The Day After

The Day After
Genre	Drama Disaster Science fiction
Written by	Edward Hume
Directed by	Nicholas Meyer
Starring	Jason Robards JoBeth Williams Steve Guttenberg John Cullum John Lithgow Amy Madigan
Theme music composer	David Raksin Virgil Thomson (Theme for "The River")
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Producer	Robert Papazian
Cinematography	Gayne Rescher
Editors	William Paul Dornisch Robert Florio
Running time	126 minutes
Production company	ABC Circle Films
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	November 20, 1983 (1983-11-20)
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The Day After is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. The film postulates a fictional war between the NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact over Germany that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The action itself focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, and several family farms near American missile silos.^[1] The cast includes JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, Jason Robards, and John Lithgow. The film was written by Edward Hume, produced by Robert Papazian, and directed by Nicholas Meyer.

More than 100 million people, in nearly 39 million households, watched the film during its initial broadcast.^[2][3][4] With a 46 rating and a 62% share of the viewing audience during the initial broadcast, the film was the seventh-highest-rated non-sports show until then, and in 2009 it set a record as the highest-rated television film in US history.^[4]

The film was broadcast on Soviet state television in 1987,^[5] during the negotiations on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The producers demanded the Russian translation conform to the original script and the broadcast not be interrupted by commentary.^[6]