The Legacy of Dr. Strangelove: Stanley Kubrick, Science Fiction, and the Future of Humanity

In this chapter, I examine how contemporary American viewers responded to Stanley Kubrick's comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) in the context of widespread fears about nuclear war at the time. I also sketch the film’s, direct as well as indirect, influence on later Hollywood cinema, starting with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), a hopeful film Kubrick made in direct response to the deep pessimism of Dr. Strangelove. 2001 in turn inspired many of the Science Fiction blockbusters that have come to dominate the US box office, and also international markets, since the late 1970s. With regards to the latter, I pay particular attention to the films of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and James Cameron. Throughout this essay, I explore audience responses to films as well as the fears about nuclear war and other global catastrophes that underpin them, suggesting that hit movies can be, and often are, experienced as allegories of, or points of departure for, transformative developments in the real world outside the movie theatre.