Nuclear fear and anxiety: Exercises in future thinking

Abstract Anxiety about nuclear war emerged after the 1945 atomic bombings of Japan and has risen and fallen over the following decades. It is grounded in future thinking shaped by narrative form and function in policy discussions and especially in film and television. These media have repeatedly drawn on three basic narrative templates organised around three different endings: destruction, judgement, and renewal; human extinction; and permanent and irreversible societal collapse. Several film and television productions are used to illustrate the internal organisation of these narrative templates and to examine how both nuclear fear and nuclear anxiety are involved.