Only Kubrick would’ve dared to treat the prospect of mutually assured nuclear destruction as a laughing matter in the tense Cold War years, and he did exactly that in this daring, daffy geopolitical burlesque, which moves through Burpelson Air Force Base, the Pentagon War Room, and the cockpit of a B-52 carrying a perilous payload. Assembled at the apocalypse is one of the finest comic ensembles of all times, including George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden’s all-American madmen, bombardier James Earl Jones, cowboy kook Slim Pickens, and Peter Sellers in triplicate.