Animals were harmed in these films
This Christopher Nolan thriller is a biopic about theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who became known as the "father of the atomic bomb."
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See also: The man behind the movie—Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer?
'Matinee' (1993) is a fun movie despite its subject—nuclear fears in America during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Christopher Reeve's final Superman movie has a clear anti-nuclear message. After all, Superman gets rid of all nuclear weapons by throwing them into the sun!
This film noir revolves around a private investigator, a hitchhiker, and a mysterious box that cannot get into the wrong hands. We won't tell you what's in the box, but it certainly is radioactive!
The movie is set Melbourne, Australia, which was the only major city still standing in the aftermath of a nuclear war in this work of fiction.
'Silkwood' is a biopic about plutonium plant employee Karen Silkwood. She was a whistleblower who died under mysterious circumstances.
Christopher Walken plays a man who can foresee the future. When he meets a candidate for the US Senate, he has a vision of him dropping the nuke on the Soviet Union as president.
'The China Syndrome' is about an accident at a nuclear plant. Coincidently, 12 days after the movie came out, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania occurred.
In the opening scene, we can see Indiana Jones at a nuclear test site. He manages to take shelter in a fridge and survive the blast.
The film depicts how close America was to nuclear warfare during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In 'WarGames,' we see a teenager hacking into a military computer and playing the game Global Thermonuclear War. It turns out the computer is run by artificial intelligence, and the threat of a real nuclear war becomes real.
Ethan Hunt and his crew try to recover three plutonium cores from the bad guys.
The Soviet Union's newest nuclear submarine, the Red October, goes rogue, and America goes looking for it as fears of a nuclear attack loom.
Gotham City is held hostage with a nuclear weapon and Batman tries to save the day.
James Bond tried to stop an evil businessman from irradiating America's gold supply in Fort Knox with a bomb.
Sadly, Japan does have a history with nuclear bombings. In this fictional depiction, Godzilla is a giant prehistoric creature awakened by nuclear radiation.
Stanley Kubrick directed this movie about a general who tries to pull the world into a self-destructive nuclear war.
The movie covers the Cold War-related anxiety over a nuclear conflict.
'Crimson Tide' deals with conflicting interpretations of an order to launch a nuclear attack, circumstances that parallel a real incident that took place aboard the Soviet submarine B-59 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Robert Aldrich's political thriller is about a rogue Air Force general who escapes a military prison and takes over a nuclear missile silo. He then threatens to start World War III unless the president reveals a piece of top-secret intelligence on national television.
The captain of the Soviet Union's first ballistic missile nuclear submarine, the K-19, tries to prevent a nuclear disaster that would trigger a war with the US.
A CIA analyst tries to stop a neo-Nazi faction from detonating a nuclear bomb that would trigger a conflict between the US and Russia.
China uses high-tech burrowing machines to tunnel through the Earth and plant nuclear bombs in strategic locations under the US.
This James Bond movie features a terrorist who steals a nuclear bomb in order to create an accident with a stolen nuclear submarine, in order to increase petroleum prices.
Retired test pilots are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite, only to find out that it is loaded with nuclear missiles.
Arms dealers try to take over a US Navy battleship in order to sell the ship's nuclear-tipped Tomahawk Cruise Missiles.
Escaped criminals hold a group of people hostage in a ghost town that is scheduled to be destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
'Them!' was the American answer to the Japanese 'Godzilla'. The monsters in question were radiation-mutated gigantic ants.
The captain of the American destroyer USS Bedford is in determined pursuit of a Soviet submarine detected off the coast of Greenland. The story is based on a real-life incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the aforementioned Soviet submarine B-59 was pursued in the Atlantic Ocean by the US Navy.
'Planet of the Apes' (1968) and its subsequent sequels (which are prequels) all touch on nuclear subjects. In 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' (1970), we meet a group who worship a nuclear missile known as the Alpha-Omega Bomb.
The threat of a nuclear war has been present ever since the first atomic bombs were dropped in Japan in 1945. For decades, the Cold War kept many people on their toes, expecting a nuclear fallout at any moment. And sadly, today, the threat continues to exist. But not all nuclear danger can lead to the end of the world. In fact, there have been many nuclear accidents, that despite being catastrophic, have not wiped out the entirety of humanity. Yet...
In this gallery, we look at some of the best movies ever made on the topic of nuclear warfare, atomic energy, radiation, and everything in between. Click on to discover them.
Movies with a nuclear storyline
Check out these radioactive flicks!
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The threat of a nuclear war has been present ever since the first atomic bombs were dropped in Japan in 1945. For decades, the Cold War kept many people on their toes, expecting a nuclear fallout at any moment. And sadly, today, the threat continues to exist. But not all nuclear danger can lead to the end of the world. In fact, there have been many nuclear accidents, that despite being catastrophic, have not wiped out the entirety of humanity. Yet...
In this gallery, we look at some of the best movies ever made on the topic of nuclear warfare, atomic energy, radiation, and everything in between. Click on to discover them.