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Special Features
Editorial Reviews
About the Director
Written and Directed by Acclaimed Documentarian Lucy Walker (The Devil's Playground, Blindsight), Produced by Academy Award® winner Lawrence Bender (Inglourious Basterds, An Inconvenient Truth)
Product Description
Countdown to Zero traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: nine nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities with others racing to join them, leaving the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident. The film makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament; an issue more topical than ever with the Obama administration working to revive this goal in the present day.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Countdown to Zero is a reminder that just because the Cold War is over does not mean the danger passed
June 11, 2010
Format:DVD
From the people who brought you "An Inconvenient Truth" comes "Countdown to Zero," written and directed by Lucy Walker and produced by Lawrence Bender. After the Cold War, nuclear arms were scaled back and the public naively felt the danger had passed. Although only nine nations developed and continue to possess nuclear weapons, forty others have the knowledge to do it and it is only a matter of time before human error or terrorist pursuits could make a huge lasting impact on this planet.
"Countdown to Zero" does a fantastic job of setting up the situation first with the history of the bomb, the Manhatten project, and the horrors they caused. It reveals many shocking instances where due to human or machine error, we or other countries were mere minutes or even seconds away from firing the first missile. With all these nuclear weapons set to a hair trigger that can be fired within one minute of receiving the order, we live in a dangerous reality indeed.
The film also explores the ways to obtain highly refined uranium and how surprisingly easy it is if you know the right people. We assume that even with the materials, it would still be difficult to construct a usable bomb but that also proves false. A large team might be needed but bomb construction can be as easy as pie and the beauty of it is that it does not need to be perfect, it just needs to go boom! and the end result will be the same. It is far too easy to smuggle the uranium into the United States should anyone want to and even the best detection equipment makes mistakes. So basically there are three ways to get bombs: make them, steal them, or buy them and it is almost impossible to keep up with preventing all these ways so it would be much easier to eliminate them altogether.
The impact different types of bombs could have and how far the fall out would spread would be devastating anywhere at any time. The goal of the film is to remind the public that this threat still exists and with a large enough outcry from the people, more progress could be made to eliminate ALL nuclear weapons everywhere.
This documentary is informative and engrossing and I would highly recommend checking it out. It is easy with all the other problems out there to forget about nuclear weapons being an issue since it seems so Cold War era, but it still is an issue that needs to be resolved and this movie serves as a great reminder. It opens in theaters July 23, 2010.
"Countdown to Zero" does a fantastic job of setting up the situation first with the history of the bomb, the Manhatten project, and the horrors they caused. It reveals many shocking instances where due to human or machine error, we or other countries were mere minutes or even seconds away from firing the first missile. With all these nuclear weapons set to a hair trigger that can be fired within one minute of receiving the order, we live in a dangerous reality indeed.
The film also explores the ways to obtain highly refined uranium and how surprisingly easy it is if you know the right people. We assume that even with the materials, it would still be difficult to construct a usable bomb but that also proves false. A large team might be needed but bomb construction can be as easy as pie and the beauty of it is that it does not need to be perfect, it just needs to go boom! and the end result will be the same. It is far too easy to smuggle the uranium into the United States should anyone want to and even the best detection equipment makes mistakes. So basically there are three ways to get bombs: make them, steal them, or buy them and it is almost impossible to keep up with preventing all these ways so it would be much easier to eliminate them altogether.
The impact different types of bombs could have and how far the fall out would spread would be devastating anywhere at any time. The goal of the film is to remind the public that this threat still exists and with a large enough outcry from the people, more progress could be made to eliminate ALL nuclear weapons everywhere.
This documentary is informative and engrossing and I would highly recommend checking it out. It is easy with all the other problems out there to forget about nuclear weapons being an issue since it seems so Cold War era, but it still is an issue that needs to be resolved and this movie serves as a great reminder. It opens in theaters July 23, 2010.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Upon the demise of the Soviet Union, many of us thought the nuclear threat is all but gone. After all, the weapons' manufacture is diabolically complex, there is no "evil empire," no arch rival to keep us occupied. So the issue no longer exists, right?
WRONG!
I ran across a short piece in Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies which indicated that those whom we have labled as "terrorists" may not put a lot of value on life, and/or many not really comprehend the degree of damage they may inflict should they use such weapons. (Those are my words, not those of the article's author, or those of the volume's editor, Russ Kick.) It certainly gave me something to think about. Then I talked with an old friend who has for decades been a rival of nuclear energy. He suggested the waste from nuke plants could, if taken by an adversary, be used for acts we cannot yet imagine. That too gave me something to think about.
So I was compelled to see this film.
The film begins with a Kennedy speech, with President Kennedy at the UN on September 25, 1961 warning us of "the nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness." That speech was used as a visual technique throughout the film guiding us through the words, their applicability, even in some ways their irony. (Back in the Kennedy era, I don't know that we anticipated accident or madness, probably to our near demise!) And the film eventually led to the Kennedy speech applying it to today, when it's no less important than the nearly half century ago when the speech was originally given!
I was surprised by little of the film except that to make such weapons is not anywhere near as complex as we'd been led to believe. What's more, while there is uranium, one of the fissionable elements (the other is plutonium, which I think is man-made) all over the world, a fraction of one percent of the element could be used for nuclear weapons. But to make the weapons grade element, one only needs a centrifuge. And that item isn't particularly complex, and is readily available. Indeed, Iran has several; President Ahmadinajad apparently sees having access to such weapons an item of prestige: if you have 'em, why can't we?
That, of course, was an element of the level of nuclear proliferation throughout the world. The US began producing such weapons in 1945. We were followed by the Soviets, the British, the French, Israel, now India and Pakistan also have nuclear weapons, as does China and other countries.
While the film was covering that issue, there was also discussion of the military officers who manned the missile silos. While that issue may seem dated, the proliferation issue certainly is not. As the ability to produce such weapons spreads, so does the ability of someone to steal some fissionable material and sell it. Sure enough, there were such thieves, one of them only caught because he was trying to market his "product" with some of his buddies who were selling something more innocuous.
How much of the fissile material may be on the black market worldwide? Heaven only knows. And, again, for someone to make it is not as complicated as many of us would like.
Then there were the accidents; at a few times, we were closer to a devestating nuclear war than many of us now. Boris Yeltsin for some reason did not attack when the Russians were apparently under attack by US. (Maybe for the first time in my life, I could think, "Thank heaven for Yeltsin!)
People interviewed for the film included Valarie Plame Wilson, and even Mr. Gorbachev. He and even Reagan apparently recognized the danger of having such weapons. While they were on the verge of eliminating the weapons during their summit in Iceland, apparently the US wouldn't yield on the Reagan fantasy, SDI ("Star Wars.") Had we given in, we may today be closer to eliminating what could be the end of our planet!
The director also interviewed citizens all over the world. They apparently were no more aware of the nuclear threat than most of us. But towards the end of the film, all agreed: for all of us to be safe, the weapons must be eliminated.
So, no, we're not free of a nuclear threat. Indeed, the threat may be more grave now that it was during the cold war.
I'll agree with those from all the countries in which people testified for the film: If I hadn't been convinced of it before, the film convinced me of the need to end the use and/or preparation of nuclear weapons.
WRONG!
I ran across a short piece in Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies which indicated that those whom we have labled as "terrorists" may not put a lot of value on life, and/or many not really comprehend the degree of damage they may inflict should they use such weapons. (Those are my words, not those of the article's author, or those of the volume's editor, Russ Kick.) It certainly gave me something to think about. Then I talked with an old friend who has for decades been a rival of nuclear energy. He suggested the waste from nuke plants could, if taken by an adversary, be used for acts we cannot yet imagine. That too gave me something to think about.
So I was compelled to see this film.
The film begins with a Kennedy speech, with President Kennedy at the UN on September 25, 1961 warning us of "the nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness." That speech was used as a visual technique throughout the film guiding us through the words, their applicability, even in some ways their irony. (Back in the Kennedy era, I don't know that we anticipated accident or madness, probably to our near demise!) And the film eventually led to the Kennedy speech applying it to today, when it's no less important than the nearly half century ago when the speech was originally given!
I was surprised by little of the film except that to make such weapons is not anywhere near as complex as we'd been led to believe. What's more, while there is uranium, one of the fissionable elements (the other is plutonium, which I think is man-made) all over the world, a fraction of one percent of the element could be used for nuclear weapons. But to make the weapons grade element, one only needs a centrifuge. And that item isn't particularly complex, and is readily available. Indeed, Iran has several; President Ahmadinajad apparently sees having access to such weapons an item of prestige: if you have 'em, why can't we?
That, of course, was an element of the level of nuclear proliferation throughout the world. The US began producing such weapons in 1945. We were followed by the Soviets, the British, the French, Israel, now India and Pakistan also have nuclear weapons, as does China and other countries.
While the film was covering that issue, there was also discussion of the military officers who manned the missile silos. While that issue may seem dated, the proliferation issue certainly is not. As the ability to produce such weapons spreads, so does the ability of someone to steal some fissionable material and sell it. Sure enough, there were such thieves, one of them only caught because he was trying to market his "product" with some of his buddies who were selling something more innocuous.
How much of the fissile material may be on the black market worldwide? Heaven only knows. And, again, for someone to make it is not as complicated as many of us would like.
Then there were the accidents; at a few times, we were closer to a devestating nuclear war than many of us now. Boris Yeltsin for some reason did not attack when the Russians were apparently under attack by US. (Maybe for the first time in my life, I could think, "Thank heaven for Yeltsin!)
People interviewed for the film included Valarie Plame Wilson, and even Mr. Gorbachev. He and even Reagan apparently recognized the danger of having such weapons. While they were on the verge of eliminating the weapons during their summit in Iceland, apparently the US wouldn't yield on the Reagan fantasy, SDI ("Star Wars.") Had we given in, we may today be closer to eliminating what could be the end of our planet!
The director also interviewed citizens all over the world. They apparently were no more aware of the nuclear threat than most of us. But towards the end of the film, all agreed: for all of us to be safe, the weapons must be eliminated.
So, no, we're not free of a nuclear threat. Indeed, the threat may be more grave now that it was during the cold war.
I'll agree with those from all the countries in which people testified for the film: If I hadn't been convinced of it before, the film convinced me of the need to end the use and/or preparation of nuclear weapons.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Countdown to Zero treats a subject that everyone needs to know more about, but almost no one wants to face. Hopefully, this professionally produced film will help overcome that. I found it riveting. And don't let "but zero is dangerous" scare you off. The film is not advocating immediate, much less unilateral, nuclear disarmament. Colin Powell and other military leaders wouldn't be involved if that were the case! Rather, what's proposed is a step-by-step process to take us back from the nuclear abyss in a way that enhances our security. Too many people jump to the wrong conclusion that posing the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons requires rash action. It's a vision and a goal, not a call for impossible and dangerous action.
The review here that says nuclear deterrence works, so there's nothing to worry about, is just dead wrong -- as is the societal belief it reflects. One of the most frequent such "What me worry?" arguments points to the last 65 years without a world war and says "It ain't broke, so don't fix it!" Given that a child born today has an expected lifetime of 78 years and we have had a number of near misses in the last 65 years, that is weak evidence at best.
While the Cuban Missile Crisis is the best known near miss (and, for many people, the only one they know of), there have been many, many more. 1961 Berlin, 1983 Able Archer, the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, the 1993 Russian coup attempt, the 1995 Norwegian rocket false alarm (the one time the Russian nuclear launch codes were opened in front of a leader -- thank God Yeltsin was sober enough to make the right decision), and the 2008 Georgian war are just the ones that come to my mind as I write this. And, then there's the specter of nuclear terrorism. Countdown does a fantastic job of conveying the horrendous risk that society is neglecting. Hopefully more people will watch this film and start demanding that we defuse the nuclear suicide machine we've constructed.
If you want more info than this review can convey, do a web search on "defusing the nuclear threat" -- with the quotes.
Other things to look at:
Nuclear Tipping Point DVD: A web search on its title will bring up links for getting a free DVD. Imagine Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell calling for a world free of nuclear weapons? You don't have to. Watch the DVD and hear them do it, along with Bill Perry, Sam Nunn, Mikhail Gorbachev and others.
Peter Vincent Pry's book War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink has details on most of the near misses I listed, plus one more.
David Hoffman's book The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy won the Pulitzer for non-fiction and includes a description of a Soviet doomsday machine -- the "dead hand" that can reach from the grave and retaliate even after the leadership was destroyed in an American attack. But what about the chance for the system failing?
Tad Daley's book Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World is another great read. Lots of useful info.
The review here that says nuclear deterrence works, so there's nothing to worry about, is just dead wrong -- as is the societal belief it reflects. One of the most frequent such "What me worry?" arguments points to the last 65 years without a world war and says "It ain't broke, so don't fix it!" Given that a child born today has an expected lifetime of 78 years and we have had a number of near misses in the last 65 years, that is weak evidence at best.
While the Cuban Missile Crisis is the best known near miss (and, for many people, the only one they know of), there have been many, many more. 1961 Berlin, 1983 Able Archer, the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, the 1993 Russian coup attempt, the 1995 Norwegian rocket false alarm (the one time the Russian nuclear launch codes were opened in front of a leader -- thank God Yeltsin was sober enough to make the right decision), and the 2008 Georgian war are just the ones that come to my mind as I write this. And, then there's the specter of nuclear terrorism. Countdown does a fantastic job of conveying the horrendous risk that society is neglecting. Hopefully more people will watch this film and start demanding that we defuse the nuclear suicide machine we've constructed.
If you want more info than this review can convey, do a web search on "defusing the nuclear threat" -- with the quotes.
Other things to look at:
Nuclear Tipping Point DVD: A web search on its title will bring up links for getting a free DVD. Imagine Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell calling for a world free of nuclear weapons? You don't have to. Watch the DVD and hear them do it, along with Bill Perry, Sam Nunn, Mikhail Gorbachev and others.
Peter Vincent Pry's book War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink has details on most of the near misses I listed, plus one more.
David Hoffman's book The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy won the Pulitzer for non-fiction and includes a description of a Soviet doomsday machine -- the "dead hand" that can reach from the grave and retaliate even after the leadership was destroyed in an American attack. But what about the chance for the system failing?
Tad Daley's book Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World is another great read. Lots of useful info.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An astonishing film
Never heard of this film? It's because it's so hard to watch. I taught the History of Technology at the City University of New York and showed this the last week of class. Read more
Published 6 days ago by David Ezell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking and informative
This is the second time I have watched this documentary, and both times I have come away with a determination in my heart to work towards global peace. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jeffrey A. Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent documentary
This is one of the more interesting and compelling documentaries I have seen. It chronicles how not much has changed in the post-cold war period in terms of MAD and the nuclear... Read more
Published 1 month ago by music lover
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very informative film
This is well worth watching. We have become complacent about this issue. Getting ahold of nuclear technology is not that easy to get ahold of, but a lot of countries are still... Read more
Published 1 month ago by John Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reasonable Thoughts
Compose the real reasons why Atomic materials are loose in our world and conclusive answers will appear. There are very few reasons the world needs them!
Published 2 months ago by Clarence L. Albertson
3.0 out of 5 stars
Julie
It wasn't what I expected but the content was very interesting and informative. There was too much repetitive information. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Julie
4.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing and unfortunately real!
More than happy with the content of this documentary. It confirms that absolute mess this world is in due to greedy self indulgent politicians and war mongers, and that includes... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Teshuvah
5.0 out of 5 stars
great documentary
this movie is fantastic and the message is very scary but it is the reality of the world that we live in. as much as you hear people say why don't we nuke so and so. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Ariel Saralegui
1.0 out of 5 stars
Movie fueling the uneducated. Waste of time.
The video states that Iran has the nuclear capabilities of creating a nuclear bomb but has not given a real reason on why they would want one and why they would even use one. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mazi
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking
I believe our current generation has been raised in great naivaté regarding the current situation of the nuclear arsenals around the world. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Priscilla Bean
