10 Movies About Radiation That Are Highly Unscientific (But Entertaining)

Radiation is a type of energy with electric and magnetic fields that moves through space at the speed of light. Should a human interact with it, their DNA can be altered significantly, often leading to death. From the more harmless radiation exposure during an X-ray or a cross-continental flight to the serious fallout from nuclear power and the more deadly radiation in space, the various types of radiation can range from normal to lethal.

Plenty of movies have focused on radiation. But, like how Chinatown was the artsy version of a conspiracy theory thriller (as opposed to something like Chain Reaction) the quality of radiation-themed films varies considerably. These are the ones that fall towards the bottom of the barrel when it comes to actual science. So, in other words, no Oppenheimer, The China Syndrome or The Day After here. While these 10 films are highly unscientific with respect to radiation and its effects — they are still quite entertaining.

10 Night of the Living Dead (1968)

It’s hard to list everything about George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead that makes it special. For one, the landscape of cinematic horror would be vastly different without it. Two, it’s legitimately important in terms of racial diversity and, therefore, film history as a whole (they even show Night in film school classes alongside Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water).

Zombies Possibly Made From Radiation

It’s incredible that Night of the Living Dead came out in the ’60s. It’s genuinely terrifying, even to this day. And it did that with a micro-budget… in the ’60s, when directors weren’t allowed to show much of anything on screen. Romero found ways around that, and part of the film’s terrifying appeal is that no one knows how zombies came to be. But, likely, it’s radiation.

It’s never specified, but there is reference to a probe or satellite exploding in space, raining down radiation on corpses below ground. Needless to say, it was a time when most people did not understand how radiation worked. Still, it’s one of the more unique explanations for zombies out there.

9 Them! (1954)

Universal had Frankenstein and The Wolf Man, but Warner Bros. Pictures (and every other studio on the block) had monster movies of their own. For WB, among other similar projects, they had the giant ant movie Them!

The film was a minor trendsetter that nonetheless plays as nothing short of ludicrous now. And it’s telling that this applies even if one is watching it for the first time as a child in the ’90s.

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Radiation as a Growth Ray

Like any high-concept movie from the ’50s (particularly anything related to science fiction), Them! isn’t the most well-aged thing in the world. More often than not it’s painfully obvious that the camera is just super close to a regular-sized ant. It’s hard for that to be scary, at least now… but back in ’54?

Much like other kaiju films of the ’50s, radiation was blamed for blowing up ants to such an enormous size. It might have seemed more silly than scary back then, but as biologists Hölldobler and Wilson once said, “If ants had nuclear weapons, they would probably destroy the world within a week.”

8 Repo Man (1984)

Repo Man isn’t just one of the most unique movies of the 1980s (a decade stocked with them), it’s one of the most unique movies ever made. And, yet, even though its structure is super loose and nothing is clear even in the third act, the film is a classic.

The narrative follows an unnamed man driving a strange, green box across the country in the trunk of his car. The tone of Repo Man is about as self-aware as a film can get. It has two motives: to entertain, and to comment on how messed up society is.

Radiation Turning People Into Skeletons

The film accomplishes its goal very well. But of course, that also makes it a radiation-focused movie that can’t exactly be taken seriously. When three punks open the trunk at one point, one is instantly turned into a skeleton, while the other two die later from the exposure. The instant-vaporizing isn’t what you might call scientific, but it sure is entertaining.

7 Hardware (1990)

Like The Terminator, Hardware takes place in a decimated future. But, while James Cameron’s film had bots destroy the planet, Richard Stanley’s genre-blender has the robots do damage after most of the human race has been annihilated. Thus, Hardware shows viewers a world that has already been emaciated, where flying dust and blown-up buildings are the view from an eighth-story window.

Hardware is not a bad film. For one, the special effects are memorably creepy (even moreso than the skeletal T-800). Two, while Dylan McDermott is fine and the bigger name, Stacey Travis knocks this thing out of the park.

A Radioactive Wasteland

But, at the end of the day, Hardware absolutely a B-movie Terminator rip-off that abides by science even less than Cameron’s outlandish film did. The landscape, irradiated by nuclear war, is a common setting in post-apocalyptic futures, and how accurate such a landscape is remains a question in science.

6 Broken Arrow (1996)

Besides the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Hard Target, Broken Arrow was America’s true introduction to the style of John Woo. Now, on one hand, Broken Arrow is absolutely lesser Woo. But on the other hand, it’s a ton of fun, and only gets more fun with rewatches.

The silliest thing about this nuclear warhead-focused Broken Arrow, even more than the bad science, is John Travolta’s scenery-chewing performance. He’s having a blast, and it makes full sense that the director teamed up with the star again shortly after for Face/Off.

Shooting a Nuclear Bomb

At the end of the day, this is a silly movie that wants to be silly… so the science behind nuclear weapons is sacrificed in the name of entertainment. There is even a scene where one of Travolta’s henchmen outright shoots directly at a warhead in the hopes of killing Christian Slater’s character. Who doesn’t have a good sense of how that will go?

5 Godzilla (1998)

Like Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, Godzilla was a normal creature (in this case an iguana instead of a scientist) exposed to radiation. And after that, he became massive and destructive in equal measure. Admittedly, all of the Godzilla films are at least somewhat silly and almost always unrealistic. Even Gojira is, inherently, though it’s riddled with surprisingly dark moments.

At the end of the day, a Godzilla movie is about a big lizard (or dinosaur, in the case of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah) stomping through a city. There is obviously little to no interest in the science behind it. And, in the case of Roland Emmerich’s botch job of the character, the silliness extended to the characters’ dialogue and the action sequences’ overall lack of plausibility.

The concept of Godzilla was created as a direct response to concerns about nuclear testing and nuclear warfare, which was especially relevant coming from the only country who has ever suffered from nuclear bombing — Japan. It’s poignant, therefore, that at the end of the first Godzilla film in 1954, the scientist warns that more nuclear testing might awaken another Godzilla. Poignant, but not scientific.

4 K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

There are a few things about Kathryn Bigelow’s K-19: The Widowmaker that strain credibility. For one… Harrison Ford as a Russian? Sure, he’s always had loads of star power, but there are limits to logic, and Bigelow might as well have cast Kevin Costner.

Somehow Triggering Nuclear War

Ford’s casting aside (remember, even he made fun of it on Conan O’Brien’s show), there were some more concrete historical inaccuracies in Bigelow’s film. And, according to Slash Film, some of the real-life survivors took umbrage with it. Specifically, because the movie portrays some crew members as drunkards, and the K-19 as decrepit before it even leaves the harbor.

The most unrealistic part of the film is the Hollywood-invented addition to the story (which was otherwise based on true events): that if the engine overheated, it could “set off” the nuclear weapons on board, and U.S. might mistake that for an attack, and start a nuclear war with Russia. In reality, the sub just would have exploded, at most.

3 Hulk (2003)

Seen by some as a refreshing new take on the superhero genre (at an early stage, no less) and by others as a disaster, Ang Lee’s Hulk is a mixed bag. Admittedly, its detractors are more on-point than its supporters, because style or no style, Hulk is an obnoxiously hollow affair. It even makes Jennifer Connelly seem wooden.

Gamma Radiation Turns a Man Into a Big Green Monster

Issues with the movie’s presentation aside, the concept of the Hulk is one of Marvel’s silliest. A man exposed to gamma radiation doesn’t just writhe in a chair until his heart rate is elevated enough to turn him into a big green monster. In reality, Dr. Banner’s skin would have burned off, he would get radiation sickness, and at worst, simply die.

2 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

The Dark Knight Rises was, to put it lightly, a bit of a disappointment. It’s a Batman movie though, so it’s fine if it’s not entirely realistic. But, both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight actively strived for realism, so the third installment in the series was a let down by comparison.

The Dark Knight Rises can’t even seem to get its own timeline straight. So Bruce Wayne escapes the Lazarus Pit and travels halfway across the world basically overnight? He even has a chance to spray oil up on a bridge in the shape of a bat then light a match? Not likely.

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A Nuclear Bomb Explodes Not-So-Safely at Sea

But, what’s even less likely is that Bruce can take the Batwing out to the middle of Gotham Harbor with a nuclear bomb and bail out long enough ahead of time to survive. It’s a nuke, fairly close to shore. Bats would be ash, and so too would the rest of Gotham.

1 Elysium (2013)

Neill Blomkamp burst onto the scene in a big way with District 9. But, his subsequent films have been lacking in a way just as massive as his debut’s success. Though at least Elysium, his sophomore effort, did better at the box office than Chappie. That said, it’s just as fast and loose with the science.

While attempting to be a social commentary on a range of relevant issues, the plot simply falls flat. Set in 2154, it shows humanity split between the rich elite who live in space on Elysium, and the remaining poor of society living on the polluted and overpopulated Earth below. When parolee Max (Matt Damon) gets exposed to a lethal dose of radiation, he has only days to live — unless he can get to Elysium, and use their insta-healing pods.

What Makes It Silly?

The least believable aspect of Elysium should be the titular space city (how is all of that concrete supposed to be transported up to Elysium without bankrupting the investers?). And the homing bullets shown in the movie are pretty ludicrous as well.

But the most unbelievable part of the film scientifically is Elysium’s ability to heal anything, even the breakdown of the body due to deadly amounts of radiation. Unless some kind of new discovery in physics and biology happens, this is beyond sci-fi and stretches into the realms of magic.

For sci-fi style that fits a little more closely into reality, check out this video on the best hard sci-fi films: