User Reviews

The War Game........ I saw this movie in a limited engagement in Toronto at an underground theater when it was first shown here. For the time the film was very " in your face " and I recall people coming from the small theater with shocked looks on their faces, one couple I recall the man was being sick at the curb, others seemed to have just blank stares on their faces.

It was a very impacting movie, very much ahead of its time and no where could have Hollywood or any other film makers here or in the US could have come close to making. It was an very intense for the subject and it was the ending that did it to everyone there who saw it. For 46 minutes of black & white film it had impact that I have not seen since in any of the much vaunted films over the last 40 odd years or so. If you do get a chance to see it do so, and try to see it in the temper of the times that it was produced in..........Enjoy

inquist4

The War Game is a British film that gives a graphic, horrifying portrayal of what would happen to the civilian population of Great Britain if the country were hit by nuclear bombs.

"The War Game" is a 47-minute film that was originally made for the British Broadcasting Corporation and then withheld from showing on the air because it was considered too grisly and gruesome for indiscriminate projection into homes.

Its fearful and forceful nature was reported in papers from all over London by reporters in the 60's, and its availability now on DVD is but a token of the talk and controversy its subsequent showing over the years in a few British theaters has caused.

The film was made by a young man, Peter Watkins, in hand-held-camera style and at a pace that endow its grim, on-the-spot enactments with the seeming truth of a documentary film. It gives us a minute-by-minute rundown of cumulating horrors in an area of Kent from the time the first off-course Soviet bomb explodes in the region until the better part of the landscape and population are laid waste.

While the horrors it shows, such as firestorms, the melting of children's eyes and the mercy shooting by police of rows of victims who are too badly burned to be helped, are based upon actual experiences in Hiroshima and in German cities in World War II, the monstrous piling up of these horrors in one picture seems a calculated showing of the worst.

And the fact that no immediate way to avoid this is suggested to the audience by the film makes it, for most, a sheer frustrating excitement of morbidity and dread.

Mr. Watkins was quoted in the media in the 60's as saying that he hoped that it would agitate people to demand the elimination of nuclear bombs. But one might guess it would serve that purpose only if shown in connection with some concrete and widespread campaign, as even today, we are confronted by nuclear annihilation. Otherwise it is no more than a powerful, isolated horror film of the past.

If you like horror films, you will absolutely love this film.

It was made for BBC television, but deemed too horrendous to show. It was later shown in theaters and won an Oscar for best documentary film in 1966.

You cannot tell that you are not watching real live news instead of a film. It shows not only the horror of nuclear war, but the fact that the government is not prepared in the least to cope with the evacuation and damage.

It has some really horrible scenes of death, but the most terrifying aspect of the film is the naivety and total lack of realistic expectations. The aftermath is a testament to the stupidity of nuclear weapons.

The film draws on the aftermath of Dresden and Hiroshima and Nagasaki for realism.

One has to realize that this was 1965 before we reached the level of weapons we have today.

This is a film that should be seen by everyone.

Although this film clocks in at a mere 48 minutes, not a scene, second or frame is put to waste. A level-headed and all too analytical examination of civil preparedness versus the yield of nuclear weapons. What this film presents is the absolute horror of nuclear war in simulated newsreel footage so realistic, you may feel the pain of those on screen. Fire-storms, asphyxiation, flash-burns, over-burdened hospitals leaving victims to die in pain, street executions under martial law, total social collapse, all filmed in a typical English suburb. Originally planned to be a simple documentary on nuclear warfare made for BBC-TV, the film was banned from television (officially because of it's graphic depictions of suffering, but most likely for it's anti-authoritarian stance and defiance of the official line). Later released to theaters, it went on to win major film awards. Two scenes in particular, one of men being executed for violating water rationing and an interview with children at a medical camp, haunted me for days. This is the great-grandfather of such films as "Threads" and "The Day After", but the matter-of-fact narration in BBC English to the devastation on screen adds an element of sheer horror that no other film comes close to. If anyone you know talks about the survivability of nuclear attack, show them this film, and watch their reaction. This film is too important to ignore, and too powerful to dismiss.

I just saw this for the first time and more than once while watching it I felt my body go ice cold. This was surely THE DAY AFTER of its time. Presented in a matter-of-fact documentary style it shows people blissfully ignorant of what could happen in the event of a nuclear attack. Sure enough, quicker than you can say "On The Beach" an attack comes and the lives of the people who couldn't care less a moment before are changed forever.

Some scenes are still truly jolting. Looters trying to get away with the only thing of value left in the world, tinned food, are gunned down by expressionless British police. A man displays a shotgun and declares there is only room in his shelter for his family and he will not hesitate to shoot his neighbours if they try to get in. A doctor laments that severely injured people are taken to a "dying room" and left to perish without care or pain killers. Bodies are stacked like logs for mass cremation. Shell shocked survivors are so traumatised they just sit and stare. This movie runs only 48 minutes but you will be aware of every second!

This movie was made in 1965, the year I was born, so I cannot say I understand what the people of that era must have felt but after seeing this I have a rough idea of the mindset of the public in those Cold War days.

After seeing those US Government produced movies telling people to just hide in their basements for 2 week; after which the U S of A will not only have won a nuclear war but will have put the world back into apple pie order THE WAR GAME is the cinematic equivalent of a sucker punch to the jaw. Watch this film, and then TRY to sleep!

The War Game (1965) was a TV movie funded by the BBC. Peter Watkins gave them a movie that probably caused the hair on the necks of the BBC's standards and practices department to stand on end. Mr. Watkins paints a grim and bleak outlook for humanity if there ever was a nuclear conflict. Based on data from the hellish bombings of Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki and nuclear testing information from the U.S .Government (among his painstaking research and sources) shows the utter devastation that even a small exchange of missiles would bring upon his homeland. The acting is top notch (using a cast of unknowns) and the F/X were quite up to par (making the best out of the small budget). Even though the subject matter is dark and bitter, The War Game is a compelling watch and I highly recommended it for everyone.

I saw The War Game thanks to my local branch of CND in 1979 when they showed it in a hall in our town. My mum was vehemently anti-communist so I had to sneak out to see it. The local paper kicked up at 14-year olds being encouraged to see an 'X' film. Was it worth the fuss? Yes, without a doubt. I had already seen Watkin's definitive 'Culloden' earlier that year and was bowled over by the documentary style applied to a drama, but The War Game surpassed even that. I will never forget the scenes of the helmeted English bobbies shooting people in the head to put them out of their misery, or the bucket full of wedding rings or most of all, the line of kids being asked what they wanted to be when they grew up and the replies of 'nuffink.'

For me, that summed up the futility of war, nuclear or otherwise.

'Threads' is good, but 'The War Game' is still the best portrayal of a nuclear attack on Britain ever made. It should be shown more often.

The War Game (1965)

The ongoing horrific black and white "footage" of nuclear war preparations and aftermath in Britain is gripping and terrifying. I was a kid in this era, the 1960s, and remember only the official side of it--the government warnings, the bomb shelter information--but I've retained enough of the scariness to really get this inside.

You don't need to be fifty to feel the genuine pain of these people. Yet you have to remind yourself, over and over, that this is all fiction, that it's a movie, that it's just a projection of likely effects. The more amazing aspect is that the movie concentrates on areas on the far fringes of the bomb's explosion (6 to 20 miles away), and leaves the closer damages, the total annihilation, to your imagination.

It's a short movie, and an amazing one. There's nothing like this, for sure, and I think it's should be required viewing for anyone wondering about the current threats of atomic warfare in a dozen different places. It's too real, and it's avoidable, I believe, if everyone does the right thing. Amazing.

48 minutes, none of them useless. If you can remember "Come and See", by E.Klimov, you precisely understand the way you feel -you've known it once. In a weird way, this fiction documentary had been produced by Her Royal Highness's BBC, but it just completely doesn't fit to the usual speech of governments. Yes, it had been banned from TV casts for like 20 years, and yes, it's easy to understand how such a movie would have produced the effect of a bomb in the 60's prudent society... The movie works in an efficient frame-line: just imagine what would happen if England was under the risk of some thermonuclear attack (of course from the USSR). The constant off-voice is pictured and never remains just theorical. What has the England government been planning to prevent its citizens from suffering? What are the effects of a thermonuclear explosion on human beings? Event if these human beings are something like 60km away from it? What would happen to the economy, the supplying of food, and even the fooding production? How would the people react, after some weeks of starvation? Is it possible to cure everyone? Is it even thinkable? These are kind of the points the movie deals with. Just remember the facts it relates are based on what happened in some German cities during the WWII, and of course the results of 'Little Boy" and its little brother... Just remember you've got nothing to lose watching this movie. Just remember you may feel some angry and desperate joy after having watched it. Just remember that's life, and no one really cares. Just WATCH IT !

Perhaps I'm a complete air head but I had never heard of this film until I came across it at the Hack Green bunker in Cheshire a couple of years ago. Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker is a visitor attraction now, having ceased it's original function in 1966. It's a good day out. The whole place wreaks of nostalgia and has a dankness about it that draws you in to the mentality of the era. A little room is set aside for the repeated showing of The War Game.

I stepped into this little room and watched it. The seats were no less uncomfortable than the film. I dare say I was overly affected by the atmosphere of the bunker but I have to say I was genuinely chilled to the bone on seeing this creaky old film for the first time.

I recently got my own copy from BFI and viewed it in the comfort of my home. It still provided the same chill.

I was entertained by "The Day After", interested by "Threads" but "The War Game" wins the message game for me.

THE WAR GAME comes with a heavy reputation and was shown for the very first time on British television in 1985 , twenty years after it was first filmed - and banned - by the BBC. As a docu-drama it carries a punch perhaps not a strong a punch as THREADS but still a killer knockout punch with deeply disturbing images

The problem though is the polemical view that Watkins takes. People are asked about retaliation in the event of a nuclear strike , retaliation being the whole point of deterance - something Watkins fails to point out , and about strontuim 90 , a question that seems offensive in its smugness when people give the wrong answer. Oh and Watkins bashes the Church too ,very radical I must say . Christian CND - never heard of it

So all in all deeply disturbing stuff spoiled slightly by Watkins patronizing attitude that never allows the viewers to think for themselves.Very much better than THE DAY AFTER , not as good as THREADS

The War Game, although it follows a hypothetical scenario, is one of the best documentary films ever made. Based on British government documents detailing the probable aftermath of a nuclear war, it is one of the most chilling indictments of nuclear warfare ever made.

Unlike later films such as The Day After and Threads, the film does not rely on special effects to get its point across. Made on a minimal budget, it features little to no explosions or spectacle. Rather, we are given the stark vision of human suffering after a thermonuclear exchange.

Although the film goes into disturbing detail about the physical toll of nuclear war, the most unnerving parts revolve around the psychological toll, particularly the breakdown of authority and the emergence of mass post-traumatic shock syndrome.

Although the film has a definite stance, it benefits from a largely clinical delivery, with most of the polemic elements being used as bumpers between segments. Although the Cold War is over, this film will remain a classic both as a historical document and a warning to future generations.

A chilling pseudo-documentary dedicated to the measures England had in place to deal with nuclear attacks during the cold war era. Framed as a newscast interspersed with short, stern-faced lectures and quotes from the experts, it's a brutally honest glimpse into the horrors that were looming around every corner. Since it is, at heart, a public service film, it falls into a few of the associated traps - a low budget, obviously staged setups, a flood of monotone speakers glaring directly into the camera - but the unflinching approach it takes to such a powerful, intense subject excuses most of those shortcomings. By no means a party picture, it's still a fascinating look into how poorly prepared humanity was (and still is) for the mutual destruction its nations were flirting with, almost playfully, at the time. Chillingly effective, alarmingly grounded and hauntingly vivid - our trigger-happy national leaders could stand a modern viewing, lest the concept of nuclear war become too abstract.

A lot of actors walking around with lamp black on their face, a horrible vision of what no doubt would have been a horrible situation -- were it to have occurred. Of course it didn't occur which puts it on the plane of the "meteor destroys the Earth" plane of science fiction film except that it takes itself very seriously.

There are no answers in the movie, just an underlying attempt to ridicule any means of response. Since the holocaust was supposed to have occurred in 1980 in the movie, it is already demonstrated to be completely off base in its assumptions, a Malthusianesque curiosity dressed up in period costumes.

One supposes, based on its BBC source, that it might also be well categorized as a propaganda movie designed to demoralize Britain into disarmament. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, the West went on to win the Cold War under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and the sentiments of the movie were left to stew in its pile of bankrupt nihilism having ultimately failed in its purpose.

Definitely worth seeing, as is any propaganda film of the period, just to view the tools and methods of the losing side in the Cold War. And to confirm that the BBC hasn't changed much in its far left orientation and outlook.

The War Game is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. It's a pseudo-documentary made in 1965, about the possible effects of a nuclear attack on Great Britain. The director's premise is that Britain (and indeed the world) is hopelessly unprepared for such a thing. Some classic scenes: befuddled Brits receiving civil defence booklets. Blank stares greeting the interviewer when he asks Brits on the street about radioactive fallout. The footage is all made to look horribly real. Some of it looks a little hokey - the use of a shaky camera to simulate a desperate ground battle stands out - but there are also very convincing scenes of firestorms raging out of control, sucking the oxygen out of the air for blocks around. Also, incredible scenes of radiation burn victims, food riots, police polishing off the near dead, etc... The killer part is at the end - an interview with some young blast victims will haunt you for a long time.

"Do you know what Strontium-90 is, and what it does to the human body???"

I can recall the day when, in the 1970's here in Germany, my classmates and I went down to the cinema cellar of our big school, meanwhile flirting with the giggling girls, cracking jokes, trying to be cool - and watched this dramatized short documentary. Afterwards we were stunned and speechless, and in some of the faces you could read they had had tears during the show, deeply disturbed by the prospect that the pictures just seen could be our "future".

As good pedagogics goes, in the following hour we had time to talk with our class teacher about our impressions, thoughts, and fears. I am still grateful for that teacher and his idea to show us this movie, because it was one milestone in me towards a nonviolent world view.

After three decades I chanced to see this film again. It is as intense as ever and doesn't fail to show the audience that there won't be any winners of a nuclear war - ever. What bothers me is that nuclear deterrence still exists as a means of "defense". Don't think the menace is over.

I strongly recommend this documentary to be seen in as many classes as possible. The movie shows drastically what the nuclear abominations of the Cold War could (and still can) do. Hopefully our children's generation will be able to live without the threat of complete annihilation by a monstrous nuclear arsenal. Films like "The War Game" can change the public opinion and help building a more peaceful world.

If Peter Watkins The War Games had been broadcast as intended in 1965 it would had scared the hell out of people of Britain. The BBC delayed its broadcast until 1985. By that time the BBC scared the nation with the drama Threads.

The War Game was released in the cinemas and won the Best Documentary Oscar, however this is not a documentary.

This docu-drama imagines the effects of a nuclear strike in Britain. It is based on research of nuclear tests carried out in the USA, the impact of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombing campaigns and its aftermath in various German cities during World War 2.

This is a grim film, it gets darker the more it goes on. Coldly showing the deaths from the aftermath of a nuclear strike but also showing a society that is breaking down.

Even 50 years later this is a shockingly bleak film.

Made in 1965 for BBC television and subsequently banned as being too horrific to screen, (it was released to cinemas and won an Oscar in the Best Documentary category, although, of course, it isn't a documentary), Peter Watkins' masterpiece is just as effective today as it was forty years ago. What Watkins chose to do was to make a fictionalized film, (though using all the facts at hand), in the style of a documentary about Britain just before, during and after a nuclear attack and it all looks remarkably real.

There are no central characters, no-one to identify with, nothing, in fact, to make us think that this is anything other than what it appears to be, namely a Public Information film on the aftermath of 'the Bomb'. The Cold War may have ended and warfare, in general, may have taken a different turn but this extraordinarily powerful, terrifying and ultimately moving film should, nevertheless, serve as a reminder of what could still lie ahead of us. Mandatory viewing.

They did a great job of capturing what a post nuclear England would look like and boy is it scary. It was a little dated and the quality of the recording I had wasn't the best but it got the message across. Threads is much more terrifying than this, but this one was good.

This fictional documentary draws conclusions about what might happen in a worst-case scenario nuclear bomb explosion in England.

This is not found footage although I found this on a list of FF movies. This was really interesting to watch, though. There are some scenes with the shaky handheld camera, but this is presented in a documentary style and does not mention recovered footage.

This is good, though. It's interesting. They do use handheld cameras when depicting the devastation and it does look like it could be from some FF horror film at some points which is why I think I found it on a FF database. It's cool to see how parts of these movies could go on and start to develop what FF movies commonly use today.

Great makeup as well because those survivors looked crispy!

The War Game purports itself as a fictional documentary, but in truth it's just anti-nuclear propaganda. The bias of the filmmaker is so obvious as to render the whole concept just a recitation of anti-nuclear literature. This movie is intended to scare you to the point that you cannot think rationally and support the anti-nuclear movement. The number of outright mistakes, falsehoods, and misrepresentations would take too long to list here, but suffice it to say it inspired bursts of laughter among several colleagues who are experts in the subject. While the visuals are interesting, this movie has more in common with Leni Reifenstahls "Triumph of the Will" than I suspect the movie maker would care to admit.