The part where the audio seamlessly transitions from screams into screeching wind, wails, and explosions was chillingly well done in the most dramatic way.
If you like Threads, check out Children of Men, which is also disturbingly realistic and also set in UK.
Another film (docu-drama) about a nuclear attack on the UK in the 1960s was The War Game.
"The War Game is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath.Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and also within government, and was subsequently withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."
Hmm, sounds like watching this movie has 2 possible outcomes: either I don't like it and end up psychologically scarred, or I like it and I know I'm some sort of psychopath.
There’s definitely not a lot to like, but there is a lot to appreciate.
If you want a somewhat toned down version, the first episode of James Burke’s Connections describes some of the same concepts and themes in the context of the NYC blackout of 1965, and is only somewhat less disturbing, but is easily the most upsetting episode of the otherwise charming educational program.
We do proper apocalyptic books and films in the UK! If you survive "Threads" and "When the wind blows", why not wash it down with some dystopia! 1984, Animal Farm, Children of men.
Other apocalypses and dystopias are available. The UK is not the sole source of them. 451F, Brave New World ...
Wait until you find out who invented television. One of the more difficult adjustments to living in the US was the realization that people here grow up absorbing a fictitious version of history in which the US invented virtually everything we consider 'modern' and the rest of the world is far less developed than it actually is.
If you want to skip the prelude to the attack you can skip to 47:45.
It is messed up to think this level of destruction happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in their case it was even more horrifying because nobody knew what was going on or what to do.
I recently watched Threads for the first time, and I was scarred. The way it portrays the effects of a nuclear attack was too real and made me feel incredibly depressed for days. It felt almost as if I were looking at a portal into the future, showing how the human race will eventually end.
The Annie Jacobsen book didn't have quite the same visceral impact of despair for me as watching Threads. But it was still disturbing for two reasons: the cascade which leads to war is remarkably believable with its grab bag of technical limitations, forced decisions with flawed data and dramatic consequences, and that it was written "now". It's not something which can be tidied away into a past era which we'd like to thing we emerged from never to return.
The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States by Jeffrey Lewis
Note this explicitly features President Trump and various real-life politicians and portrays Trump negatively. So if you are a fan of his probably avoid.
Threads is the most harrowing movie by far. Remember watching it in college and not being able to get out of bed the next day because I was so fucking depressed.
I remember watching it when it originally aired when I was 13, and having to talk about it at school the next day - we were in the middle of an assignment on the threat of nuclear war at the time, it was tacked into our english language class as I recall (tbf, I can't really think of anything else, other than possibly Physics, where the topic would have been better suited, and Physics could probably only have carried a very dry discussion of it).
Threads just seems like torture porn being shown to you to make you afraid of nuclear war, which had its uses in pushing for nuclear disarmament, so I can't hate it...
but The Day After does a lot more to personalize and humanize the story, each subplot makes you very intimately attached to these characters and their families by presenting their day-to-day life and aspirations, how normal their lives are when war is looming echoes our own. So when everything is blown to shit it hurts so much more.
It's on YouTube, but I won't link it here because it's probably the most horrifying film ever.