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The War Game is a British film of genre Drama directed by Peter Watkins with Peter Watkins
The War Game (1966)
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Add to a movie listLength 48minutes
Directed by Peter Watkins
OriginUnited-kingdom
Themes Post-apocalyptic films, Films about religion, Films set in the future, Documentary films about nuclear technology, Political films, Dystopian films, Disaster films
Rating79%
The War Game is a 1965 television drama-documentary film depicting a nuclear war. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play anthology series, it caused dismay within the BBC and in government, and was withdrawn before the provisional screening date of Thursday 7 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting, it will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."
Despite this decision, it was publicly screened and shown abroad, winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1966.
The film was eventually broadcast on 31 July 1985 on the BBC, during the week before the fortieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the day before a repeat screening of Threads.
Synopsis
Filmed in black-and-white with a running time of just under 50 minutes, The War Game depicts the prelude to and the immediate weeks of the aftermath to a Soviet nuclear attack against Britain. A Chinese invasion of South Vietnam starts the war; tensions escalate when the United States authorises tactical nuclear warfare against the Chinese. Although Soviet and East German forces threaten to invade West Berlin if the US does not withdraw that decision, the US does not acquiesce to communist demands and the invasion takes place; two US Army divisions attempt to fight their way into Berlin to counter this, but the Russian and East German forces overwhelm them in conventional battle. In order to turn the tide, the US president authorises the NATO commanders to use their tactical nuclear weapons, and they soon do so. An escalating nuclear war results, during which larger Russian strategic IRBMs are launched at Britain. The film remarks that many Soviet missiles were, at the time, believed to be liquid-fuelled and stored above ground, making them vulnerable to attack, and hypothesises that in any nuclear crisis, the USSR would be obliged to fire all of them as early as possible in order to avoid their destruction by counter-attack, hence the rapid progression from tactical to strategic nuclear exchange.Actors
Peter Watkins
(Documentist (uncredited))
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