Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Released in 1959, Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach is widely considered the first ‘important’ entry in the doomsday genre. Based on Nevil Shute’s novel, the film is set in 1964 when virtually all life on earth has been exterminated by the radioactive residue of a nuclear war. Only those survivors now in Australia have been spared – but it seems only a matter of time before they too succumb to the spreading radiation cloud.

Starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins.

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