The Day After

Ordinary lives in Kansas: a doctor, a farming family, university students. In the background the news reports rising tension in Europe and nobody pays attention. Then the missiles launch. The film puts the detonation at its midpoint and gives the rest of its running time to the aftermath: radiation sickness, the hospital collapsing, no order left. The narrative manufactures neither heroism nor rescue. Nicholas Meyer directed; it was made for television. It reached a very large American audience the night it aired, with a live discussion programme afterwards, and it is often cited in the argument about nuclear weapons. A real warning: the film shows the effects of radiation directly, including hair loss, vomiting and mass death, and offers no consolation. Viewers at the time reported it as severely distressing.