Dr Jacques COULARDEAU This documentary is based and constructed around one quote by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his address before the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 25, 1961:"Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."The logic of the film is simple. We have' more than twenty thousand nuclear devices in the world in the hands of a very small number of countries and thus in the hands of machines that control them, military personnel that manages the machine and political personnel that controls the military personnel that controls the machines that control the nuclear devices. All along that command line individuals can make the wrong evaluation of a situation, take the wrong decision on the basis of that wrong evaluation and within 20 to 30 minutes it will have happened: one city or more will have been destroyed, and within a few more minutes, retaliation will come. And once it is started it cannot be stopped. There is no comeback, no turn-back, nor step-back. In that command line we just need an accident caused by some mechanical failure, or some miscalculation brought up by the misinterpretation of some data provided by the machines, or some madness, or let's say some mental derangement of one actor in that chain of command. The film provides several instances of close to the brink situations that occurred over the years. Evaluation of the damage in the case of one nuclear weapon on one big city in the world is just over-dramatic and seems to only play on fear in the audience. If the public is only motivated by fear, then there is no hope.Hope can only come if the public, the vast wide general public is convinced we have to get rid of nuclear weapons not because they are afraid but because of positive reasons like the fact humanity means life, means creative development, means continued progress, and nuclear weapons, both possession and use, are none of these, not life, not creative development, not continued progress. We could also develop some positive ethical arguments going the same way, provided we clearly see the difference between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Just like nuclear power can be used in nuclear submarines or in nuclear ships it may have one day to be used in space travel, and not fission but fusion. Not using nuclear energy for weapons is definitely nothing but an ethical decision and the mark of ethical human control of humanity. It is not because the internal combustion engine was used in tanks that we are supposed to ban the internal combustion engine, all cars and many other applications. It is not because some planes are military bombers that we are supposed to ban air travel.That's the first shortcoming of this film: nuclear energy is not clearly differentiated from nuclear weapons and yet only the French images project the confusion by stating "NON AU NUCLÉAIRE" (No Nuclear) meaning the rejection of both nuclear energy and weapons, though in fact in the mind of the French people who put forward this motto (the Greens), it is nuclear energy they have in mind. The images from all other countries and the interviews always target nuclear weapons. But it would be clear to say that nuclear energy is another can of worms and these worms might be earth worms, very useful worms for agriculture, gardening and hence surviving hunger. The second shortcoming is the very ambiguous message about terrorism and about proliferation. The film insists with images and long sequences on the Islamic danger of Pakistan who has nuclear weapons – supposedly thanks to the Chinese, though we do not know where the Chinese got the technology, from the Soviets maybe? – and who sells the blue print as much as the technology to anyone who wants to pay. The Pakistani bomb is called the Islamic Nuclear Bomb and it is at once connected to Al Qaeda and Iran, and allusions to more Muslim countries in the Middle East or the Arab world are added. Nothing is said about the proliferation of nuclear weapons to India, the Hindu Bomb, etc., and where it could have come from – the Soviets I guess? And still along that line there are a few elements about North Korea, still under the rule of Kim the Second, not yet Kim the Third. This presentation is absolutely biased and debatable. And what about France, Great Britain and Israel?Terrorism is a problem but we have other forms of terrorism than Islamic terrorism, even today. Terrorism has causes and to only speak of containing and controlling it is a waste of time since it will bring no solution to the real causes. And by the way how did the apartheid South Africa manage to get nuclear fuel to be able to build nuclear weapons at a time when a total embargo was imposed onto this country for anything military? And the film is a little bit short on the fact that there are an unevaluated and definitely uncontrolled amount of Highly Enriched Uranium and Plutonium running loose on the planet's black market, enough to produce thousands of nuclear weapons of various categories from a dirty bomb to a real nuclear weapon. And this black market can only exist because of the diamond and other gems black market, because of the uncontrolled speculative financial market and the vast international financial laundering machine through and via the various fiscal paradises and tax havens.To be seen, widened and discussed as much as possible.Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

Robert J Taylor Sr. About the only thing I have to say about this "documentary" that might be a "spoiler" is that near the very beginning they show a clip of Valerie Plame Wilson and identify her as a "Former CIA Covert Operative" which is a very blatant lie. SHE WAS NEVER A COVERT OPERATIVE, and everyone who followed the "drama" of her being "outed" damned well knows that. Seeing such a blatant lie so close to the beginning of this piece of propaganda made me doubt the truthfulness of who a lot of the people speaking in the film really are as well as much of the rest of what was said during the film.

davegriffin1234 This is the first time I've written an online movie review, and it's out of annoyance that I was compelled to do so.Having read the reviews for this movie both on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, this "documentary" looked quite interesting. However, on watching I got the uneasy feeling of AGENDA. By the time I saw the satellite picture of Korea, which supposedly showed North Korea being totally blacked out compared to South Korea, I thought bullshit. I paused the movie (I was watching the Blu-ray version so any doctoring of images was easily apparent). Needless to say, the satellite picture was blatantly doctored, with the sea around South Korea apparently emitting more light (through noise) than the entire North Korean mainland (which miraculously emitted no noise and was pitch black). I stopped the movie at this point and decided to write this review.In short, this "documentary" is anything but.

natalierosen I do NOT know how reviewing a documentary can contain a spoiler. Having said that: "Countdown to Zero" is a documentary about nuclear war directed by Lucy Walker. It is one worth seeing to remind us exactly what the destructive capacity of a nuclear explosive device means. One has to see it to really understand it and to impress upon us the reality of the effects of nuclear war for those who might either not know of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have never seen pictures of it or if they have seen it have forgotten about it. After viewing this documentary it makes the storm cloud under which mankind sits difficult to forget.The documentary retells the history of the construction of the nuclear bomb during World War II, Oppenheimer's horror of what he and others had accomplished through the Manhattan Project, the science of it and, of course, the attempts, however minimal, at nuclear non proliferation treaties signed by the United States and Russia throughout the decades. The documentarian interviews a host of experts on nuclear proliferation including Valerie Pflame (the woman who worked for the CIA exploring the link of terrorism to nuclear weapons whom Rove, Cheney and their henchmen in the Bush administration outed) as well as Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, the late Robert MacNamara and others including profound statements by Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy and Barack Obama.The minutiae of the historical facts behind the building of the nuclear bomb, although interesting, are not what staggers me. What staggers me is the fact that the US, Russia and seven other countries have the capacity now, as I write this, to annihilate life on earth many times over in a matter of seconds and how relatively easy it could be done whether by mistake, terrorist attempts at purchasing and/or stealing nuclear material, smuggling nuclear devices into ports or simply bad policy – VERY bad policy and how close we have come in the past to having that happen.Moreover, it is astounding the relative ease of creating a nuclear device IF one has the appropriate materials and how many have already attempted such a thing including A.Q. Kahn, the hero of Pakistan's nuclear weapon program. Nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable nation states like Pakistan are a clear and present danger. A destabilized Middle East created by the Iraq War is a threat. A nuclear device either secured on the black market by terrorists or possessed by rogue states like North Korea which does have access to nuclear material or Iran which wants to have access to it is a doomsday scenario. It would take but a single mistake or malfeasance to propel the planet and man on it to extinction.The documentary catapults the viewer into the reality of a nuclear explosion with views of the flash point, evaporation of people and miles of destruction to everything near the blast as well as the destruction from the ensuing tornado like wind and radiation poisoning that follows as the blast eradicates everything. It is a mind numbing experience but one which, I believe, is necessary for all to see. The horror of it is beyond the power of human imagination to truly comprehend. Man in his genius could be the genius behind his own demise. That is the irony and that is the fear.Zero nuclear weaponry world wide is the goal but who do we trust to pursue it? This documentary, in my opinion, is a must see for all who care about the preservation of life on earth for its own sake and for the sake of the generations which come after us. The earth is a gift the beauty of which we must not squander for any reason. Let us hope everyone else thinks that way as well.