Screening Date: 10 February 2026, Tuesday, 8:00 pm / 1 March 2026, Sunday, 2.00 pm

The War Game

Director: Peter Watkins

Screenplay:  Peter Watkins

Cast: Dick Graham, Michael Aspel

UK / 1965 / 46 min. / Black and White / English / Turkish Subtitles

It is 1965, and we are in the midst of the Cold War. The Soviet Union drops an atomic bomb on England. The streets are burning, survivors are in a state of panic. Peter Watkins’s banned film The War Game brings such a scenario to the screen with the realism of a news documentary. Commissioned by the BBC but deemed too terrifying for broadcast despite being based on accurate information about the effects of atomic bombs, the film won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 1967. The BBC censorship Watkins experienced with this film also marked the beginning of years spent in semi-exile, during which his working conditions became increasingly difficult.

The War Game depicts politicians, clergy, and misinformed citizens making pro-nuclear statements, the escalating tension leading to an atomic bomb being dropped on Kent, and the unimaginable destruction that follows. Watkins made it his mission to accurately inform the public about nuclear armament, and when he based his film on events in Japan, the result was a horror film.

Famous theater critic Kenneth Tynan said about the film: “I suspect that it may be the most important film ever made. We are always being told that works of art cannot change the course of history. Given wide enough dissemination, I believe that this one might….”

* The film is going to be screened together with Culloden.