Ivan Radford | On 26, Oct 2025

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Cast: Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Tracy Letts, Jared Harris, Gabriel Basso, Jonah Hauer-King
Certificate: 15

“We built a house filled with dynamite, the walls ready to blow, and we kept living in it.” That’s how the US President (Idris Elba) describes the reality of the world’s nuclear landscape in A House of Dynamite. Kathryn Bigelow’s thriller points out the absurd horror of that reality – and then leaves us to stare, unblinking, into the harrowing, apocalyptic consequences for just under two intense hours.

Written by Noah Oppenheim (Jackie, Zero Day), the film unfolds mid-nightmare, as a ballistic missile is detected heading for the USA. Where it is from? Nobody knows. When did it launch? It’s not clear. Who’s responsible? Hard to say. But what begins as possibly a test from North Korea turns into a serious threat as the missile gets closer and closer to its apparent target: Chicago. The time until impact? 20 minutes.

With context hard to ascertain, the USA is faced with two pressing questions: Can it be stopped? And what do they do in response?

The first person we see grappling with those dilemmas is Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), an analyst in the White House who overseas the military’s piecing together of the puzzle. From the opening scenes, it’s clear that Olivia is a no-nonsense, straight-talking professional who can’t be rattled – right down to her abrupt advise on lunch choices to a new member of staff. Ferguson is cool, calm, collected and clipped – and yet, the tighter the countdown gets, the more she begins to show signs of cracking. It’s a precision performance from the always-excellent Ferguson, who shows us the humanity behind the politics, the posturing and the WWIII playbooks.

She sets the bar, and tone, for the rest of the ensemble, from Tracy Letts as the ruthless General Brady, who is all too keen to retaliate to any enemy going, and Jared Harris as the contemplative Defence Secretary Baker, who pauses mid-Zoom conference call to remark, to himself, with growing gravity: “My daughter’s in Chicago.” They trade verbal blows across the situation room with the brilliant Gabriel Basso, who steals almost every scene as fresh-faced NSA employee Jake Baerington, who is plucky enough to stand up to the gung-ho veterans and argue for peace and patience – but nervous enough not to convince the heavyweights around him.

Just as you think the younger generations might be the ones to see sense and not panic, up pops Jonah Hauer-King as Lieut-Commander Reeves, a young naval officer whose job is to carry around a file of nuclear options for the President to pick from in an end-of-the-world scenario – a Doomsday equivalent of a McDonald’s menu. As for the person doing the picking, Idris Elba is immense as the President trying to come up with the answer to the second big question of the day.

We first meet Elba in relaxed campaigning mode, as he plays basketball with teenagers, only to be rushed off the court by staff and hurried on to a plane with little more to ground him than a telephone and no clear facts.

Bigelow shoots all this in a flawless balance of close-ups and chaotic situation rooms, turning the farce of Dr Strangelove into a chilling procedural drama. It’s not a horror movie, but it’s easily the scariest film you’ll see all year, as each chapter escalates to an alarming crescendo – then pauses for breath before delving back under the surface to plumb the depths of human desperation further.

The result is an almost real-time dissection of just how fragile peace is in the modern world, when the unthinkable is on the brink of the inevitable, given the right conditions and the wrong people holding the buttons. The opening titles loudly remind us of the importance of having fewer nuclear weapons. It’s a nerve-wrenching gaze at the gaping void of morality that could lead to humankind’s destruction, and – in a move that might frustrate some viewers – Bigelow and Oppenheim deliberately avoid giving us a simple, reassuring solution to the situation – because, well, there isn’t one. The house is already built. And we’re still living in it.

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