In the Nuclear Shadow: What Can the Children Tell Us?

Nuclear Rescue 911: Broken Arrows & Incidents

January 2001 •English

Since 1950, there have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents, known as "Broken Arrows." A Broken Arrow is defined as an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of the weapon. To date, six nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered.Now, recently declassified documents reveal the history and secrecy surrounding the events known as "Broken Arrows". There have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents since 1950. Six of these nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered. What does this say about our defense system? What does this mean to our threatened environment? What do we do to rectify these monumental "mistakes"? Using spectacular special effects, newly uncovered and recently declassified footage, filmmaker Peter Kuran explores the accidents, incidents and exercises in the secret world of nuclear weapons.

The Neutron Bomb

October 2022 •English

We've all heard of the atomic bomb, but in the late 1950s, an idea was conceived of a bomb which would maximize damage to people, but minimize damage to buildings and vital infrastructure: perfect for an occupying army. This is the story of a man and his bomb: a melding of world events and scientific discovery inspire the neutron bomb, one of the most hated nuclear weapons ever invented.

Oppenheimer After Trinity

April 2023 •English

This captivating documentary on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the architect of the atomic bomb, explores his journey before the historic test and reveals the burden he carried after. De-classified documents, rare film footage and exclusive interviews, including Oppenheimer's grandson, show an intimate exploration of the burden Oppenheimer carried and the profound global impact still being debated today.

A Compassionate Spy

August 2022 •English

Physicist Ted Hall is recruited to join the Manhattan Project as a teenager and goes to Los Alamos with no idea what he'll be working on. When he learns the true nature of the weapon being designed, he fears the post-war risk of a nuclear holocaust and begins to pass significant information to the Soviet Union.

Mururoa 1973

October 1973 •English

In 1973 Alister Barry joined the crew of a protest boat (The Fri) to Mururoa Atoll, where the French Government were testing nuclear weapons. Barry records the assembly of the crew, the long journey from Northland, and their reception in the test zone; when The Fri was boarded and impounded by French military he had to hide his camera in a barrel of oranges.

The Decision to Drop the Bomb

January 1965 •English

J. Robert Oppenheimer and other key figures involved in the decision to drop the first atomic bomb discuss their motivations in this NBC News documentary. Originally produced and televised in 1965, two decades after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was re-released in 2023 with an epilogue by Michael Beschloss, NBC News Presidential Historian.

To End All War: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb

July 2023 •English

Explore how one man's relentless drive and invention of the atomic bomb changed the nature of war forever, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and unleashed mass hysteria.

Manufacturing Death: Birth of the Atom Bomb

June 2023 •English

The birth of the atomic bomb changed the world forever. In the years before the Manhattan project, a weapon of such power was not even remotely imaginable to most people on earth. And yet, with war comes new inventions. New ways of destroying the enemy. New machines to wipe out human life. The advent of nuclear weapons not only brought an end to the largest conflict in history, but also ushered in an atomic age and a defining era of "big science". However, with the world now gripped by nuclear weapons, we exist constantly on the edge of mankind's total destruction.

Inside Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer

July 2023 •English

A look behind the scenes of Christopher Nolan's film "Oppenheimer" about an American scientist and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

8000 Stolen Futures: The Children at the Center of the A-Bomb

November 2022 •English

On August 6, 1945, the first-ever nuclear bomb deployed in war was dropped on the city of Hiroshima Prefecture, leaving an estimated 140,000 dead in its wake by the end of that year. Among the victims, one particular age group stands out for the sheer number of fatalities sustained: 12 and 13 year-olds, children of first year junior high school age. We investigate the tragedy of this lost generation, piecing together surviving records and speaking with survivors, for whom the memories of children robbed of their futures that day are still burned deep in their memories, nearly eight decades on.

Women - For America, For the World

January 1986 •English

Twenty-two prominent American women discuss their activism for nuclear disarmament and their motivations in seeking the end of the arms race.

El principio del fin de las armas nucleares

January 2019 •Spanish

Test of a clean hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons

December 1961 •Russian

Documentary movie about testing of the largest nuclear weapon in history, the Tsar Bomba. Declassified and made available to the public in 2020.

The Forgotten Bomb

August 2011 •English

When the Cold War ended, worry about nuclear weapons receded. But has the nuclear threat really diminished? Join Bud Ryan on a personal and global journey to discover what the bomber can learn from the bombed, and what our prospects look like for finally living in a nuclear-free world. Features interviews with bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, authors Gar Alperovitz and Jonathan Schell, and many more.

Stockpile: The New Nuclear Menace

October 2001 •English

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the threat of a nuclear war between the USA and Russia has diminished, but the threat posed by nuclear weapons and materials on both sides has increased. As nuclear weapons age, they become unstable and begin to behave in unpredictable ways. This film is the first to go behind the scenes in Arzamas-16 - the Russian nuclear city so secret that it has never appeared on any map - and the American nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to see Russian and American bomb designers working together to reduce the risk. Exclusive archive material.

On the Brink: Doomsday

January 1997 •English

The A-Bomb, the H-Bomb, Cold War, Kennedy, Khrushchev, Yeltsin, Reagan...Who said that the world was a safe place?

City 40

April 2016 •English

Hidden in the heart of Russia, there is a Soviet-era city where thousands of people live and work behind barbed-wire fences monitored by armed guards. It is Ozyorsk (Ozersk), located in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, one of the most polluted places on the planet and home to the largest stockpiles of nuclear material. Its code name: City 40.

Nuclear Nightmares

November 1979 •English

Peter Ustinov hosts this haunting 1980 documentary exploring the world's nuclear weaponry and the fragile system that deters either side from initiating the first nuclear strike. Although the world's political climate has mellowed since the Cold War era, Nuclear Nightmares takes the viewer back in time to gain a perspective of what it was like to live under a very real nuclear threat.

Radio Bikini

March 1988 •English

It starts with a live radio broadcast from the Bikini Atoll a few days before it is annihilated by a nuclear test. Shows great footage from these times and tells the story of the US Navy Sailors who were exposed to radioactive fallout. One interviewed sailor suffered grotesquely swollen limbs and he is shown being interviewed with enormous left arm and hand.

Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment

October 1991 •English

This 1991 Academy Award®-winning documentary uncovers the disastrous health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials by the General Electric Corporation.