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The BBC's nuclear war film, and probably the most devastating thing television has produced. It went out on BBC2 on 23 September 1984 and was repeated on BBC1 the following year. In British broadcasting the night is still remembered as the night the country did not sleep. Barry Hines wrote it; he also wrote the novel behind Kes. Mick Jackson directed. The budget was £400,000. It begins in Sheffield with two ordinary families. A daughter is pregnant, a wedding is being arranged, and in the background a radio mentions a crisis over Iran. Then the bomb falls and the film stops being a domestic drama: there are no hospitals, no burials, no law. It was the first production to depict a nuclear winter, and the story runs on to thirteen years after the attack. It took seven BAFTA nominations and won four. Most of the extras were Sheffield locals rather than actors, and many have since described what watching the finished film did to them. Jackson says he still carries the damage of making it. Who it is for: viewers who want to see what nuclear war actually means, undecorated. Who it is not for: nearly everyone. There is no hope in it, no rescue, and the closing scene is deliberately merciless. Not to be watched with children.