Nuclear weapons in popular culture

Since their public debut in August 1945, nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture,[1] to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age".

After the United States began a regular program of nuclear testing in the late 1940s, continuing through the 1950s (and matched by the Soviet Union), the mushroom cloud has served as a symbol of the weapons themselves.

These drills, with their images of eerily empty streets and the activity of hiding from a nuclear bomb under a schoolroom desk, would later become symbols of the seemingly inescapable and common fate created by such weapons.

Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb satirically portrayed the events and the thinking that could begin a nuclear war.

[10] Indian films involving non-state actors and nuclear weapons include Agent Vinod (1977) by Deepak Bahry and a 2012 film of the same name by Sriram Raghavan, Vikram (1986) by Rajasekhar, Mr. India (1987) by Shekhar Kapoor, Tirangaa (1993) by Mehul Kumar, The Hero: Love Story of a Spy (2003) by Anil Sharma, Fanaa (2006) by Kunal Kohli, and Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) by Ali Abbas Zafar.

[11] Sacred Games, an Indian Netflix series based on the novel of the same name, involves the acquirement of a nuclear bomb by an apocalyptic cult who plans to blow it up in Mumbai.