: Steven Seagal, Gary Busey, Tommy Lee Jones, Erika Eleniak
Votes: 95,406 | Gross: $83.36M
36. WarGames (1983)
PG | 114 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III.
Director: John Badham | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood, Dabney Coleman
Votes: 110,587 | Gross: $79.57M
37. When the Wind Blows (1986)
16+ | 84 min | Animation, Drama, War
A naive elderly British rural couple survive the initial onslaught of a nuclear war.
Director: Jimmy T. Murakami | Stars: Peggy Ashcroft, John Mills, Robin Houston, James Russell
Votes: 12,619 | Gross: $0.01M
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