01
The Day After
Why this pick
Like Special Bulletin, it uses an unnervingly immediate broadcast-era realism to make a national emergency feel personal, escalating from ordinary life into a grave, plausible crisis.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1983 1h 43m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Special Bulletin
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Special Bulletin, try these.
01
02
Threads
Why this pick
Its faux-documentary news texture, procedural detail and relentlessly escalating public catastrophe create the same disturbing sense that television coverage is capturing events beyond anyone’s control.
03
The China Syndrome
Why this pick
This tense media-and-institution thriller shares Special Bulletin’s fascination with live reporting, official containment and the frightening stakes of deciding what the public gets to see.
04
Without Warning
Why this pick
Built as a seamless mock television broadcast, it sustains the same disorienting, real-time experience of anchors and reporters trying to interpret an escalating emergency.
05
The War Game
Why this pick
Peter Watkins’s stark pseudo-news documentary style delivers a similarly convincing civic nightmare, using reporters, official voices and observational detail rather than conventional thriller spectacle.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
A “Breaking news” slide interrupts commercials for the fictional RBS television network, leading to an emergency newscast hosted by Susan Myles and John Woodley. In Charleston, South Carolina, reporter Steve Levitt and his cameraman are caught in a firefight between the U.S. Coast Guard and a group of terrorists on a tugboat. Overwhelmed, the coast guards surrender, and they, along with the camera crew, are taken hostage onboard the tugboat.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Ed Flanders
John Woodley
Kathryn Walker
Susan Myles
Christopher Allport
Steven Levitt
Rosalind Cash
Frieda Barton
Ebbe Roe Smith
Jim Seaver
Frank Dent
Dr. Jason Halpern
Roxanne Hart
Megan 'Meg' Barclay
David Clennon
Dr. Bruce Lyman