The quiet suburban street could be anywhere in America. Children ride bicycles past well-kept lawns. A doctor checks his watch before heading to the hospital. A young couple shares breakfast in their modest kitchen. Then, without warning, the horizon erupts in blinding light. Time stops. The world ends. This wasn't some fever dream of Hollywood gore or supernatural terror. It was prime time television, beamed directly into millions of homes across America on November 20, 1983. ABC's broadcast of The Day After was so potentially traumatizing that the network provided a live discussion panel and telephone hotlines staffed by therapists to help viewers process what they'd witnessed. Just months later, across the Atlantic, the BBC would unleash something even more devastating: Threads.

In the shadow of Reagan's "Evil Empire" rhetoric and Thatcher's Iron Lady posturing, these two films captured something no traditional horror movie could touch, the palpable dread of living under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. While Americans and Brits had grown accustomed to the psychological burden of the Cold War, these unflinching portrayals of atomic holocaust broke through the collective denial that had allowed us to function for decades.

The early 1980s marked a perfect storm of political tension. Thatcher's 1979 ascension to 10 Downing Street and Reagan's 1980 election on his "Make America Great Again" platform had ushered in a new era of Western conservatism. Gone was the détente of the 1970s, replaced by heightened rhetoric against the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union. As nuclear weapons multiplied in both East and West, the doomsday clock ticked ever closer to midnight.

We'd seen nuclear war on screen before: monsters spawned by radiation, plucky survivors rebuilding civilization, heroes navigating irradiated wastelands. But what The Day After and Threads offered was something far more terrifying: realism. These weren't adventure stories or cautionary fables. They were meticulously researched simulations of what would actually happen if the buttons were pressed. The immediate devastation, the radiation sickness, the societal collapse, the long, painful dying of civilization itself.

Urban legend holds that these films changed nuclear deterrent policy in the United States. What's certain is that they changed us. Viewers who couldn't unsee the stark realities they portrayed. Four decades later, as global tensions rise once again, these two made-for-TV movies remain the most effective horror ever produced, precisely because they showed us not what we feared might happen, but what we knew could.

America’s Heartland, Kansas. It’s a normal day, a family is rehearsing for a wedding, Dr. Russel Oakes is spending time with his daughter before she is to move away. People are going on with their mundane lives. We see them working, shopping, going to school. It’s just another day. Half a world away, the Soviet Union is building their forces near West Germany. The United States has issued an ultimatum telling the Russians that there will be consequences if they do not stand down. The next day, the Soviets cross the Rhine and invade West Germany. NATO enacts Article 5, “an attack against one, is an attack against all.” World War Three has begun. Moscow is evacuated after the Soviets use a tactical nuclear weapon against NATO. As the news breaks, people begin to panic: food is being looted from stores, people are causing traffic jams trying to flee cities. The Emergency Broadcast System is activated, but by then, it is too late. The Air Force gets the message that 300 nuclear missiles are inbound, they are given the orders to launch. For The Day After, the end is only the beginning.

A high altitude detonation leads to all cars being disabled, electronics and communications have been knocked out. Then, the missiles began raining down. One child is blinded by the detonation, we see an entire fifth-grade class vaporized due to the intense heat of the bombs, along with many of the people we meet at the beginning of the film. Dr. Oakes makes it to the university hospital in Lawrence. By the time he arrives, the hospital is already overwhelmed with patients who are sick, dying, or already dead with lethal levels of nuclear radiation. Supplies quickly dwindle, as Stephen Kline, a premed student finds shelter on the Dahlberg farm.

The Dahlbergs and Kline find shelter in the family basement, and are safe for a few days. Then, Denise becomes delirious and runs outside. Kline retrieves her, but for both of them, it is too late. After they encounter radioactive dust, it will be only a matter of time before both succumb to the new world. Meanwhile, Dr. Oakes and the other doctors are doing the best they can, before a nurse catches meningitis and dies.

The end of the movie sees the president give a speech that a ceasefire has been reached, and help is on the way. However, the National Guard cannot aid in the attempts to rebuild critical infrastructure, and instead become judge, jury, and executioner to all looters. Denise, Klein, and Oakes are wasting away from radiation sickness, and are near death by the end of the movie. The credits roll with Morse code “M-A-D.”

While the president of ABC’s motion picture department came up with the idea after watching The China Syndrome, The Day After faced many uphill hurdles, including heavy censorship from both ABC and the federal government. Edward Hume would write the script, and ABC originally hired Robert Butler to produce, but was forced to leave the project in early 1982, due to other commitments. Instead, ABC turned to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer, who would then pour months of research into the effects of a nuclear war, to the point he would become ill. Meyer and director Robert Papazian would make several trips to the Department of Defense and many universities to get an idea of what life would be like if nuclear war were to happen. Meyer and Papazian also toured the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

However, Meyer would have heated arguments with the ABC censors about what could be aired, and he would also run into problems at the Department of Defense, who wanted it made clear (for propaganda reasons) the Soviets shot first, something Meyer and Papazian were completely against.

The original plan was to have a two-night television event, with the movie running four hours long. Meyer felt the script was too long, and argued to cut an hour from the movie. ABC declined at first, but relented once they could not find sponsors willing to show their products alongside a depressing movie about life after nuclear war.

Even with the movie being cut to three hours, there were still big fights Meyer was waging with the censors. Some of the scenes that were cut included a child having a nightmare about nuclear war, then sitting up in his bed screaming. Other scenes involved Denise having a diaphragm, when contraceptives were considered too taboo to show on television and a scene where a patient screams in pain, which the censors deemed “too graphic” for television. One argument that Meyer did win was adding a disclaimer at the end of the movie saying The Day After shows the best case of life after the nuclear holocaust.

As per usual, when you don’t show the United States in the best light propaganda-wise, the ever so oppressive conservative groups come out, they would whine and complain that the United States wasn’t being shown in the star spangled glory it should, and called the movie “Soviet Propaganda.” Human Events, in a full glory cancel culture campaign urged readers to write to advertisers. Even the Reagan administration urged more cuts as to not make the movie more upsetting (because conservatives are special snowflakes and need their feelings protected at all times.) Advertisers also already had hesitations about their products being placed beside nuclear devastation. ABC would allow what few advertisers would show their products during this time to do so before the nuclear war began.

The Day After would bring a discussion about nuclear arms, and how to reduce them. Anti-nuclear arms groups would see membership rise immediately after the movie’s airing. Mere months after the movie was shown on television, Reagan allegedly sent a letter to Meyer saying that his movie had an impact on his nuclear arms policy, although Meyer denies the letter’s existence.

The Day After would go on to win two Emmy Awards, and would be nominated in ten other categories. While the movie’s controversies can still be debated, there is no doubt the world after the movie is a changed one.

Ten months after The Day After brought destruction to a small Midwestern town, Threads would show the English side. Ruth Beckett and Jimmy Kemp learn of Ruth’s pregnancy, and begin planning a wedding. Meanwhile, the United States has pulled off a coup in Iran, causing the Soviet Union to invade the country. The United States issues an ultimatum to the Soviets, but it causes a limited nuclear exchange in the city of Mashhad. The news causes mass panic in the city of Sheffield, looting begins as citizens panic at the thought of a total nuclear war is on the horizon. Emergency government powers are enacted all over England to stem the rising looting. Officials begin sheltering as society begins to break down.

Early the next morning, the Soviets launch their attack in three stages, knocking out communications, then NATO targets, then industry. The damage in Sheffield is catastrophic. In the chaos, Jimmy attempts to find Ruth, but would never see her again. Fires cannot be put out over the city, thanks to the fallout, hospitals are overran, and the complete collapse of society began. The local officials die over the next month in the rubble that was Sheffield Town Hall. Food is scarce, thanks to the ground being radiated and the sun blocked out due to nuclear winter. People fight over what’s left, and food becomes currency. Just like in The Day After, the military is seen executing looters and criminals. Ruth leaves the family shelter after her grandmother dies, and flees to Jimmy’s house, finding only the corpse of his mother, and Jimmy’s bird book.

Ruth then flees to Buxton, where authorities are finding it hard to place refugees. She is reunited with Bob for a while, and gives birth to her daughter in a barn. A year later, the sunlight returns, but the reduced ozone layer means that more people are suffering from cataracts and skin cancer. The movie then cuts to ten years later, thanks to mutism brought on by PTSD, and the lack of education, a new generation speaks only broken English. Ruth dies, and her daughter Jane barely reacts to Ruth’s death.

Later, we see Jane and some boys fighting over food. One boy is shot, and Jane has to basically prostitute herself for food. At the end, we see that electricity and industry are slowly coming back, thanks to steam power, but most of the English society is completely wiped out. Jane gives birth to a silent baby, and looks at the child in horror.

The working title of the movie was called Beyond Armageddon. Alasdair Milne, the then Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation, was inspired by the 1966 film, The War Game, which showed a post-nuclear holocaust Brittan in a news-style program. The War Game was not allowed to be shown on TV, thanks to a proclamation from the Harold Wilson government and the BBC, at the time, worried about people committing mass suicide. Mick Jackson was hired to direct Threads, mostly thanks to his political activism. Jackson would talk to people like Carl Sagan, who penned Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions in the December 23, 1983 issue of Science. Jackson also worked for the BBC in their Science Features Department. He also took inspiration from the Hibakusha, the victims of the Hiroshima bombing during World War Two. Although the cast of Coronation Street were considered, Jackson decided to use locals to increase the impact of the film.

Unlike The Day After, there was not much pushback from the British government or censors, instead the BBC embraced the movie, showing a documentary The Eighth Day and a Newsnight panel discussion on nuclear war. Television critics even praised the BBC for showing Threads, even in it's brutally bleak outlook on life after the bomb. Peter Ackroyd of The Times commented: “It was not clear if the point of Threads was to frighten or inform ... they are not incompatible aims, although I suspect they come under the larger heading of entertainment.” Sean French of the Sunday Times wrote: “By the end we were a little better informed and a lot more worried. Answers were as far away as ever.” Almost seven million people would watch Threads on its debut night, including a young Charlie Brooker, who would use the inspiration to create Black Mirror.

Threads and The Day After are two of the most terrifying films I have ever seen, so haunting that they’ve invaded my dreams. And yet, despite their horror, there is something strangely beautiful about them. Something almost reassuring. Yes, nuclear war would mean mass death, and yes, those who survive may envy the dead. Enduring nuclear winter and the bleak decades that follow would be near impossible. But perhaps, just perhaps, films like Threads, The Day After, The War Game, and When the Wind Blows can serve as stark warnings. Maybe they can reach the ones with the power to destroy everything and make them see, in the words of WarGames, that "the only winning move is not to play."