Throughout the past seven decades, film and television have been key in the public’s understanding – and misunderstandings – of nuclear power.

From government messages that encouraged families to build homemade shelters, to Hollywood parables of atomic holocausts, to news stories that drive mainstream interpretations of global nuclear conflict, media depictions play an undeniable role in the nuclear narrative.

In order to understand the disparities between common perceptions and actual nuclear issues, it’s important for us to observe the ways that messaging has evolved throughout history, as well as which motifs remain as intact as they were upon the introduction of the bomb in WWII.