For No Reason, Here Are Five Movies About Life After a Nuclear War

Seriously, for no reason at all, nope.

My father was 13 years old when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened, and while that’s probably too young to fully comprehend what was happening, he certainly remembers that it was terrifying. As a Generation X kid who grew up in a time of fallout shelters and get-under-your-desk-the-bombs-are-coming drills, the idea of nuclear war returning to the realm of conversation is, uh, maybe not my favorite thing. But this door has really been open for 70-plus years now. We’re just remembering it now.

Nuclear war has been such a driving fear for so long now our popular culture has assimilated it into a sort of primal terror, almost a horror trope in and of itself. If you’re looking for manifestations of this existential nightmare, the movies have it for you. Here are the best five movies about a scenario we’d fooled ourselves into thinking we didn’t have to worry about anymore.

Ladybug Ladybug (1963)

A movie that focuses on an elementary school, how children would react to trying to stay as safe, or at least human, in the wake of…