The day before. The day of. The Day After.

Apocalypse... The end of the familiar... The beginning of the end.

Beyond Imagining...


A peaceful Midwestern city attempts to recover after it is destroyed by a nuclear missile strike in this powerful and deeply disturbing testament to the folly of pro-military hawks who believed that annihilation was a justifiable means of attaining power and control. The Day After originally aired on network television. At the end of the broadcast, many stations offered teams of counselors staffing 800 telephone numbers to help distraught viewers calm down.


The Day After is a 1983 American television movie which aired on November 20, 1983 on the ABC television network. The film portrays a fictional war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact that rapidly escalates into a full scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. It focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, as well as several family farms situated next to nuclear missile silos.
Directed by Nicholas Meyer. Screenplay by Edward Hume. Produced by Robert Papazian.


The network originally planned to air the film as a four-hour "event" spread over two nights for a total running time of 180 minutes without commercials. Meyer felt the script was padded, and suggested cutting out an hour of material and presenting the whole film in one night. The network disagreed, and Meyer had filmed the entire script. Subsequently, the network found that it was difficult to find advertisers, considering the subject matter, and told Meyer he could edit the film for a one-night version. Meyer's original cut ran two hours and twenty minutes, which he presented to the network. After the screening, the executives were sobbing and seemed deeply affected, making Meyer believe they approved of his cut. However, a long six-month struggle began over the final shape of the film. The network now wanted to trim the film to the bone, but Meyer and his editor Bill Dornisch refused to cooperate. Dornisch was fired, and Meyer walked off. The network brought in other editors, but the network ultimately was not happy with their versions. They finally brought Meyer back in and reached a compromise, with a final running time of 120 minutes.[2][3]
The network originally planned to air The Day After in May, but pushed it back to November to leave time for the post-production work to reduce the film's length. The first major cut was made to the film that could be called "censorship": censors forced ABC to cut an entire scene of a child having a nightmare about nuclear holocaust and then sitting up, screaming. A psychiatrist told ABC that this would disturb children. "This strikes me as ludicrous," Meyer wrote in TV Guide at the time, "not only in relation to the rest of the film, but also when contrasted with the huge doses of violence to be found on any average evening of TV viewing." In any case, they made a few more cuts, including to a scene where Denise possesses a diaphragm. Another scene, where a hospital patient abruptly sits up screaming, was excised from the original television broadcast but restored for home video releases. Meyer persuaded ABC to dedicate the film to the citizens of Lawrence, and also to put a disclaimer at the end of the film, following the credits, letting the viewer know that The Day After downplayed the true effects of nuclear war so they would be able to have a story. The disclaimer also included a list of books that provide more information on the subject. When the film was finished, Meyer vowed never to work in television again.
The Day After received a large promotional campaign prior to its broadcast. Commercials aired several months in advance, ABC distributed half a million "viewer's guides" that discussed the dangers of nuclear war and prepared the viewer for the graphic scenes of mushroom clouds and radiation burn victims. Discussion groups were also formed nationwide.
In 1987, The Day After was broadcast on Soviet Union Central television.


On its original broadcast (Sunday, November 20, 1983), ABC and local TV affiliates opened 1-800 hotlines with counselors standing by. There were no commercial breaks after the nuclear attack. ABC then aired a live debate, hosted by Nightline's Ted Koppel, featuring the scientist Carl Sagan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, General Brent Scowcroft and the conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr.. Sagan argued against nuclear proliferation, while Buckley promoted the concept of nuclear deterrence. Sagan described the arms race in the following terms: "Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches, the other seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger."
One psychotherapist counseled viewers at Shawnee Mission East High School in the Kansas City suburbs, and 1,000 others held candles at a peace vigil in Penn Valley Park. A discussion group called Let Lawrence Live was formed by the English Department at the university and dozens from the Humanities Department gathered on the Kansas campus in front of the Memorial Campanile and lit candles in a peace vigil. At Baker University, a private school in Baldwin City, Kansas, roughly 10 miles south of Lawrence, a number of students drove around the city, looking at sites depicted in the film as having been destroyed.
The children's entertainer Mr. Rogers also dedicated five episodes of his television program (entitled the "Conflict" series) to comfort and talk to young children who had seen the movie on television.
The film provoked much political debate.
Critics tended to claim the film was either sensationalizing nuclear war or that it was too tame.[4] The special effects and realistic portrayal of nuclear war received praise. The film received twelve Emmy nominations and won two Emmy awards. It is the only film that has ever received the rating "way above average" in Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide.
Nearly 100 million Americans watched The Day After on its first broadcast, a record audience for a made-for-TV movie. Producers Sales Organization released the film theatrically around the world, in the Eastern Bloc, China, North Korea and Cuba (this international version contained six minutes of footage not in the telecast edition). Since commercials are not sold in these markets, Producers Sales Organization lost an undisclosed sum of money. Years later this international version was released to tape by Embassy Home Entertainment (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer now holds the video rights in the US).
Commentator Ben Stein, critical of the movie's message (i.e. that the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction would lead to a war), wrote in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner what life might be like in an America under Soviet occupation. (Stein's idea was eventually dramatized in the miniseries Amerika, also broadcast by ABC.)
The New York Post accused Meyer of being a traitor, writing, "Why is Nicholas Meyers doing Yuri Andropov's work for him?"[5] Phyllis Schlafly declared that "This film was made by people who want to disarm the country, and who are willing to make a $7 million contribution to that cause".[5] Much press comment focused on the unanswered question in the film of who started the war.[5]
In Camarillo, California, the public school system sent notes to parents of grade-schoolers, to the effect that children should not be allowed to watch this movie.


Airdate: November 20, 1983 on ABC