9. Threads (1984)
This might possibly be the most upsetting film on this list. Made for TV in 1984, Mick Jackson (The Bodyguard, L.A.Story and Volcano) takes Barry Hines' (Kes) story and turns in a docudrama which is unforgettable and truly plays on the very real fear of nuclear war. The War Game (1965) came before it but Threads works through its almost mundane opening half, and it's all the more shocking for that. Set in Sheffield in 1984, we follow Ruth Beckett (Karen Meagher) and Jimmy Kemp (Reece Dinsdale) as they prepare for their adult lives together with all the trappings we expect (marriage, children and a secure job). Ruth even announces that she is pregnant, much to the consternation of Jimmy's parents. So far, so Coronation Street. The first half hour, however, is peppered with TV and radio news, often in the background, discussing a rising state of tension between the US and the USSR. A growing military presence is felt, and almost ignored, by the characters until, the most terrifying sound you could imagine when you know international tensions are growing, the air-raid siren. As Jimmy runs home to his wife, the bomb is dropped and the world is changed forever. The second half of the film is as horrifying as the first as we follow Ruth through the apocalyptic wasteland of Britain but it is the first half, with its mundane attention to detail which grabs the viewer. Through Hines' brilliant depiction of real life, when the bomb drops and Jimmy disappears, we're in complete shock. By the end of the piece, as the wind howls and there will clearly not be a 'Hollywood happy ending' we're left broken as the credits roll over a silent screen.