The 97th Academy Awards ceremony was held last night in Los Angeles and while no nuclear power or nuclear weapon-themed movies were among the front runners for the 2025 Oscars, here are a few of the more memorable ones from past years.
This list was curated by Exchange Monitor. Your list may vary.
Oppenheimer is the biopic on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who helped develop the first nuclear weapons at Los Alamos. It walked away with most of the major awards during the 96th Oscars. While Oppenheimer is a historical movie, the others on the list are fiction.
Crimson Tide (1995) features a clash of wills between a U.S. nuclear sub commander (Gene Hackman) and his new executive officer (Denzel Washington). The movie grossed more than $157 million, according to an Internet search. It did not win major awards.
Hunt for Red October (1990) did not win many major awards but grossed more than $200 million in revenue, according to an Internet search. Based on a bestselling novel by Tom Clancy, it is the tale of a Soviet Union nuclear submarine captain (Sean Connery) and his plot to defect to the United States.
War Games (1983) dubbed a techno-thriller tells of how a teenager (Matthew Broderick) hacks into a U.S. government supercomputer and nearly starts a nuclear war by accident. The movie is said to have real-world significance in that President Ronald Reagan reportedly watched the film and directed his advisers to take steps limiting the chances of an inadvertent nuclear exchange.
China Syndrome (1979) won a cache of Oscars the following year. The story of a fictional nuclear accident at a California reactor starred Jane Fonda and other big names. It was released 12 days before the real-life Three Mile Island United 2 partial meltdown in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was directed by Stanley Kubrick and is considered a Cold War political satire, black comedy. Features an unforgettable scene with actor Slim Pickens.
