World War 3 on screen: 8 movies that feel too real right now

While World War III remains (thankfully) a hypothetical scenario, filmmakers have never shied away from exploring what might happen if the world plunged into another global conflict. From political tension to nuclear annihilation, these movies explored worst-case scenarios that now feel eerily relevant.

Stanley Kubrick’s darkly hilarious satire about nuclear war remains one of the most iconic depictions of how easily global destruction can unfold due to human error and ego.

A teenage hacker accidentally accesses a U.S. military supercomputer programmed to simulate nuclear war. What starts as a game quickly spirals into a real-world crisis.

A serious and suspenseful Cold War thriller where a mechanical failure mistakenly sends U.S. bombers to nuke Moscow. The movie is tense and realistic.

Set on a U.S. nuclear submarine during a political standoff with Russia, this thriller explores a mutiny triggered by conflicting orders to launch nuclear missiles.

Ben Affleck plays Jack Ryan in this political thriller where a nuclear bomb detonated by terrorists threatens to ignite WWIII between the U.S. and Russia.

A U.S. President trapped in a snowstorm faces a nuclear standoff with Iraq and must decide whether to launch a pre-emptive strike.

While not strictly WWIII, its depiction of global collapse, mass migration, and militarised governments paints a haunting vision of post-apocalyptic unrest that feels very real.

After nuclear war wipes out most of the world, the last survivors in Australia await the radioactive fallout. A slow, emotional take on the end of humanity.