Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995) on Netflix
NR19951h 32mDocumentaryHistory
Physicists and military crews build and test atomic weapons, starting with the 1945 Trinity trial. Restored, declassified test footage records the detonations that followed.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.8/103,717 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes82%
Trailer
Plot summary
Archive footage of nuclear weapons testing, much of it classified and unseen, was restored and improved through a patented image process. The record opens with the May 1945 trial run toward Trinity, the first atomic bomb, and the hundred-ton TNT explosion fired to scale and calibrate the device. Cameramen who photographed the American tests were tracked down during the research. Later test series appear from the South Pacific, and in 1953 the Army fired an atomic cannon in Nevada. A Soviet documentary's Tsar Bomba footage appears, called the Russian monster bomb. Multi-megaton bursts high over Johnston Island are shown in color.
Cast
- Frank H. Sheltonas Himself - Nuclear Weaponeer (as Dr. Frank H. Shelton)
- Everett Dirksenas Himself (archive footage)
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Peter Kuran's research put him in touch with many of the cameramen who had filmed the American nuclear tests, and their recollections became a second documentary, Atomic Filmmakers. The old, fading test footage was cleaned up with a newly patented restoration process used here for the first time.
- The score for this history of the American bomb was played by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, a choice meant to stand for the end of the Cold War. The music itself was composed by William T. Stromberg.
