Movies Like World War III Breaks Out

If you liked World War III Breaks Out (1960), a science fiction and drama movie directed by Shigeaki Hidaka and William Ross, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and science fiction
While on a fishing trip, Harry Baldwin and his family hear an explosion and realize that Los Angeles has been leveled by a nuclear attack. Looters and killers are everywhere. Escaping to the hills with his family, he…
2
Testament (1983)
★ 6.4/10Also drama and science fiction
It's just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in…
3
THX 1138 (1971)
★ 6.4/10Also science fiction and drama
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As…
4
Awake (2021)
★ 5.9/10Also drama and science fiction
After a sudden global event wipes out all electronics and takes away humankind’s ability to sleep, chaos quickly begins to consume the world. Only Jill, an ex-soldier with a troubled past, may hold the key to a cure in…
5
Watchmen: Chapter II (2024)
★ 7.3/10Also science fiction and drama
Suspicious of the events ensnaring their former colleagues, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are spurred out of retirement to investigate. As they grapple with personal ethics, inner demons and a society turned against them…
6
The Quiet Earth (1985)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and science fiction
After a top-secret experiment misfires, a scientist may be the only man left alive in the world.
7
Right at Your Door (2006)
★ 5.8/10Also drama and science fiction
A dirty bomb goes off in Los Angeles, jamming freeways and spreading a toxic cloud.
8
Frequency (2000)
★ 7.3/10Also science fiction
When a rare phenomenon gives police officer John Sullivan the chance to speak to his father, 30 years in the past, he takes the opportunity to prevent his dad's tragic death. After his actions inadvertently give rise…
9
I Am Mother (2019)
★ 6.7/10Also science fiction
A teenage girl is raised underground by a robot "Mother", designed to repopulate the earth following an extinction event. But their unique bond is threatened when an inexplicable stranger arrives with alarming news.
10
Grave of the Fireflies (2005)
★ 7.9/10Also drama
Hisako loses her home in Tokyo to Allied bombing. With her husband fighting somewhere in Asia, she and her two children evacuate to a suburb of Kobe, where they share a house with Hisako's cousin, Kyoko. Kobe is bombed…
11
Rage of Stars (2026)
★ 6.4/10Also science fiction
A story about a woman from the International Special Forces Unit, who has a premonition about the impending end of humanity.
12
Fukushima 50 (2020)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region is devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
13
Akira (1988)
★ 7.9/10Also science fiction
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.
14
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
★ 6.9/10Also science fiction
The Futurians, time-travelers from the 23rd century, arrive in Japan to warn them of the nation's destruction under Godzilla. They offer to help erase Godzilla from history by preventing his creation. With Godzilla…
15
Black Rain (1989)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people…
16
Watchmen (2009)
★ 7.4/10Also science fiction
In a gritty and alternate 1985, the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown. But after one of the masked veterans is brutally murdered, an investigation into the killer…
17
On the Beach (2000)
★ 6.2/10Also drama and science fiction
The world has finally managed to blow itself up and only Australia has been spared from nuclear destruction and a gigantic wave of radiation is floating in on the breezes. One American sub located in the Pacific has…
18
Hereafter (2010)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
19
The Young One (1960)
★ 7/10Also drama
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
20
The Day After (1983)
★ 6.8/10Also science fiction and drama
In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the…