When the Wind Blows

When the Wind Blows (1986) — watch online Jimmy T. Murakami's animated film adapted from Raymond Briggs' graphic novel. Jim and Hilda are a retired couple in the English countryside who read their government leaflets carefully, build a makeshift shelter from doors and boards, and wait for the nuclear strike with the cheerful faith of people who survived the Blitz and expect this to be more of the same.

John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft voice the two of them — Mills warm and earnest, Ashcroft fussing over teacups — and the gap between their trust in official guidance and the reality of what a nuclear weapon actually does is the film's entire subject. Murakami doesn't play it for horror. He plays it straight, which is worse. The couple follows the instructions. The instructions are useless.

The film uses a mix of hand-drawn animation over three-dimensional sets, with music by David Bowie and Roger Waters. It's a British classic that belongs alongside the hardest anti-war films ever made — not for what it shows, but for what it refuses to dramatise. Stream When the Wind Blows (1986) online on iFILM.