This essay contains spoilers for the film A House of Dynamite .

In the opening minutes of Kathryn Bigalow's latest film, A House of Dynamite , the unthinkable happens — a single nuclear warhead is lobbed from somewhere in the Pacific towards the U.S. mainland. America's leadership has less than half an hour to decide whether to order a massive nuclear counterstrike.

What follows is a story told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and bureaucrats in charge of the nation's nuclear war machine. It unfolds in near real time, and provides an unflinching look at the decisions that would need to be made if such a strike ever occurred.

Very few Americans think about nuclear war these days, but the small cadre of experts who do have split views about A House of Dynamite

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