Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

sydneyswesternsuburbs Director Fred Barzyk has created a classic in Countdown to Looking Glass.Starring Scott Glenn who has been in other classic flicks, Apocalypse Now 1979, The Right Stuff 1983, Silverado 1985, The Silence of the Lambs 1991, Extreme Justice 1993, The Last Marshal 1999, Training Day 2001, The Bourne Ultimatum 2007 and Into the Grizzly Maze 2015.Also starring Michael Murphy has has been in other classic flicks, White House Down 2013, Salvador 1986 and two episodes of the classic television series, Combat! 1962-1967.I enjoyed the television scenes.If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic nuclear bomb theme flicks, Special Bulletin 1983 and By Dawn's Early Light 1990.

kellynchad I first watched this presentation on TV in 1984 - I'm thinking it was aired in Canada first before it was shown on HBO in October. At the time I could only appreciate it as a film about nuclear war; some thirty years later, however, I've come to appreciate it as an extraordinary masterwork of television drama. Patrick Watson, a well-known broadcaster in Canada, does a superb and almost surreal job straddling the line between actor and anchor, bringing a gravitas to Don Tobin to rival any U.S. news anchor on the air in 1983-4. Helen Shaver is perfect as the world-weary Dorian Waldorf, whose one shot at preventing the crisis from escalating and at boosting her profile as a journalist is blown by the tardiness of a would-be "Deep Throat". And then there's Scott Glenn: as the embedded Middle East correspondent Michael Boyle, he predates Arthur Kent's "Scud Stud" persona by a good six years and perfectly demonstrates the gritty glamour of foreign-assignment journalism during the 1980s. Any of them would have fit in on an actual news broadcast: all of them together make the presentation frighteningly realistic and compelling. The production, though certainly low-budget, was extremely tight and took full advantage of its limitations to lend verisimilitude to the scenario of a TV station's news department. It also took advantage of the format to bring in real players on the national political stage, adding a degree of depth and organic exposition to the presentation that would have made Orson Welles green with envy. The combination of tight production and a commitment to realism presents a different kind of response from that to be felt watching _Threads_ or _The Day After_: instead of the predictable horror of the result of nuclear annihilation, we have instead the gut-churning, half-in- the-mind terror of the unknown but inevitable. There's the glimmer of hope extinguished halfway through the program as the one piece of data that could provoke cooler heads to prevail is rejected for broadcast. Later, there is the confirmation of a nuclear exchange taking place, without showing, or the need to show, more than a flash of light and a garbled image in static of what might be interpreted as a mushroom cloud. We are so caught up in that point of no return and its implications that any technical shortcomings in its exposition are utterly absolved. The ending of that report, and what follows, fill viewers with a dread and terror that lingers long after the end of the program - most of it created in the imagination of the viewer.

Justin Perry I was 10 when this program aired on HBO in 1984.Set up like a news broadcast, it covers the rising international tensions between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. It also has a back story of a reporter (Helen Sheaver) trying to get the biggest story of her career...the start of Nuclear War.Though it moves quickly, I love the fact that they used many real news people in this film. Patrick Watson was a reporter and anchor for the CBC at the time this was filmed. Nancy Dickerson was one of US televisions first female correspondents. All of this adds tremendously to the plot of the film.I wish HBO would release this on DVD. It's a program for the history books and is a fascinating study of what could happen in television broadcasting if the unthinkable did happen.

jmd63 I first saw this movie when I was in my late teens. Would love to see it again. At that time the Soviet Union was still the menacing enemy of the free world. We also were only a few years removed from the Iranian hostage taking at the US embassy in Tehran, and just months after the bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Beirut (carried out by Hezbollah who is supported by Iran as well as Syria) and some of us started to realize that we had a new enemy, Islamo-Fascists. Without giving away too many details, the movie would still play well today. Although this movie centers around a possible military conflict with the Soviets, most it is played out in the Persian Gulf, specifically the Strait of Hormuz. One can clearly replace the Soviets with the Iranians. If you watch this movie with that in mind you will not only be entertained, but you will feel as if you are watching events as they might just unfold in the years (or months) to come. The way the film is made, in docu-drama style, really makes it as if you are watching breaking events unfold on FOX/CNN or MSNBC. The late Scott Glenn is outstanding as is the rest of the cast. It may have been 20 years since I saw this movie, but it has always stayed fresh in my mind. You will definitely see how close to reality this movie may really be someday. Very well done.