It was repeated on BBC One on 1 August 1985 as part of a week of programmes marking the fortieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which also saw the first television screening of The War Game (which had been deemed too disturbing for television in the 20 years since it had been made).

Threads (Remastered) : British Broadcasting 1984 - Threads (Remastered) : British Broadcasting

Survivors work in cultivating crops, and children born after the war speak a broken form of English.

I have ever since believed that every newly seated world leader should be made to watch it in their first month in office. A few niggles: when convenient some buildings still intact, including windows; Ruth's daughter has fillings in her molars; when fall-out is still an immediate hazard, soldiers are patrolling without protection; radiation sickness seems to have left some survivors alone completely; starving people look remarkably well fed. The US then reacts with the detonation of an American tactical nuclear weapon over Mashhad, destroying the Soviet base and ending the brief skirmish. In 1983, US President Ronald Reagan had launched the Strategic Defense Initiative – also known as ‘Star Wars’ – a program designed to develop an anti-ballistic missile system to fend off a nuclear attack. The one scene that keeps playing on my mind is when Ruth leaves the family shelter and is confronted with a woman holding her scorched baby.

Threads (Blu-ray Review) - The Digital Bits Threads (Blu-ray Review) - The Digital Bits

quotidian details that makes it so terrifying - What if that branch of BHS that you've walked past hundreds of times was blown to pieces by a nuclear shockwave? And, over the course of the next few winters, the young and the old gradually disappear and become rare sights in what's left of society. This, after all, isn't Hollywood, it's the terraced streets of 1980s Sheffield, a city caught up in strikes and economic hardships. Crucial themes such as society's dependence on conformity are thrust to the forefront and almost all of the deeper horror in Threads comes from the barbarism of a broken, mangled society. It should be compulsory viewing for everyone, particularly those who believe that an all out nuclear war can have winners.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs last year, Brooker cited the film as a formative moment of his early adolescence. I feel completely inadequate to offer a proper, detailed account of my feelings for this absolutely, stunningly brilliant film. Extras were chosen on the basis of height and age, and were all told to look "miserable" and to wear ragged clothes; the majority were CND supporters. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter .

Threads the scariest TV show ever made? - BBC Culture Was Threads the scariest TV show ever made? - BBC Culture

The soundtrack to destruction is a rumble so distressing that it is comparable to an “enormous door slamming in the depths of hell”, as the noise of a nuclear explosion was described in Peter Watkins’ similarly terrifying 1960s film The War Game. It was indeed absolutely horrifying to watch during those years, that real peak of the Cold War with Reagan, Thatcher, and Andropov (AND Chernenko AND finally Gorbachev, God bless his jelly-stained head! Despite only being in her 30s at this point, the hardships of radiation, the harsh elements and intense mental stress have aged her by several decades leaving her with pale skin, cataracts and lifeless, straw like hair. Mick Jackson was hired to direct the film, as he had previously worked in the area of nuclear apocalypse in 1982, producing the BBC Q.

There are some brilliant directorial touches by Mick Jackson (who went on to make The Bodyguard) such as depicting the explosion in pockets of disorientating silence, and picking out graphic details of human and animal remains burning amongst the rubble.