Stanley Kubrick’s 'Dr. Strangelove' marks 60 years of Cold War comedy

The funniest movie ever made about the end of the world

Can nuclear annihilation be funny? As shown 60 years ago in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, you bet it can. The film was released on January 29, 1964, 60 years ago this week.

The film, directed by Kubrick, and written by the director, Terry Southern and Peter George is based on Red Alert, a novel by George. The novel was a completely straightforward, serious look at the prospect of nuclear war. The movie was something very different: A comedy and satire about nuclear brinksmanship, and how a combination of malevolence, cowardice, and idiocy can have horrific consequences. 

If you’ve ever studied international relations, you’ve likely heard of the doctrine of Mutual assured destruction (MAD). That means that if there are two superpowers and they both have nuclear capability and second-strike abilities, the two sides will deter one another and for that reason, nuclear annihilation will be avoided. Since the start of the Cold War, this has held, although there have been a couple of near-misses.