Popular reviews

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  Review by chavel ★★★★★ 14

  Far and away the greatest film ever directed by a woman, but it is in turns so grief-stricken yet so sensitive that it is likely never to find popular acceptance; director Lynne Littman will eventually vanquish into oblivion and nobody will know her name. Which is a shame because in a contemporary moviescape where people are obsessed with giving women directors more chances, people do not want to see what the greatest by a woman could possibly look like because nobody has heard of Littman and so she fails the name familiarity test. A little more than halfway through, a pre-teen daughter asks her mother what making love to her dad was like. And the mother (Jane Alexander) drops her…

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  Review by ace ★★★½

  “Sunday, I think. Watching Brad, the man he’s become. The man he’ll not live to be.”

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  Review by smallclone ★★★★

  Really enjoyed this. It's a very tenderly directed apocalypse film that I've rarely heard anyone talk about, and is nearly 40 years old. Told from the perspective of a mother keeping a journal after a catastrophic nuclear attack in the USA, it is absolutely devastating in parts as we are with a family dealing with the aftermath of the fallout and the horrors it brings.

  Directed by Lynne Littman, who brings a feminist touch to the film it has early performances from Rebecca de Mornay, Kevin Costner and the score is composed by James Horner. Jayne Alexander's central performance is outstanding, and was rightly recognised at the time. The film feels like it influenced later apocalypse films most notably 'The Road'.

  Highly recommended for those who enjoy the sub genre of Apocalypse films.

  8.3/10

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  Review by Jordan Horowitz ★★★★ 3

  Holy shit. A wrecking ball of a film. If you desire an emotional, authentic, stripped down, unflinching, slow burn look at the realities of a small town in California in the weeks following a large scale nuclear attack on major cities in the United States, then this ones for you.

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  Review by Karl ★★★★½ 2

  Lynn Littman is an Oscar winning director, (for the doc short Number Our Days) who seems to have been forgotten. It's unfortunate because she's made one of the best films portraying nuclear fallout. TESTAMENT belongs on a list with THREADS, WHEN THE WIND BLOWS and THE DAY AFTER. All were released within a three year span (1983 - 1986). What sets Littman's (only theatrical) film apart is its motherly perspective. Jane Alexander, who received a Best Actress Oscar nod, plays Carol, a mother of three in an idyllic California suburb. Life as they know it is wiped out after a nuclear attack. The event is shown quite simply and effectively. It's what comes after that's impossible to shake. James Horner…

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  Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★½

  Cinematic Time Capsule
  1983 Marathon - Film #99

  ”We thought we were so lucky…”

  When nuclear war breaks out a small fringe community finds itself forced to deal with the day-to-day implications of society’s fall out.

  Welcome to the American Playhouse post-nuclear production of OUR TOWN.

  PBS originally produced this as a made-for-TV movie, but Paramount was so impressed that they decided to give it a theatrical release. It even ended up earning Jane Alexander her fourth Oscar nomination.

  Full of somber town-halls, super-dour monologues, and an ever increasing body count of mopey miserable humans...

  Sounds like a good time, don’t it?

  BONUS POINTS for Rebecca De Mornay & Kevin Costner as a young shellshocked couple whom seem to have a lot of trouble forming complete sentences.

  Ever since the baby - -
  Our parents, we - -
  We have to get away…

  
  Countdown to Oppenheimer - A Nuclear Playlist

  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1983 Ranked

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  Review by Tyler Lake ★★★½

  What if the baby is the lucky one?

  A very solid entry in Criterion’s apocalypse collection, there’s no real use in stacking Lynne Littman’s film against the more widely appreciated (feels like the wrong word) Threads, though the comparisons are certainly inevitable. It’s really apples to oranges. 

  Testament is understated but certainly devastating in its own right. Sometimes incredible danger moves at a glacial pace, almost incomprehensible, like a car going 15 miles per hour appears harmless until it hits you. That’s the horror that Littman explores, the misery of helplessness in waiting.

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  Review by PuRock ★★★★

  The 1980's saw its fair share of harrowing films about nuclear war, especially life after the bomb. The Day After (1983), Threads (1984), When the Wind Blows (1986), War Games (1983), Miracle Mile (1988), By Dawn's Early Light (1990), and Testament (1983). As well as countless other made-for-TV movies. It just goes to show how real the bomb threat was. The fear and the despair. Testament brings these horrors to the forefront and won't allow you to ever crack a smile.

  The UK film Threads was very similar to Testament. But where Threads was physically gut-wrenching, Testament was emotionally draining. It's almost like these films preyed on our weakness. At least with other social films about animal extinction, the climate,…

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  Review by Sonny_Jim ★★★★½ 15

  Testament focuses on a small Northern CA community that becomes isolated in the aftermath of nuclear war. The citizens struggle to survive as supplies dwindle and radiation poisoning slowly begins to take its toll. It's a heavy movie. It's not particularly graphic but it is powerful and genuinely upsetting.

  I grew up in this era, roughly halfway in age between the two boys featured here. Every time the networks broke into one of my shows with a Special News Bulletin, I thought the nukes were on the way. But outside of that I didn't worry about it much.

  In some ways I feel like we're more at risk today. There are far fewer warheads but still enough to completely wreck…

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  Review by The Great Owl ★★★★★

  In their idyllic California town, the Wetherlys experience the everyday joys and frustrations of any suburban family. The forever-busy Carol, played by Jane Alexander, worries that her husband, Ted, played by William Devane, may be overenthusiastic in pressuring their eldest son, played by Rossie Harris, to follow his footsteps in his cycling hobby, but she also has her hands full preparing for a local school play starring their youngest son, a seven year-old played by Lukas Haas, and making sure that the adolescent daughter, played by Roxana Zal, keeps up her piano lessons. Unbeknownst to the Weatherlys, their harried life of work, school, errands, and birthday plans will soon come to an abrupt stop.

  One typical sunny day, as Carol…

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  Review by Nuno Costa ★★★★ 2

  Viewed on Netflix

  I hadn't heard of Testament (1983) until today.
  According to IMDB: The film was originally shot as a made-for-TV movie. Paramount executives were so impressed with it that they released it in theaters as a feature. The cast sued the producers for higher pay, claiming they were paid television salaries and not feature film salaries. The case was settled out of court.
  The film was originally made for the PBS American Playhouse.
  The picture though did end up screening on PBS around a year later.

  Testament (1983) has a pretty good cast including Kevin Costner & Rebecca De Mornay playing a married couple, character actor Mako and this is Lucas Haas' debut feature film.
  Jane Alexander also received an Oscar Nomination.

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★½

  The feel-good movie of all feel-good movies.