Movies like Countdown to Zero (2010)
The best movies like Countdown to Zero (2010) are Command and Control (2016), Nuclear Now (2023) and Pandora's Promise (2013). If Countdown to Zero hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Fog of War (2003)7.7/10 from 311 votes
- NewestOppenheimer: The Real Story (2023)Released 2023
Command and Control (2016)
September 18, 1980, 6:25 p.m., Titan II base in Damascus, Arkansas. On this fateful night an explosion kills an Air Force member and transforms the lives of everyone on the base. Honing in on a single case of so-called "human error", Command and Control juxtaposes precision on a minute scale against the gargantuan risks inherent in the United States' aggressive nuclear proliferation policy during the Cold War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Nuclear Now (2023)
With unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia, and the United States, Nuclear Now explores the possibility for the global community to overcome the challenges of climate change and energy poverty to reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy. Beneath our feet, Uranium atoms in the Earth’s crust hold incredibly concentrated energy. Science unlocked this energy in the mid-20th century, first for bombs and then to power submarines. The United States led the effort to generate electricity from this new source. Yet in the mid-20th century as societies began the transition to nuclear power and away from fossil fuels, a long-term PR campaign to scare the public began, funded in part by coal and oil interests.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Pandora's Promise (2013)
The atomic bomb, the specter of a global nuclear holocaust, and disasters like Fukushima have made nuclear energy synonymous with the darkest nightmares of the modern world. But what if everyone has nuclear power wrong? What if people knew that there are reactors that are self-sustaining and fully controllable and ones that require no waste disposal? What if nuclear power is the only energy source that has the ability to stop climate change?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Time Bomb Y2K (2023)
As the clock counted down to the the 21st century, the world faced a potential technological disaster: a bug that could cause computers to misinterpret the year 2000 as 1900. Crafted entirely from archival footage and featuring first-hand accounts from computer experts, survivalists, scholars, militia groups, conservative Christians, and pop icons, Time Bomb Y2K is a prescient and often humorous tale about the power and vulnerabilities of technology.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Fukushima: A Nuclear Story (2015)
A powerful documentary that sheds some light on what really happened at the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the 2011 earthquake and the tsunami that immediately followed. A powerful documentary - shot from March 11th, 2011 through March 2015 - that sheds some light on what really happened at the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the 2011 earthquake and the tsunami that followed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Zero Days (2016)
Alex Gibney explores the phenomenon of Stuxnet, a self-replicating computer virus discovered in 2010 by international IT experts. Evidently commissioned by the US and Israeli governments, this malware was designed to specifically sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the complex computer worm ended up not only infecting its intended target but also spreading uncontrollably.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChernobyl: The Lost Tapes (2022)
Thirty-six years after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Soviet Ukraine, newly uncovered archival footage and recorded interviews with those who were present paint an emotional and gripping portrait of the extent and gravity of the disaster and the lengths to which the Soviet government went to cover up the incident, including the soldiers sent in to “liquidate” the damage. Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is the full, unvarnished true story of what happened in one of the least understood tragedies of the twentieth century.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Demolition of Truth-Psychologists Examine 9/11 (2016)
Respected social scientists examine America's cognitive dissonance. Our inability to reconcile the observable facts and science of 9/11 with our governments lazy, sloppy explanations. Our governments activities since 9/11 have left many Americans very bewildered. The scientific facts of 9/11 from the government don't add up. Now we are uneasy and debate has been banned from TV. What do we do?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Azorian: The Raising of the K-129 (2011)
In 1968 the Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 sank in the Central North Pacific. American intelligence located it within weeks of its demise. The CIA crafted a secret program to raise the submarine in 1974. Now after much secrecy, this story can be told, by the men who made it happen and with never-before-seen footage of the actual salvage attempt, and new evidence of the project's successes and failures.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
A Good American (2015)
A Good American tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Chernobyl: The Invisible Enemy (2021)
In Ukraine, on the 26th of April 1986, a catastrophe shook the whole of Europe, and the world experienced a fatal day that became engraved in its history – A major nuclear accident at Chernobyl turned an entire city into a post-apocalyptic ghost town. Tens of thousands of lives were ruined. Today, nature has begun reclaiming the area of the exclusion zone surrounding the old power plant. But the consequences and the suffering are still felt today. Chernobyl is a lesson for the present. It warns us about the risks of our ever-evolving modern society. But Chernobyl taught us more importantly about the cost of lies. By highlighting the flaws in the Soviet Union system, it revealed how they can lead to disaster, and how the way we tell information about what really happened can cause harm. The past cannot be undone, but we can learn from it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Oppenheimer: The Real Story (2023)
J. Robert Oppenheimer, a physics professor known for creating the atomic bomb during WWII. He witnessed the first atomic bomb detonation in New Mexico in 1945. This film examines Oppenheimer's life, from his early years to his involvement with nuclear physics and his later advocacy for nuclear weapons controls, with interviews and insights from those who knew him and impacted by his legacy.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Bridge (2006)
The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like this9/11: Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out (2012)
Persuasive viewpoints of over 1,700 architects and engineers who believe the unsettling theory that scientific forensic evidence points to explosive controlled demolition of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on September 11, 2001.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The KGB, the Computer and Me (1990)
In 1986, astronomer turned computer scientist Clifford Stoll had just started working on a computer system at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory when he noticed a 75-cent discrepancy between the charges printed by two accounting programs responsible for charging people for machine use. Intrigued, he deduced that the system was being hacked, and he determined to find the culprit. This is the re-enactment of how he tracked down KGB cracker Markus Hess through the Ethernet to Hannover, Germany.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
911 Mysteries Part 1: Demolitions (2006)
911 Mysteries is a documentary that attempts to tell the people what really happened. It systematically deconstructs all of the propaganda you have heard about the twin towers, and replaces it with facts.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Loose Change (2005)
2nd Edition of Loose Change documentary. What if...September 11th was not a surprise attack on America, but rather, a cold and calculated genocide by our own government?We were told that the twin towers were hit by commercial jetliners and subsequently brought down by jet fuel. We were told that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757. We were told that flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. We were told that nineteen Arabs from halfway across the globe, acting under orders from Osama Bin Laden, were responsible. What you will see here will prove without a shadow of a doubt that everything you know about 9/11 is a complete fabrication. Conspiracy theory? It's not a theory if you can prove it.Written and narrated by Dylan Avery, this film presents a rebuttal to the official version of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the 9/11 Commission Report.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like this9/11: Blueprint for Truth - The Architecture of Destruction (2008)
In this stunning multimedia presentation at a Canadian university, SF Bay Area architect, Richard Gage, AIA, provides a packed audience with a tough technical review of the overwhelming evidence of controlled demolition with explosives at all 3 WTC high-rise "collapses" - including WTC 7 - the 47 story high-rise, not hit by an airplane, which also fell at near free-speed on 9/11
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Atomic Cafe (1982)
A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2008)
J. Robert Oppenheimer was a national hero, the brilliant scientist who during WWII led the scientific team that created the atomic bomb. But after the bomb brought the war to an end, in spite of his renown and his enormous achievement, America turned on him - humiliated and cast him aside. The question the film asks is, "Why?"
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
9/11: The Day That Changed the World (2011)
Ten years later, the events of September 11, 2001, still resonate - especially for the people who were in critical leadership positions on that fateful day. Hear intimate accounts from New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the chiefs of the NYPD and FDNY, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and many others who found themselves at the center of the action. Unprecedented decisions. Unimaginable tragedy. This is the definitive story, from 6 am to midnight, of a day that changed the world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Fog of War (2003)
Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of the Vietnam War. Augmented by archival footage and cabinet conversation recordings, Errol Morris gives the conflicted McNamara a platform on which he attempts to confront his and the U.S. government's actions in Southeast Asia in light of the horrors of modern warfare, the end of ideology and the punitive judgment of history.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisForbidden Lie$ (2007)
The film meticulously unravels the case of Norma Khouri, whose best-selling memoir about an honor killing captivated the world before her entire story began to collapse under the weight of its own fabrications. More than just a look at a spectacular con, this is a timely and unsettling exploration of media manipulation, cultural differences, and the dangerous power of a compelling narrative. Broinowski’s film is a riveting study of a pathological liar, but it also holds a mirror up to a world eager to embrace a good story, fact or fiction.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Corporation (2003)
Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisArmstrong (2019)
Dramatic, moving and deeply human, ARMSTRONG offers the definitive life story of Neil Armstrong: from his childhood in Ohio to his first steps on the Moon, and beyond.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Day After Trinity (1980)
Through interviews with Manhattan Project scientists and newly declassified archival footage, this documentary examines the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his leadership of the Manhattan Project. The film traces the development and testing of the first atomic bomb and follows Oppenheimer’s later opposition to nuclear proliferation during the early years of the Cold War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995)
"Trinity and Beyond" is an unsettling yet visually fascinating documentary presenting the history of nuclear weapons development and testing between 1945-1963. Narrated by William Shatner and featuring an original score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, this award-winning documentary reveals previously unreleased and classified government footage from several countries.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWormwood (2017)
In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Age of Stupid (2009)
Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove, Marilyn (2013)
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Countdown to Zero?
The closest matches to Countdown to Zero are Command and Control (2016), Nuclear Now (2023) and Pandora's Promise (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Countdown to Zero?
People who watched Countdown to Zero most often go on to Command and Control (2016), Nuclear Now (2023) and Pandora's Promise (2013).
What is the highest-rated movie like Countdown to Zero?
The Fog of War (2003), rated 7.7/10 by 311 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Countdown to Zero?
Oppenheimer: The Real Story (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Countdown to Zero?
Yes: Command and Control (2016), Nuclear Now (2023) and Pandora's Promise (2013).
How are movies similar to Countdown to Zero chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Countdown to Zero, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.