Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Shortly after the Cuban missile crisis, Cold War deterrence politics reached a peak, inspiring Stanley Kubrick to make this black comedy about an accidental US nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Already, Kubrick demonstrates all his unrivaled talent as a conceptual filmmaker. The narrative constantly cuts back and forth between three locations (the War Room in the Pentagon; the military base from which the insane general gave the order to treat the Russians to atomic bombs; the B-52 bomber en route to the communist target) and three Peter Sellers (a weak US president; a stiff upper lip RAF officer; the crippled Dr Strangelove who learns to walk again as the world heads for destruction). Terry Southern wrote the rock-solid script full of absurd dialogue ("Gentlemen, you can't fight here, this is the War Room!") that, together with Kubrick's super-powerful direction, makes this 60-year-old film a timeless classic.