From Hollywood's point of view, the end of the world has always been just around the corner. Now might be a good time to review the list of classic movies with an end-of-the-world theme. In fact, now might be a good time to do a lot of things you've been putting off, if you know what I mean...

The all-time greatest doomsday movie has got to be Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963). It even features a Doomsday Device. I may have said this before, but I actually watched that film for the first time on a Strategic Air Command base in Greenland. I was on a USO tour with a troupe of actors. Couldn't have been stranger. And this was during a time when we really thought the world might end at any moment! The following year, Fail-Safe (1964) took a somewhat more serious view of the same problem.

When Worlds Collide (1951) wasn't about nuclear war, but rather involved a subject that has currently been revived -- collisions or near-collisions with other heavenly bodies. The special effects were wonderful at the time, but some of them look pretty hokey today, especially compared to the current crop of asteroid collision films.

The Cold War during the 50s and 60s spawned a large number of nuclear war-related films. Notable for its realism and acting was On the Beach (1959), starring Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Ava Gardner, and Anthony Perkins. It made a lot of people think about moving to Australia!

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) has become a cult favorite, with its depiction of a benign extraterrestrial arriving to save us from ourselves. Klaatu, barata nikto!

Another favorite on the subject of doomsday is War of the Worlds (1953), based on the H.G. Wells novel and featuring some excellent special effects for the time (the recent remake notwithstanding).

The Planet of the Apes series (1968-1974) posited a future in which the human species had reduced itself to simian intelligence, while the apes had become the dominant species.

Several interesting documentaries were made between the 1940s and the 1960s, including the Oscar-winning British film entitled The War Game (1965), which was released as a theatrical film because it was deemed too powerful for the BBC, and The Beginning or the End (1947), a docudrama about the development of atomic weapons, made at the dawn of the atomic age.

Thirty-five years ago, Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969) warned about the dangers of computers taking over the world. Now, of course, it's too late...

The plots of James Bond movies such as Thunderball (1965) and Goldfinger (1964) often hinged on the bad guys' attempts to control or destroy the world through the use of atomic bombs or other weapons of mass destruction.

Then, of course, there were the inevitable B-movie exploitations of the subject, such as The Earth Dies Screaming (1964), Rocket Attack, USA (1961), Invasion, USA (1952), and The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961). Roger Corman chimed in with The Day the World Ended (1956), a story about some oddball survivors of a nuclear war. And in The Day of the Triffids (1962), the earth was threatened by huge ambulatory plants from outer space!

Finally, we have two films that looked at the end of the world in unusual ways. In The Omega Man (1971), Charlton Heston battled mutant zombies, while The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959), featured Harry Belafonte and Inger Stevens in a post-apocalyptic interracial romance (unfortunately out of print).

Of course, probably the strongest statements about nuclear war and life in a post-apocalyptic world were made in the 70s and 80s, including Blade Runner (1982), A Boy and His Dog (1975), Testament (1983), and the Mad Max movies starring Mel Gibson. And every other film being made these days seems to involve asteroids, giant mutant creatures, and invasions by aliens. Maybe the lessening of Cold War tensions has made it necessary to find other dangers for us to face. In any case, if Hollywood has its way, it looks as if we'll be seeing the end of the world over and over again in the years to come.

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