One of cinema's best and funniest offerings

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 1999)

Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's masterful study of the foolishness of war and the incompetence of the men who start them, is blacker than pitch and funny in ways that most films can't dream of approaching. Faultless direction, writing, and performing cemented the picture as a modern classic, making it hard to believe today that it was something of a wild card in its initial release during the chilliest days of the Cold War. The incomparable Peter Sellers devours three roles, and is equalled by the sublime turns of Sterling Hayden and George C. Scott, never more brilliant or funnier than they are here (playing gum-smacking, belly-slapping, gung-ho dim bulb Buck Turgidson and paranoid, crazy as a woodpecker, "precious bodily fluids" loose cannon Jack D. Ripper, respectively). Keenan Wynn and Slim Pickens are also top-flight.