Movies About Nuclear War You Should See

The use of nuclear weapons at the end of World War 2 brought about a whole new genre of post-apocalyptic films that continues to this day.

Movies About Nuclear War You Should See

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused people to ask questions not asked since the end of the Cold War in 1989. Particularly, is World War 3 upon us?

While we don't yet know the answer, we do know that the use of nukes at the end of World War 2 (as witnessed in 2023's "Oppenheimer") brought about a whole new genre of post-apocalyptic films that continue to this day.

These are the most powerful movies about nuclear war ever made.

31. Duck and Cover

Release date: 1952

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Duck and Cover

This nine-minute informational short was targeted toward children, who would know when they saw the flash of an atom bomb to "duck and cover" if they couldn't get to shelter. The film even had a catchy tune so they could remember what to do.

The problem is if they did see a flash and were close enough to a target ducking and covering wouldn't help save them from their inevitable fate.

30. Protect and Survive

Release date: 1980

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Protect and Survive

The underground bunker in Protect and Survive

The BBC-produced "Protect and Survive" series was never meant to be seen unless nuclear war was imminent. However, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, the BBC aired excerpts.

During the films, a calm male voice instructs viewers on what to do in the event of a strike, including guidance on building shelters, avoiding fallout, and even tagging and wrapping the dead.

29. Ladybug, Ladybug

Release date: 1963

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Ladybug, Ladybug

When a nuclear attack is forthcoming, will you really know? That's the story "Ladybug, Ladybug" attempts to tell.

Unlike most films of this genre, there is no widespread panic, scrambling crowds or government response. A rural elementary school's automated early warning system goes off during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and follows teachers as they rush their students to safety.

With no way to communicate with the outside world, they can only speculate, and the decisions they make are based on their inherent fear more than anything else.

28. Chosen Survivors

Release date: 1974

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Chosen Survivors

In "Chosen Survivors," strangers are selected by a computer to inhabit an underground bunker in the desert. Once there, they learn nuclear war is taking place above, and they have been chosen to repopulate the Earth.

Meanwhile, they can live comfortably in the shelter for years. Or can they? What they don't realize is their shelter has a colony of bloodthirsty vampire bats waiting to claim them, one by one.

27. The World, the Flesh and the Devil

The World, the Flesh and the Devil poster

Release date: 1959

Budget: $1,659,000

Box office: $1,085,000

Bottom Line: The World, the Flesh and the Devil

The effects of racism are still very much alive in post-apocalyptic New York. Ralph Burton is an African-American man who is trapped in a mine and digs himself out after the bombs drop.

He makes his way to New York, where he meets another survivor, a white woman named Sarah. They form a close bond but struggle with their affections for each other due to the social mores of the time.

Their relationship is further tested when another white man, Benson Thacker, arrives, and tensions flare between all parties.

26. Damnation Alley

Release date: 1977

Budget: $8 million

Box office: $4 million

Bottom Line: Damnation Alley

After World War III, a small group of survivors drive across the desolate Earth looking for more survivors in specially built vehicles that protect them against the mutated plants and animals they encounter.

The movie was supposed to be a blockbuster for 20th Century-Fox, which put a considerable amount of money into it for the time, but another much smaller film caused its ticket sales to go bust.

That other movie was "Star Wars," and it went on to become one of the biggest box-office hits in history.

25. Oppenheimer

Release date: 2023

Budget: $100 million

Box office: NA

Bottom Line: Oppenheimer

At the time of this writing, one of 2023's biggest films is "Oppenheimer." It's the story of the man (played by Cillian Murphy) who built the first atom bomb to end WW2 and follows not only its effect on humanity, but its effect on Oppenheimer himself. The scientist later had some regret about undertaking the task, saying he "had blood on his hands."

Movie director Christopher Nolan said the film serves as a cautionary tale for today new technology, AI in particular. “When you innovate through technology, you have to make sure there is accountability. The rise of companies over the last 15 years bandying about words like ‘algorithm,’ not knowing what they mean in any kind of meaningful, mathematical sense. They just don’t want to take responsibility for what that algorithm does.

And applied to AI? That’s a terrifying possibility. Terrifying. Not least because as AI systems go into the defense infrastructure, ultimately they’ll be charged with nuclear weapons, and if we allow people to say that that’s a separate entity from the person who’s wielding, programming, putting AI into use, then we’re doomed. It has to be about accountability. We have to hold people accountable for what they do with the tools that they have.”

24. Lord of the Flies

Release date: 1963

Budget: $250,000

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Lord of the Flies

A plane crash brings the boys to the island, but the film doesn't expressly say why they were on a plane in the first place. However, the book does. One of the main characters, Piggy, is quoted as saying, "Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead."

The boys rebuild their own version of civilization on the island, which quickly descends into tribalism and violence and is a microcosm of the violence of the outside world.

23. How I Live Now

Release date: 2013

Budget: N/A

Box office: $1.1 million

Bottom Line: How I Live Now

An American girl (Daisy) meets the boy of her dreams (Eddie) in the British countryside and falls in love while London gets nuked. Instead of returning to the safety of the States, she decides to remain with Eddie, despite the dangers from fallout and martial law.

She and her beloved are separated by the military, which sends girls to one camp and men to another, and she attempts an escape to find him.

22. This Is Not a Test

Release date: 1962

Budget: NA

Box office: NA

Bottom Line: This Is Not a Test

A lone deputy sheriff receives orders to block a road into an unknown city because of an oncoming nuclear strike. He detains a number of people, which include a psychotic killer, to take shelter in a place where there isn't any.

Another film from around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, "This Is Not a Test" is a story like "Ladybug, Ladybug" in that it's the end of the world on a smaller scale.

21. Five

Release date: 1951

Budget: $75,000

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Five

"Five" is one of the first post-apocalyptic films. Five strangers — a poet, a soon-to-be mom, an African-American man, an elderly bank clerk and an arrogant mountain climber — live at a cliffside home after nuclear war breaks out and have to figure out how to survive together.

The group must also come to terms with their personal losses, while death from radiation poisoning and an otherwise unknown future loom.

20. The Book of Eli

Release date: 2010

Budget: $80 million

Box office: $157.1 million

Bottom Line: The Book of Eli

Decades after a nuclear holocaust, Eli (Denzel Washington) walks across the United States with a book he guards closely. He survives on small animals and whatever else he finds on his journey and keeps heading west, but he doesn't know why. (We do find out later, in a twist ending worthy of M. Night Shyamalan.)

While on his way to his destination, Eli runs into the story's villain, Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who wants the book and will do anything to get it because he believes it will give him power in the post-apocalyptic world.

19. Day the World Ended

Release date: 1955

Budget: $96,234.49

Box office: $400,000

Bottom Line: Day the World Ended

Many 1950s films about nuclear war and the world after are extremely far-fetched, and this one is no exception.

The "Day the World Ended" concerns a handful of survivors who find their way to a canyon that is free of fallout due to its location.

There are two obstacles to the group's survival — an oncoming rain that will either bring fallout to the area or allow it to dissipate and a monster that consumes animals and people contaminated by fallout, sort of like an atomically mutated Dexter.

18. Godzilla

Release date: 1954

Budget: N/A

Box office: $2.1 million

Bottom Line: Godzilla

There have been many prequels, sequels and franchises built around Godzilla since the monster first appeared in 1954, but its origin story is rooted in real-life events.

The original giant dinosaur was awakened by a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in the South Pacific. Radiated and angry, it came up from the seas to take revenge.

The design of Godzilla was not lost on Japanese audiences. Its scales resemble the burns and scars of atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Seeing this, they would often leave screenings in tears.

17. Panic in Year Zero!

Release date: 1962

Budget: $225,000

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Panic in Year Zero!

A family of four leaves Los Angeles to camp in the mountains just as a bomb is dropped on the city.

After realizing there is no home for them to go back to, they find shelter in a cave and wait for order to be restored, while battling violence from other fleeing marauders along the way.

16. Fail Safe

Release date: 1964

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Fail Safe

Larry Hagman and Harry Fonda in Fail Safe

Failure in the military’s chain of command sends the world into WWIII. If this sounds like the plot of "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" it's because it is nearly the same. However, "Dr. Strangelove" is a comedy.

Similarities in the plot caused "Strangelove" director Stanley Kubrick to demand his movie be released first. It was, and "Fail Safe" bombed at the box office.

15. The War Game

Release date: 1966

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: The War Game

This mockumentary about the aftermath of nuclear war was made in 1965 but was withdrawn from public viewing because it was deemed too graphic to be broadcast on television.

It made its premiere at the London National Film Theatre in London in 1966 and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature a year later.

It wasn't seen by the general public until 1985 on the 40th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. Even today, its horror resonates.

14. Countdown to Looking Glass

Release date: 1984

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Countdown to Looking Glass

This Canadian made-for-TV movie attempted to show nuclear war through the eyes of a news broadcast.

"Looking Glass"was a code name for an airborne command center in the US in case those on the ground were destroyed. Today, it is known as the ABNCP, orAirborne National Command Post.

13. The Atomic Cafe

Release date: 1982

Budget: NA

Box office: NA

Bottom Line: The Atomic Cafe

"The Atomic Cafe" is a documentary that includes various newsreels, shorts and military footage on nuclear warfare.

There is no voiceover explaining what the viewer is seeing other than what's in the shorts, but the film is edited in such a way that it shows the misinformation and propaganda campaigns in play at the time to simply ease people's fears.

12. Testament

Release date: 1983

Budget: N/A

Box office: $2,044,892

Bottom Line: Testament

An American family struggles to survive in a suburb outside San Francisco in the wake of a nuclear attack.

They are cut off from the rest of the world with no fresh food or water and no real hope of survival. Still, they attempt to keep things is normal as possible while awaiting their inevitable fate.

11. On the Beach

Release date: 1959

Budget: $2.9 million

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: On the Beach

Nuclear war wipes out humanity in the Northern Hemisphere. An American sub surfaces in Australia where vestiges of it remain, at least until fallout reaches that location in five months time.

A mysterious code reaches the sub from the U.S., and it returns to the States hoping to find survivors, but there are none. The code is produced by a cola bottle being tugged on by a window shade.

When the sub returns, the crew and the people of Australia simply await their deaths and try to live life as normally as possible until they occur.

10. When the Wind Blows

Release date: 1986

Budget: N/A

Box office: $5,274

Bottom Line: When the Wind Blows

An elderly British couple attempt to survive World War 3, much in the way they did the Second World War, but this time things are much different.

After the bombs are dropped, they are hopeful for rescue, but over time, it becomes apparent that no one is coming, and there is no way out of what they're about to experience.

The film takes a dark turn when they finally realize there is no hope for themselves or humanity.

9. A Boy and His Dog

Release date: 1975

Budget: $400,000

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: A Boy and His Dog

Not well-received when it came out in in 1975, "A Boy and His Dog" has gained cult status over the years and tells the tale of an amoral teen and his telepathic dog who travel the county after nuclear war looking for food and sex.

When they find a society underground which has both, it threatens to separate them for good.

8. WarGames

Release date: 1983

Budget: $12 million

Box office: $124.6 million

Bottom Line: WarGames

A high school student obsessed with gaming accidentally hacks into a government supercomputer to play video games and starts a game of "global thermonuclear war," which sets off a simulated threat on the Soviet Union.

Once he realizes what's happening, he and his girlfriend attempt to track down the computer's creator and stop World War 3.

7. Miracle Mile

Release date: 1988

Budget: $3,700,000

Box office: $1,145,404

Bottom Line: Miracle Mile

What luck — you finally meet the love of your life and the world is ending on that very day.

When a young man hears an accidental phone call stating that nuclear war has begun, he has 70 minutes to find the girl he met earlier that day and get to safety.

However, it's not as easy as all that because once word gets out, they find leaving Los Angeles — and even the Miracle Mile neighborhood — next to impossible.

Fun note: Romantic leads Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham acted together in TV's "ER" for several years and finally eloped in 2021.

6. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Release date: 1991

Budget: $94 million–102 million

Box office: $520.9 million

Bottom Line: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Almost all the films in "Terminator" franchise refer to "Judgment Day," which is the day that Skynet, a type of artificial intelligence, becomes self-aware. When humans try to pull the plug, AI simply fights back in the only way it knows how — with a nuclear strike, causing the deaths of billions of people.

Skynet, which controls the post-apocalyptic world, sends terminators back in time to kill John Connor, who will become the leader of the human resistance.

Sarah Connor, John's mother, has a dream of a nuclear explosion over Los Angeles, which was so realistic some U.S. federal nuclear testing labs declared it the most accurate they had ever seen on film.

5. Planet of the Apes

Release date: 1968

Budget: $5.8 million

Box office: $33.4 million

Bottom Line: Planet of the Apes

At first, the audience doesn't know the plot location. Initially, it's thought that the astronauts landed on some strange planet where apes are the intelligent species and humans are less so.

But as the story goes on, and remnants of the former human civilization appear, it becomes all too clear as to what happened, as the photo above demonstrates and Taylor (Charlton Heston) exclaims, "You maniacs! You blew it up!"

4. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Release date: 1964

Budget: $1.8 million

Box office: $9.4 million

Bottom Line: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

"Dr. Strangelove" is a black comedy about nuclear war between the Soviets and the U.S. It concerns a deranged U.S. Air Force general who orders a strike on the Soviets and the attempts made to stop him before they can strike back and cause an all-out war.

Stanley Kubrick directed the movie, and it's considered one of the greatest films of all time.

Initially, the plot was dismissed as implausible, but we've learned since that it was, in fact, accurate and the chances of a misunderstanding or accidental launch were high at the time of its release.

In other words, we are lucky we're still here.

3. The Day the Earth Caught Fire

Release date: 1961

Budget: £190,000 ($247,871 today)

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: The Day the Earth Caught Fire

The Soviet Union and the U.S. accidentally detonate nuclear bomb tests simultaneously, which cause the Earth to spin out of its axis by 11 degrees. Strange meteorological events occur and on top of everything else, the planet is hurtling toward the sun.

In the middle of it all is a divorced, alcoholic reporter who meets the girl of his dreams.

To get things back into position, scientists decide to detonate more bombs. It's risky, but it might work. Then again, maybe not.

2. The Day After

Release date: 1983

Budget: $7 million

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: The Day After

At the height of the Cold War, 100 million people in 39 million U.S. households watched "The Day After," and it remains the most viewed made-for-TV movie of all time.

The movie depicts the escalating Soviet/U.S. conflict and focuses on families in Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, which were also home to nuclear missile silos.

The film was so upsetting for viewers that ABC and its affiliates opened 1-800 lines so they could speak to counselors if they needed to.

Then-President Ronald Reagan viewed it with his staff and Soviet state TV aired it in 1987 during negotiations with the U.S. on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

1. Threads

Release date: 1984

Budget: £400,000 ($521,524)

Box office: N/A

Bottom Line: Threads

One of the bleakest of all nuclear war films (and that's saying something), "Threads" takes place during and after the bombing of the city of Sheffield in Northern England during a U.S./Soviet confrontation and follows two families who suffer its consequences.

The film depicts the effects of nuclear war for up to a decade after the bombs are dropped, and things never get better for survivors.

"Threads" horrified a whole generation of viewers, one of which is Charlie Brooker, who later said it played heavily into his dystopian creation, "Black Mirror."