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No. 49: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Nuclear war was never so much fun

by
Jody Rosen
December 07, 2011

1964, dir. Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 comedy turned the nuclear standoff into screwball farce, complete with war-mongering brigadier generals, bumbling Soviets, Air Force commanders who ride nuclear warheads like rodeo cowboys, and the titular weapons expert (Peter Sellers), a former Nazi whose hand involuntary jerks upward into a Heil Hitler salute. The film ends with one of the most indelible, grimly comic sequences in cinema: nukes detonating across the world as Vera Lynn croons “We’ll Meet Again.”

Jody Rosen is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.