Best Nuclear Holocaust fiction?

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. You will never take trees and greenery for granted again.

Also this British movie.

ON THE BEACH, both film versions are uneven but effective; the novel is much better.

THREADS, scary AF, really captures the desolation of a post-nuclear landscape.

This one is under five minutes but still heartfelt and horrifying.

The Sum Of All Fears

[quote]The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

I was reading this on my outdoor deck, and, no lie, a bird flew overhead on shat right on it.

Testament…without any fancy special effects it manages to devastate you emotionally.

Not the best but I liked the Australian film "These Final Hours".

I still think "The Day After" nails it. Some old-fashioned SPFX now, but at its time there was a real feeling that this is what would happen. The effects of radiation poisoning and the complete breakdown of society are especially chilling.

R9 We talked about it at school, our teacher treated it like a documentary. Starring Steve Gutenberg!

Op you think all of what’s going on in Eastern Europe is festive? Like watching a scary movie at Halloween? Watch horror on tv that’ll never happen to you as you sit on your fat ass?

Disgusting pig.

R11 I'm not afraid.

For Films: MIRACLE MILE!

R5. Tom Clancy was an unapologetic homophobe. I have no interest in anything he wrote.

Alas Bablyon. 1959 novel by Pat Frank.

My sister read it and passed it on to me when I was probably a teenager. I remember it being a quick read.

Synopsis and link to more complete summation.

[quote] The story is set in a fictional 1959, following two years of escalating tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union for dominance in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean Sea. The Soviets are menacing Turkey from three sides through their proxies in Egypt, Syria and Iraq in order to gain control of the Bosporus and give free passage to their large Mediterranean fleet. To counteract the Soviet menace the United States established a military presence in Lebanon and are providing aid to their Turkish and Israeli allies.

[quote] As detailed in the book, the Soviets gained a temporary space supremacy through the launch of a massive fleet of militarized Sputniks; moreover, they are aware that, within three or four years, the United States will cover the gap. Intelligence from a Soviet officer who defected in Berlin provided information about a Soviet war plan involving a sudden, overwhelming nuclear first strike on U.S. and NATO military and civilian targets, in order to minimize retaliation and become the leading world power. According to the leaked war plan the Soviet leadership considers acceptable the loss of 20 to 30 million of their own civilian population due to the retaliatory strike by NATO.

[quote] Narration follows the point of view of Randy Bragg, who lives an aimless life in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose. His older brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, an Air Force Intelligence officer, sends a telegram ending in the words, "Alas, Babylon", a pre-established code between the brothers to warn of imminent disaster. Mark flies his family down to Fort Repose for their protection while he stays at Strategic Air Command headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.

This scared the shit out of me because we lived in Winter Park, Florida, and one of the bombs was dropped on Rollins College right across the street from the public library where I worked as a teenager.

This is something I never knew:

[quote] An adaptation of Alas, Babylon was broadcast on April 3, 1960, as the 131st episode of the Playhouse 90 dramatic television series.[10] It starred Don Murray, Burt Reynolds, and Rita Moreno

I think the Fallout videogame series deserves some credit, specifically Fallout: New Vegas which is widely considered one of the best videogames ever made. Amazon is working on an adaptation right now.

This is as good a place as any to plug CONELRAD. It's kind of a dead site, but I love it and much love to the site owner if you're here 😘

When The Wind Blows, an animated movie with the voices of Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Sir John Mills…starts off kind of humorous, with this retired couple dottering about their house when there’s a nuclear attack…it gets sadder and sadder as the film progresses

R15 Alas, Babylon is a long time favourite of mine; first read in high school. I was unaware there was a tv adaptation. Thank you for the info.

Fail Safe traumatized me, lol. Henry Fonda was such a convincing POTUS and the movie was accurate about the how a misunderstanding/ miscommunication could have catastrophe results.

Mid 80s Hollywood was hysterical over Ronald Reagan bringing the world to an end. In a short space there was a bunch of these sort films and novels like War Day. Looking Glass was one of the better ones but I think Special Bulletin surpassed it. Very well done.

Damnation Alley (1979)

A canticle for Leibowitz is considered one of the very best

Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka

Surprised no one has mentioned this one:

R3 has it. On The Beach - the novel - hands down. I just re-read it a couple years back, and it still haunts me.

V for Vendetta

Planet of the Apes (1968)

The terminator.

Alas Babylon, also read it in high school and reread it last year. I always remembered the woman who went into a diabetic coma because she could no longer get insulin. Reminder that people with chronic illnesses might survive a blast but still die when the medicines run out.

On The Beach, the book. The Australian Grand Prix was absolutely chilling and it started out as such a lark.

Highly recommend The Last Policeman trilogy which is not a nuclear event but still the approaching end of the world.

A little known movie I caught on Netflix one night, “How I Live Now” about some kids left alone in a house out in the country when they see a flash on the horizon so *something* happened, they’re not sure what because all communication is cut off. It goes on from there.

A Gift Upon The Shore by MK Wren

Swan Song by Robert McCammon

Wool by Hugh Howey

All excellent.

Watch some you tube videos of the real thing '62. Or I can tell you real life shit about being a kid then. As President Biden would say "It's no joke". I'm going to bed now and hope that I wake up in paradise. Good night.

99 Red Balloons.

Goodnight, R32. Sweet dreams, sweetheart.

Another vote for Testament. I watched this during quarantine. This feels like a more realistic portrait of nuclear fallout. It's slow, unglamorous, and agonizing.

A lot of good ones mentioned already—Testament, The Day After, Miracle Mile—and to those I’ll add “By Dawn’s Early Light,” an HBO Original from 1990. Powers Boothe, Rebecca DeMornay, Martin Landau, Rip Torn, James Earl Jones…great cast.

I worked on "The Day After" and was pleasantly surprised that it turned out okay because I was certain it would be a piece of shit during filming. That said, "Threads" is the superior movie.

Alas Babylon.

I watched "Special Bulletin" when it was first broadcast. I had no idea how it would end... whoa, I was shocked. I think it was excellent, something every journalism student should watch (script has some serious criticism of TV news) and all of the FOX, CNN and other professional "journalists" should watch it as well.

R37 Any stories?

R27 I wouldn't say it's really much of a plot point. V is more political.

I like that The Day After spliced actual footage from nuclear tests into its attack sequence. Can't get more authentic than that.

While not the best of the lot, I do have a fondness for Miracle Mile. It's a miniscule cast so you can become more attached to the protagonist (played by Anthony Edwards) as opposed to the better-known films like DAY AFTER or THE DIVIDE with their bloated big-name casts looking like something Irwin Allen produced. Miracle Mile is pretty intimate film. I remember liking TESTAMENT (only saw it when it came out) but I can't imagine surviving a nuclear war with Jane Alexander as anything to hope for.

R32 I just watched it because I realized I'd never actually seen it. It must have been spine tinglingly eerie to watch. I remember my mother telling me she thought the bombs were going to drop for sure and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

Also, watching this made me really mourn Kennedy. I wish he hadn't been killed. He really was a great leader.

[quote] He really was a great leader.

Camelot was Mythology. Charitably he was a well meaning mediocrity way in over his head.

R45 Neither Biden nor Trump could pull that speech off. If Russia tried something similar today Biden would crumble.

What was going on in '83/'84 that caused so many nuclear war movies and documentaries? There were dozens in the span of two years.

[quote] What was going on in '83/'84

Hollywood tantrum against Reagan and American nukes. They only liked the Russian guy and ℎ𝑖𝑠 nukes.

@R48 - Yeah. And today's Dems only like Iran and their acquisition of Nukes. What could possibly go wrong?

I'm just gonna guess we'll be getting a few good nuclear war movies out of this. Fingers crossed a good novel. Some bitch beat me to the library's copy of Alas, Babylon so now I have a hold on it.

R50 if you’re in NYC, I am that bitch.

R51 You have a sister bitch who's really savoring it.

Neither film version of ON THE BEACH measures up to the finely written novel, but they both have affecting scenes in them. Both Ava Gardner and Rachel Ward were far too old and worldly to portray Moira Davidson; in the novel she’s a pale blonde in her twenties, both naive and cynical. Ava didn’t even attempt an Australian accent. At the same time, she was effective in some ways despite being miscast. Dwight and Moira never consummated their relationship in the novel, but director Stanley Kramer didn’t think audiences would buy any man turning down Ava. Loved Donna Anderson’s Mary; she combined naïveté and desperation so well. Wonder why she didn’t become a bigger star. Fred Astaire was awful as Julian. Thirty years too old and he was never really a good dramatic actor. Bryon Brown’s Julian was too devil may care and reckless, nothing like the character in the novel. He was playing Byron Brown. At least he was Australian. Peter’s and Mary’s death scenes in both versions are heartbreaking. The second version had more believable scenes of the collapse of civilization as the radiation creeps into the atmosphere. But tacking on the ending where Dwight meets Moira on the hilltop for strawberries, champagne and cyanide ruined the natural power of the story. It was more like a Lifetime version of a nuclear Holocaust.

Bump for more book recommendations please and thank you!

OK, it doesn't have to be nuclear, any old apocalypse scenario will do.

I'm zombied out, so preferably no zombies, but other types of mutants are certainly welcome.

Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald. I read it in the 1960s and it traumatized me so much, I never dared read it again.

Nuclear holocaust fashions?!

Do they have a spring and fall nuclear holocaust fashion event in NYC?

Panic in Year Zero

A low budget film about a family of four who leaves Los Angeles for a camping trip just before a nuclear bomb destroys the city. As lawlessness prevails, the father must fight to keep his family alive.

[quote] Now they must escape into the mountains to avoid the radiation, the panic, and the rapists. Despite the insipid nuclear holocaust effects (looks more like a thunderstorm), this is a surprisingly effective movie. Milland elicits effective performances from each and every member of his cast (Frankie Avalon has never been better). The menace, humiliation and sheer terror of rape has never been more poignantly depicted on the screen, and all without nudity.

It's actually pretty good, and no mutants or such. The only monsters are the survivors.

Another vote for Warday, despite the fact that Whitley Streiber is an alien-abduction nutter.

Fun fact: I've been to the field where Whitley Streiber was abducted! It's next to a freeway.

Delicatessen (1991), a great French film set in a destroyed world.

For R40, my "The Day After" stories:

I was Steve Guttenberg's stand in and was brought on midway through filming. I watched him go through the blocking for each scene, then while he went off to rehearse I would stand in for him while the camera crew adjusted lights, camera moves, etc.

Steve was a really nice guy, in fact about a month after production wrapped he sent me a nice letter that I still have today. All of the actors were nice, Stephen Furst (Flounder from Animal House) in particular. He only had a bit part but was on set for a few days and was so nice. I also liked John Cullum and Bibi Besch, who played the parents. Jason Robards and I had a couple of nice long conversations, and he was he was surprisingly soft spoken. He isolated himself in a completely darkened room before each scene, which I found fascinating. JoBeth Williams and John Lithgow filmed their scenes before I arrived.

The director, Nicholas Meyer, was a real womanizer and had different women with him everyday. Then his real gf showed up on set, wearing all white... on the dusty, dirty set of a nuclear disaster in Kansas. She would only speak to you if she deemed you worthy. The only thing she said to me was "Nick is so happy I'm here, he's been so lonely." I said nothing but did an internal smirk after she walked away.

My favorite memory was the day we shot under a bridge. It was a survivors' camp with hundreds of extras. It was a long day so catering served the best meal, mako shark (the poor extras got hot dogs) and great ice cream and snacks. And then, at about 1 am, the entire production shut down for about 2 hours and we had an impromptu pot party. There was music, booze and more food, and I got high with Steve and lots of other people. The extras must have surely wondered what the hell was going on, but they didn't understand how long the days were and how tough the shoot was, not to mention the subject matter. After awhile everybody chilled, even the extras. It was such a good time and got us through the rest of the night and shoot.

Someone in ABC's payroll dept. was ripping off the crew. I had just arrived and hadn't received my first check yet, but I overheard someone in hair and make up say "my paycheck is short again!" I didn't think anything of it at the time, but after I got my first check, sure enough it was short. I double checked my math, then contacted payroll, and the person went through what sounded like an accurate account of my hours worked for that week, including regular and overtime. I hung up resigned but dissatisfied, then rechecked my math and went through his words in my head. Then I realized he was only applying my regular pay for 4 days rather than 5. In other words, he was shortchanging me and other crew members 8 hours. I called back and said "I think you made a mistake...." and explained his error. He got irritated and said "oh all right, come in and I'll get you another check." By the time I got there he was all smiles as he handed me my check - I assume he was hoping I would think it was an honest mistake and that would be the end of it. The next day I told the make up person, and I assume she told others. My paychecks were never short again.

I really thought the movie was going to be a massive failure because some of the dialogue was just awful. But the magic of movie making saved it, and I think everyone was happy in the end and proud to have been a part of it.

Bump. Preferably books and doesn't have to nuclear, I'm versatile in how the end of the world as we know it happens.

R32 and R44 if you haven't seen it already definitely check out Thirteen Days. Since I'd read the book of the same title by Robert Kennedy I went to see it in the theatre when it was first released. Great film and in spite of knowing exactly how everything turned out (we survived!) it was still gripping, intense and kept me on the edge of my seat. DL fave Bruce Greenwood is excellent as JFK.

The scene in Testament where she plays the answering machine message is particularly moving.

I like Testament but thought the inclusion of a little developmentally challenged Japanese kid named Hiroshi was a bit much. Hiroshi…get it?

I thought Testament was kind of maudlin. It gets its point across but it's sort of the mainline Protestant take on the Apocalypse.

R64 Some of the dialogue is clunky, it got treated like a docudrama though. We were all supposed to be learning what the horrible reality of Nuclear War would be like.

It scared the shit out of me, but Guttenberg was hot. Weirdly thrilled to hear he's as nice as he looks.

It's non-fiction, but the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a history of their Doomsday Clock out that looks interesting. Current time is 100 seconds to midnight as of January.