The War Game

This article is about the 1966 BBC television film. For other uses, including several similarly named films, see War game (disambiguation).

The War Game
Directed byPeter Watkins
Written byPeter Watkins
Produced byPeter Watkins
Narrated byMichael Aspel
Peter Graham
CinematographyPeter Bartlett
Peter Suschitzky (uncredited)
Edited byMichael Bradsell
Production
company
Distributed byBritish Film Institute
Release date
  • 13 April 1966 (1966-04-13)
Running time
47 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The War Game is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath.[1] Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC,[2] it caused dismay within the BBC and within government, and was withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965.[3] The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."[4]

The film premiered at the National Film Theatre in London, on 13 April 1966, where it ran until 3 May.[5] It was then shown abroad at several film festivals, including Venice where it won the Special Prize. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1967.[6][7]

The film was eventually televised in Great Britain on 31 July 1985, during the week before the fortieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the day before a repeat screening of Threads.[8]

  1. ^ MUBI
  2. ^ "The War Game". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 19 August 2024.
  3. ^ Chapman, James (2006). "The BBC and the Censorship of The War Game". Journal of Contemporary History. 41 (1): 84. doi:10.1177/0022009406058675. S2CID 159498499.
  4. ^ "BBC film censored? (Parliamentary question asked in the House of Commons by William Hamilton MP about the TV film 'The War Game')". The National Archives (CAB 21/5808). 2 December 1965.
  5. ^ The Guardian, 1–3 April 1966
  6. ^ 1967|Oscars.org
  7. ^ Sean O'Sullivan, "No Such Thing as Society: Television and the Apocalypse" in Lester D. Friedman Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism, p,224
  8. ^ Heroes By John Pilger pg 532, 1986, ISBN 9781407086293