As a quintessential Cold War child, still fixated on it, I periodically revisit films and documentaries about its most prickly moments. For years, I’ve observed, and occasionally joined, debates surrounding the two key films that managed to capture the 1980s collective paranoia: nuclear annihilation. The first, in 1983, was the American The Day After. A year later, the British Threads emerged. The debate has historically crystallised on a rigid duality in interpreting t...