Dr. Strangelove -- What Makes This Movie Great? (Episode 101) 

You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!

"Peace Is Our Profession" was the real, actual motto of SAC (Stratgic Air Command). It was created by SAC's first commander, General Curtin LeMay.

Well. 10 months after you made this video…it’s definitely relevant again.

ok, disagree that this movie was simply mocking or had no ideas to solve it. Its like the ultimate hactivist product. Like hactivists which try to break into computer systems to show those system owners that it is possible and to force them to fix it, this movie really stuck it to the military industrial complex saying that they needed to fix their systems as well - and really hammered the point home that we only get one chance at this, that one 'single slip-up' is enough to doom us all. As a result, the government in the US (and probably other governments) really took it to heart. They changed their codes for launch from 000000, instituted tight controls on who could fire them (lower level echelon commanders), instituted dual key and triple key systems, etc. etc. etc We may have survived intact because of this movie, full stop. So Kubrick really did a big public service here by making it.

"This is it, boys? Nuc'lr combat toe to to with the rooskies!!"

Kubrick's inescapable point is there is no way out of the arms race. He's obviously telling us that we are doomed. That is why the movie, even though a satire, is still terrifying today. Man has never failed to wage war with the latest and greatest weapons. The phrase "only one life to give for my country," is the fatal one in all human history.

Just watched this yesterday. As a gen z film watcher this is my 2nd favorite Kubrick behind Eyes Wide Shut.

Probably my all-time favorite film.

This is one of my favorite movies. It's amazing to think that this came out at the height of the Cold War and really highlighted how absurd it all was.

This movie is even more relevant now than then...

Love this movie. I wish more modern/younger audiences were aware of it. The story may seem dated or irrelevant now, but the themes are timeless. While Paths of Glory is probably my favorite Kubrick movie, Dr Strangelove is definitely a close 2nd. (I will admit that 2001 is probably his best movie, it’s just not my favorite).

Peter Sellers a great comedian - he had a really good grasp of the absurd. Sterling Hayden is a favourite actor - so good and a good man who saw through Hollywood - 'The Killing'.

One of my favorite moments is where the general asks if it's a "kraut" name, and the reply gives a German translation of "strange love."

This movie and Fail Safe should be a double feature to show the thoughts of people in the 50s and 60s. Both movies are about the same thing but take very different approaches. Both came out the year I was born and I never really understood the attitudes from the time, these really put it into perspective.

Slim Pickens character Major Kong comes across as a hayseed, but he is a very good pilot and knows his way around a B52.

This is in the conversation when I think of my favorite movies of all time, and it's definitely one of my top three comedies of all time. Another great pick, thank you for the review. My wife is a millennial with very little history background, and she loves this movie Also, it's my favorite Kubrick movie. I think the Shining and Full Metal Jacket are stronger visually, but this is the far better movie

'Peace Is Our Profession' was the motto of SAC(Strategic Air Command).

I watch it twice a year on CD and watched it in the cinema 60 years ago as it made me feel "safe," and not be in so much "fear" of nuclear war because of the satirical nature of the topic by Kubrick. The film made people "lighten up" about atomic war and "the bomb!"

I was born in 1986 and it's one of my favorite movies

Thanks for reviewing, I love this film (and yes, I was born in the '60's). I do think it is Kubrick's masterpiece if nothing else other than Peter Sellers amazing performances. It has a lot going for it - great use of satire, well written, good pacing, excellent acting, beautifully shot (although still in that cold Kubrick way) and unfortunately still relevant. I've watched this film over and over again and never tire of it.

This movie is on my 10 best movies list of all time. Sellers is a genius.

With the "Cold War"/nuclear war annihilation, as a back drop theme for my childhood ( my father worked at Rocketdyne, in Neosho, Mo. where they built and test fired the Atlas rocket engines for ICBM's ) , "Dr. Strangelove" movie fascinated me. Growing up in the 1950's & 60's at school, Boy Scouts, TV, movies, Mad magazines, etc. all had reminders we lived under a nuclear war nightmare that at anytime could become a harsh reality that would make Nagasaki & Hiroshima look like a sneak preview of the main event. Today that harsh reality is even more present and possible. May God have mercy on us and our children. ( I posted this at another "Strangelove" commentary video )

Yes. It`s a masterpiece! It should be seen today by every person. To see the insanity we live in today. Peace on earth!

We must not allow a mineshaft gap!!.🤩🤩

I think you miss the point when you say that there needs to be an alternative to the realist or cynical inevitable conclusion of the film. That is the whole point. The movie is in equal measure a comedy and a tragedy. And if your recall the classical definition of a tragedy, that regardless of the actions of its participants the story will end in sadness, this is a case in point. Regardless of the best intentions of everyone (including Gen. Ripper) a nuclear annihilation is inevitable. Since this is realistic, the movie's insistence on the inevitable end without providing an alternative is what makes it poignant and true to our world.

Before I saw this film, I knew about the War Room line (one of the best lines in cinema history) I knew Dr. Strangelove was a former nazi and I knew about the infamous riding the bomb yahoo yahoo scene. The film was a bit different than I expected but I could still 'read' the film the way I had intended, and that it is a showcase of the madness that consumes the men whi have to make the decision of setting of these nuclear weapons and how these mass destructions will break the sanity of any human. We can't handle the act of killing that many people in just a push of the button.

To me, Barry Lyndon is his masterpiece.

by looking ongoing situation of the russia and ukarine this movie totally relevant now

One of my favorite movies of all time

B-52 crews, then, and still today, do not have the luxury of being able to ruminate over whether they should drop the "big one" or not. They are trained to react, when directed, to bomb their targets. (A former B-52 pilot.)

Kubrick and the set designer Ken Adams had to show the US government where they got the interior designs of the B-52 because it was classified. It was some good guessing apparently.

The fact that there is NO positive "feel good" way out of the MAD is THE strength of this movie - When Kubrick first started work on the screenplay, his original intention was to "play it straight" But he quickly realised that the MAD policy that supposedly existed between the US and the Soviets was complete lunacy and could only be played as a black humour satirical farce - All it needed was one loose screw and that loose screw portayed so brilliantly by Sterling Hayden was the Jack D Ripper character, who was in turn based on a real life **** general, Curtis Lemay - Lemay at one point seriously wanted to nuke 200 Russian Cities !! - Even on the Manhatten Project the scientists and military were not certain that there would not be a 100% certainty that exploding their bomb could cause a chain reaction that would in all probability blow up the world - They were only 80% sure that it wouldn't, leaving a 20% possibility that it could - But they went ahead with it anyway !! - So who is nuts ?? - Jack D Ripper, Curtis Lemay or the Manhatten Project crazies ?? - That is why this film is both hilarious and terrifying and brilliant - Because it COULD still happen...

Good vid, except I so very strongly disagree with your opinion of a "happy ending". This movie is a warning, and that type of typical Hollywood ending would have wasted the significant opportunity to hit us over the head with the danger we all really do face. It clobbers the viewer into realizing this really can happen, and the hope is that this masterpiece can accomplish that.

I grew up at Offutt AFB lol. Dad was a 28 year USAF Chief Master Sgt. I love the movie. I thought of it when I went to Nuclear Warfare School.

I watched this movie yesterday for the second time and it was even better than the first. Easily my favorite Kubrick for sure.

I am absolutely flabbergasted, NOBODY noticed the FIRST on screen appearance of James Earl Jones??? My god, how could you miss that voice???

There is no way to change or reform when you are hardwired into the military industrial complex, which is which by it remains in place decades after this. Kubrick was correct. If there was a way out Spielberg would have remade Dr Strangelove. A masterpiece from a maker of several masterpieces.

Another fantastic review. Thanks. The way in which the rationality (and morality) of human behaviour is distorted by their place in irrational structures, is exactly right, I think. The lack of a clear solution doesn’t bother me. Perhaps the only way out of a game you cannot win, is to stop playing? Still very relevant if a US President can ask ‘what’s the point having all these weapons if we never use them?’

I watched this as a sophomore and definitely something still to worry about, they just don’t speak about it openly

George C Scott walked so that Tim Robinson can run

yes..it's getting more relevant today

not his masterwork, but one of the best films ever :) so basically Kubrick is one of the GOATS

Great review

I think Kubrick not proposing an answer to critique is way more mature and responsible, there isn’t a rational proposal to correct individual rationality. We would have to exist in a hive mind to prevent that which is unattainable and would create its on issues if possible.

Read Daniel Ellsberg’s “Doomsday Machine-Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” . He says it was more like a documentary.

It’s crucial that people realize that it’s a comedy before going in. Some seem to be unsure whether they should be laughing or not, at least at the first half of the film.

One of the best movies ever made in my opinion. Sheer brilliance in black comedy.

By not providing the solution you think it lacks, the film success to make you think.

Recently just saw “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix… I immediately thought of this movie.

The movie is a Kubric master work! I love it!

I read that many of the characters the movie portrayed where contemporary politicians serving office at the time it was released.

Our bodily fluids are pleased by this movie

This goes so well with Fallout lol

Always suggest this one to the movie reviewers on RU-vid. “We” got one couple to do A Clockwork Orange, so I am guessing Dr Strangelove will soon follow!

Dr. Strangelove is the spiritual successor to Oppenheimer ^

8:06 of course it doesn't offer an "alternative, moral corrective." the whole point of its black satire is to suggest the possibility that there may well be no "alternative," no better answer, no path by which the characters can bring about a happy ending. the possibility that there is no escape from disaster, isn't one you normally see in movies, sure... but it's not an unknown situation in real life, is it

Thanks for the video. This is my favorite Kubrick movie even though I still give the nod to 2001 as his best overall. The madness of war.. personally I'm ok with no solution since the objective of the movie seems to be calling out the insanity of human nature (now with the power to destroy itself). For a more serious, less satirical (& perhaps cynical) look at the same subject, Fail Safe is highly recommended. Also General Buck Turgidson is one of favorite alltime performances, even if Kubrick coerced George C Scott into it at times. Fun to compare his range here with say Patton

you wont believe me but ive watched this movie with my 7 year old brother and he loved it!( i explained the notion on movie)

I'd say it's pretty damn relevant now wouldn't you

After Putin gave the N-threat, this movie becomes more relevant than ever.

i saw it ysterday what a mooviee dude haha yeeeee aaaaaah!!! the bomb scene is so good haha love from spain

Unfortunately still relevent, perhaps will be relevant till the end. And I love this movie, an absolute masterpiece.

I haven’t watched this film, but I am a big fan of Peter Sellers. Wish he hadn’t been taken from us so soon. Died 14 years before I was born, so much wasted potential.

The lack of concrete endings in Kubrick films is the whole point. It’s postmodern. There is no answer, there is no absolute truth. This is where we’re heading and there is no way to solve it. I think that’s his point

As an international relations student, i can say that this is one of the lighter, more cynical way, to learn about international relations. At least on subjects about cold war era politics

Mine Furer I can walk!

I just saw thet movie for thet first time. Could someone explain a few things about it (mostly the ending)? I'm not trolling , I genuinely interested in understanding it. I didn' get why the last plane couldn't be stopped either with the code which was transmitted successfully, or shot down like the others? So then the bomb goes down and then the doomsday bomb is activated and the world is ending. Then the people in the last seconds of their lives discuss some sort of a fantasy plan, which I guess is meant to be ironic since the world is already ending? what is the russian doing in the end scene? some posts I read said he is activating the doomsday device himself, others say he had another spy camera, but since the world is ending, whats the point? or is that suppose to be another ironic sentiment? why is the movie called dr. Strangelove? the character gets very little screen time (mostly at the end)? I guess he is the one who is delivering the last joky narrative at the end of the movie, but I don't get why the whole movie is named after him. Also, why is the alternate title how i learned to love the bomb? and who is the "I" in the sentence? I did like the cinematic aspect of the film and the acting is great too but many people say its the funniest movie ever made, etc. and I'm still trying to figure it all out. Any help is greatly appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏.

I recall watching this movie when it came out in 1964, and have watched it again recently. Perhaps the lapse of time and the different social milieu from today made me remember the film as being better than it actually was. The context of the cold war, the anti-bomb protest movements and the Vietnam conflict- wrapped up in the military-industrial complex- provided a strong focus for the film’s clever satire, taken up by later directors of films such as Catch-22. The eponymous Dr Strangelove’s comical mimicking of Nazi-recruited NASA scientists and his promise of selective post-nuclear survival would now be described as a “great reset”- and as a figure- his contemporary counterpart might be found by anti-globalists in the form of the Teutonic Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum. Tapping into the theme provided by cold war spy genres - notably Ian Fleming’s Dr No- Kubrick’s film provided a sober and relevant reminder of the dangers of miscalculations and folly that could unleash nuclear war. But it also provided a simpler though no less deadly scenario for international conflict in what was then a bipolar world dominated by USA and Russia, without the complexity and subversion of contemporary cyberwar ( including social media manipulation and identity politics aggression) and international terrorism. What continues to appeal are the film's stylistic qualities: the closeups of the characters, the unhurried ironic monologues and the general absence of intrusive deafening incidental music that dominates many movies today. However, it is very much infused with the 1960s zeitgeist, and by today's standards, the film seems to me to be disingenuous and puerile in places due to its sexual allusions to phallic objects ( the aerial refuelling in the opening credits); and its sexist references to Colonel Turgidson’s scantily-clad mistress whose token likeness reappears in the bomber crew’s Playboy centerfold. In this satire, when you add Dr Strangelove’s assurance of harems of 10 women to every man, the perverse consequences of nuclear war do not seem so bad after all, at least for the surviving studs. But in 2021, times have obviously changed and the film raises an implicit question: would this satire with its gender roles and underlying themes of sexuality be permissible today in view of constraints of political correctness and feminism? I doubt it. But it was never intended to be updated as part of a serial franchise like the Bond films which in later iterations saw the new boss, M, cast as a female figure who on one occasion reproached Bond ( played by Pierce Brosnan, I recall) as a sexist cold war relic. Ouch. Time to grow up- or so the Bond producers would have us believe.

I think we should care about this movie now more than ever.

Have you ever reviewed the 1963 movie Ladybug Ladybug. It is a frightening cold war film with a shocking final shot.

This movie is relevant as ever. You have all sides practically begging the US to fight in this war.

Watch Peter Bull. The Soviet Ambassador. He resists the urge to laugh at Sellers manic Dr Strangelove. A an old friend of Sellers. He just keeps a straight face.

Have you seen 'Catch 22'? A brilliantly funny movie about the military industrial complex.

This is one of the strangest films I've ever watched. I can't understand, if it's supposed to be taken seriously, if it's a comedy, science fiction or something else entirely. I watched it a number of times, and still feel like I'm missing something.

Allegedly Kubrick had planned to make a straight drama about nuclear war, but quickly realised just how silly the whole thing was. A couple of the things you highlight as comedic devices were 100% true to post war US military - The slogan of Strategic Air Command *was* "Peace is Our Profession", war planners *did* coin and casually thrown around the term "megadeaths".

"It doesn't show a way out." Not so. Watching the long scenes in the B52 bomber, I kept thinking, "If one person in the crew had, en route, sabotaged the mission to bomb the Soviet targets, one person could have prevented the catastrophe." Those like-able, decent young men obediently pushing buttons and flipping switches...one of them could have deliberately flipped the wrong switch or deliberately failed to push a button. At core, the movie is about unthinking obedience. As C. P. Snow said, "When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion."

It should be best movie of all time. I think Citizen Kane is behind Strangelove.

Mein Fuhrer I Can Walk! 😂😂😂

Just watched it. Be funny. Kind of surprised how little dr strange was in it though 😂

We are in 2,024 is it changing ??????

The China Syndrome (‘79) could pair up well for an anthropogenic existential risk double feature.

"Some men just want to watch the world burn"

Peter sellers was brilliant in this.

I don’t think Kubrick is offering a solution because there is no solution to nuclear proliferation. Like what alternative is he gonna offer? I think any notion that nuclear powers would ever give up their weapons would be childish, hence why Kubrick didn’t explore a solution.

I feel like the only one who didn't see the comedy in this. Things felt odd, but that's about it. Maybe that's why I didn't really get much out of it. I often enjoy dark and dry humor, but nothing jumped out at me as trying to be humorous, just as critiquing human nature.

Sweet review! I would like your opinion as to why the film is called “Dr. Strangelove.” He isn’t the main character and not even the most important, so why is his name in the title?

My favourite movie of all time. Sadly more relevant than ever it seems. :/

I like this movie

Why should Kubrick give us an answer ?

In reality, the ending of this movie was put off for about 60 years.

george c scott is amazing here

Dr Strangelove is still the best movie ever made. I disagree with the host's only criticism of juvenality. This was a statement of the truth of Mans status in the cosmic order. Nothing Kubrick did was by accident, everything was intentional. And further than that, Kubrick has been proven correct with the passage of time. What has changed since the films release to the wurld? We are held ransom to the same forces of oppression from the same people who are the oppressors. The films statement of poisoning the water is correct. The water is poisoned today, along with the food, the Sky, even the sky has been poisoned by Chemtrails daily for 15 yrs now, & Spiritually Juvenal Man, ignores these truths as though the Titanic is going to be safe because its a large vessel. Kubrick used Satire & ridicule of the oppressors themselves as the only weapon to be used in urging the sleeping populace to realize the truth & cease to man the machines of destruction provided by those offering bread & water instead of complete cosmic expansion.

Curtis LeMay

Your point about the film not showing us a 'way out' of the inhumanity of our technological and bureaucratic society is a good one. Thinking about Kubrick's filmography in general, I think you're right that he lacks any sense of true transcendence (even 2001's ending is immanent, it's still in the universe). This brings up the question though: Is this a lack of his art itself, or just a lack in the philosophy which undergirds his art? Can you really separate the two? Is it possible to be a truly great artist if you have a basically nihilistic philosophy or, if you do, will you always 'lose out' to artists who also have formal talent but with a transcendent vision? Not sure.

Yes this movie is about the Cold war, nuclear arsenals of the two countries and their leaders involved. But it is also and I think centrally. Stanley Kubrick's view on the Nazis. Stanley Kubrick was endlessly fascinated by the Nazis this group of diabolically evil totalitarian madmen. His portrayal of Dr Stangelove as this madman sums up Kubricks view of the Nazis that managed to take over a leading and high achieving western nation, Germany. Yes this movie is about the cold war. But the title of the movie suggests that this movie is also about Nazi Germany and the madmen that ruled it like Dr Strangelove. A great movie. Hilarious performance by Peter Sellers portraying the Nazi.

Great analysis. Great movie. However, my view is opposite to yours, in terms of what makes this movie great. Nuclear war is not the most important focus. Human folly is. Government stupidity is. Military is. I also appreciate Kubrick's FMJ. Same theme, same folly.

You can't fight here. This is the comments section!!!

Hated this movie the first time I saw it, I remember finding it spectacularly unfunny. Definitely need to rewatch it again though, pretty sure I’ll enjoy it more on a second viewing

This film will be relavent until humans are extinct.

I dont understandt why they named this movie Doctor Strangelove