There Will Be Mushroom Clouds

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is not the first film to tackle the subject of the atom bomb and the harrowing potential of world-ending technology. Some 150 films and documentaries have been made dealing with this subject, including The Beginning of the End in 1947, not long after the U.S. dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan to end World War II. Among the more notable nuclear-themed films over the years have been 1954’s Godzilla, 1964’s Fail Safe, 1964’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1979’s The China Syndrome, 1983’s Testament, 1983’s The Day After, 1983’s War Games, director Shôhei Imamura’s 1989 Black Rain, 1989’s Fat Man and Little Boy and 2019’s Chernobyl meltdown. And who could forget the nuclear destruction in James Cameron’s Terminator films. Terminator 2: Judgment Day won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 1992 with the team of Dennis Muren, VES, Stan Winston, Gene Warren Jr. and Robert Skotak.