A House Of Dynamite: The reason we’re obsessed with new Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba movie on Netflix

Certain premises make for perfect movies, so they keep being repeated. Boy meets girl. Rags to riches. And another that seems remarkably durable: nuclear holocaust has been triggered. We may or may not know why, and we may or may not be able to do anything about it.

This is the setup of Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, A House of Dynamite on Netflix, which springs from the terrifying setup that the relatively peaceful period — at least when it comes to worrying about nukes — that came with the end of the Cold War is now over. A ballistic missile is bound for Chicago. Now what?

A House of Dynamite is a deeply researched, almost unbearably taut thriller that eventually mutates into a character study, examining how public servants proceed with their duties when staring the end of the world straight in the eye.

The thriller is part of the grand tradition of Hollywood movies born from nuke anxiety — and, perhaps because the unthinkably high stakes generate a kind of frantic lunacy, they come in several genres, including farce, comedy and panicked drama. Many of them derive tension from a similar question: Should some humans be sacrificed to save more of humanity? Should we strike back preemptively or wait to find out what happened? Who can we trust?

And they all work at feature-film length for the same reason: The tick-tick-tick of the missile’s approach provides the perfect plot device; time is literally running out. Here’s a look at the best of them.

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

OK, technically this one doesn’t fit the mold: it’s about people trying to stop the deranged Air Force Brig. Gen. Jack D Ripper from launching a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, not the other way around. But no nuke movie list would be complete without Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 bleak-as-hell satirical classic and not just because it gave us classic lines like “Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

Starring Peter Sellers in four roles, the movie ridicules the doctrine of mutually assured destruction and skewers Cold War attitudes. But its most shrewd and lasting cultural contribution is in mocking how leaders’ insecurities, impotence and monstrous egos — the imagery is explicitly phallic — may be what ends the world. (Available to buy or rent on major platforms.)

Fail Safe

Released the same year as Dr. Strangelove, Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe could not be more tonally different, though it’s drawing on the same deep well of nuclear age anxiety. (It also so closely resembled the novel that Dr Strangelove is based on that Kubrick filed a lawsuit and insisted that his film be released first.) “Fail Safe” stars Henry Fonda as the president who must make an unthinkable decision after a series of human errors leads the U.S. and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Like Dr Strangelove, its core conflict is between characters who hold fundamentally opposing philosophical views on the wisest course of action.

A message at the end of the film informs us that “it is the stated position of the Department of Defence and the United States Air Force that a rigidly enforced system of safeguards and controls insure that occurrences such as those depicted in this story cannot happen” — but it does little to dispel the chill that’s wrapped itself around your spine. (Available to buy or rent on major platforms.)

WarGames

Oops! In John Badham’s WarGames (1983), a high school hacker (played by Matthew Broderick) nearly annihilates humanity when he unwittingly hacks into a military supercomputer and accidentally triggers a false alarm of global thermonuclear war, thinking he’s playing a game. A thriller and a comedy, it was one of the first depictions of remote computing in pop culture. And the mishap once again brings serious ideas about the wisest course of action into conflict with one another.

When President Ronald Reagan saw the movie, it captured his imagination: He talked about it with his advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and members of Congress, asking if the premise was possible. The answer: technically, yes. Fifteen months later, he signed the first classified national security decision directive. Who says movies are just entertainment? (Available to buy or rent on major platforms.)

The Day After

As the name suggests, much of The Day After (1983) focuses on the aftermath of a nuclear detonation, something verging on dystopian horror. But for the first stretch, we’re bracing for impact, as Americans learn of the invasion and, ultimately, incoming missiles. The movie ran on ABC on Nov. 20, 1983, and was watched by nearly 100 million people — about 67% of the American viewing public that night.

This film, too, had a direct effect on public policy: It’s credited with softening Reagan’s stance on nuclear policy, and in his memoirs, he wrote that the movie influenced his decision to sign the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which required the United States and Soviet Union to reduce their nuclear arsenals. For many audiences, meanwhile, the experience of watching the film proved unforgettable. (Not currently streaming on major U.S. platforms, but sometimes segments are uploaded to video sites.)

Miracle Mile

There’s space for romance, however bleak, in a world about to end. Steve De Jarnatt’s Miracle Mile (1988) stars Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham as Harry and Julie, perhaps the last star-crossed lovers. They meet by chance and fall instantly in love, and arrange to see each other later that night — but alas, Harry’s alarm doesn’t go off, and when he tries to call Julie, he hears someone else on the line, warning that nuclear war will break out in 70 minutes.

Miracle Mile happens farther away from the halls of power than many nuke movies; it’s named for the Los Angeles neighbourhood where most of the events take place. It mostly depicts ordinary people reacting to the news that the world is ending, and without a lot of optimism about human nature, either. This story can only end in tragedy: a love affair of the most epic proportions that takes place in barely more than an hour. But that’s also kind of the perfect setup for a grand passion. (Available to buy or rent on major platforms.)

Crimson Tide

The nuclear film that might most closely resemble A House of Dynamite, at least in tone, is Crimson Tide, Tony Scott’s 1995 submarine action thriller starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. The story — which loosely parallels real events during the Cuban missile crisis — pits the strong-willed veteran captain of a Navy submarine against his more rational but less-experienced second in command. They’re tasked with launching a preemptive nuclear strike against a Russian ultranationalist rebel if he fuels his missiles.

Crimson Tide is fast-paced and exciting, and because it’s largely confined to a submarine, it’s often claustrophobically tense. Questions of ethics and morals, intuition and logic, right and wrong are all at stake, and decisions made on a dime can have huge consequences. The results, you might say, can be pretty explosive. (Available to buy or rent on major platforms.)

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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