The War Game (1965)

The ongoing horrific black and white "footage" of nuclear war preparations and aftermath in Britain is gripping and terrifying. I was a kid in this era, the 1960s, and remember only the official side of it--the government warnings, the bomb shelter information--but I've retained enough of the scariness to really get this inside.

You don't need to be fifty to feel the genuine pain of these people. Yet you have to remind yourself, over and over, that this is all fiction, that it's a movie, that it's just a projection of likely effects. The more amazing aspect is that the movie concentrates on areas on the far fringes of the bomb's explosion (6 to 20 miles away),and leaves the closer damages, the total annihilation, to your imagination.

It's a short movie, and an amazing one. There's nothing like this, for sure, and I think it's should be required viewing for anyone wondering about the current threats of atomic warfare in a dozen different places. It's too real, and it's avoidable, I believe, if everyone does the right thing. Amazing.

This is a completely amazing film--one that makes films about nuclear war like "On The Beach", "Failsafe" and "Ladybug Ladybug" seem VERY tame by comparison. It is harrowing yet VERY realistic. And, I can't imagine someone watching this and not being affected.

The film appears to be a documentary but the scenario is fictional. The actual impact of a nuclear attack, however, is very realistic and talks about things you don't normally think about--such as the aftereffects. A proliferation of rats, looting, martial law, blindness, the inability of the hospitals to care for the wounded (necessitating the police to shoot the dying),malnutrition, disease, malaise and HUGE numbers of dead. It's all very, very grim and flies in the face of insane notions that nuclear wars are survivable.

Because the recreations of events and style of camera-work are VERY realistic, it's almost like watching an attack and life after it as if it has already happened. I don't care if your political bent is far-left, far-right or anything in between, this is sobering and awful. I can't think of a better film to adequately approach the realities of nuclear war.

Read up on the trivia section for this film on IMDb--it's fascinating. Well worth seeing but super-grim.

If Peter Watkins The War Games had been broadcast as intended in 1965 it would had scared the hell out of people of Britain. The BBC delayed its broadcast until 1985. By that time the BBC scared the nation with the drama Threads.

The War Game was released in the cinemas and won the Best Documentary Oscar, however this is not a documentary.

This docu-drama imagines the effects of a nuclear strike in Britain. It is based on research of nuclear tests carried out in the USA, the impact of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombing campaigns and its aftermath in various German cities during World War 2.

This is a grim film, it gets darker the more it goes on. Coldly showing the deaths from the aftermath of a nuclear strike but also showing a society that is breaking down.

Even 50 years later this is a shockingly bleak film.