By Dawn's Early LightMovies like By Dawn's Early Light
- Key Features:
- Nuclear war, Political thriller, Cold War, Military conflict, Doomsday scenario, Soviet Union, Government, Crisis management, Political intrigue, Suspense, High stakes, War-high
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Political thriller fans, Military drama enthusiasts, Cold War history buffs, Suspense seekers
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Panic → Desperation
By Dawn's Early Light

A nuclear warhead launched by Soviet insurgents protesting the waning Cold War destroys the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. The destruction sets off a race between American and Soviet politicians to prevent a nuclear holocaust. While the U.S. president feverishly works to keep the military and political machine from going into overdrive, various subordinates panic. When the president is believed to be killed in a helicopter crash, zealous advisers take over.
By Dawn's Early Light
A renegade USAF general, Lawrence Dell, escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana and threatens to provoke World War 3 unless the President reveals details of a secret meeting held just after the start of the Vietnam War between Dell and the then President's most trusted advisors.

It is the dawn of World War III. In mid-western America, a group of teenagers band together to defend their town—and their country—from invading Soviet forces.

Cold War tensions climb to a fever pitch when a U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered to drop a nuclear warhead on Moscow.

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

When a train carrying atomic warheads mysteriously crashes in the former Soviet Union, a nuclear specialist discovers the accident is really part of a plot to cover up the theft of the weapons. Assigned to help her recover the missing bombs is a crack Special Forces Colonel.

High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his friend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.

Because of a technical defect an American bomber team mistakenly orders the destruction of Moscow. The President of the United States has but little time to prevent an atomic catastrophe from occurring.

When the president of Russia suddenly dies, a man whose politics are virtually unknown succeeds him. The change in political leaders sparks paranoia among American CIA officials, so CIA director Bill Cabot recruits a young analyst to supply insight and advice on the situation. Then the unthinkable happens: a nuclear bomb explodes in a U.S. city, and America is quick to blame the Russians.

When rogue stealth-fighter pilot Vic Deakins deliberately drops off the radar while on maneuvers, the Air Force ends up with two stolen nuclear warheads -- and Deakins's co-pilot, Riley Hale, is the military's only hope for getting them back. Traversing the deserted canyons of Utah, Hale teams with park ranger Terry Carmichael to put Deakins back in his box.

Jonathan Cold returns, this time he goes Undercover to stop a group of Terrorists before they bomb Los Angeles.

When a renegade Russian general sends a nuclear bomb hurtling toward the Middle East aboard a hijacked train, special agents are dispatched to disarm the deadly device. Ten tons of steel and one ounce of hot plutonium are now riding roughshod through Europe. With time running out, the agents launch a desperate, bullet-packed assault on a deadly moving target piloted by a cold-blooded mercenary.

Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control ... before it initiates the next world war.

During an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

The government gets wind of a plot to destroy America involving a trio of nuclear weapons for which the whereabouts are unknown. It's up to a seasoned interrogator and an FBI agent to find out exactly where the nukes are.

After a nuclear attack, an unlikely group of survivors, including a geologist, a crook and his moll, and a prospector, find temporary shelter in the remote-valley home of a survivalist and his beautiful daughter, but soon have to deal with the spread of radioactivity - and its effects on animal life, including humans.

The Autobots continue to work for NEST, now no longer in secret. But after discovering a strange artifact during a mission in Chernobyl, it becomes apparent to Optimus Prime that the United States government has been less than forthright with them.

After the Cold War, a breakaway Russian republic with nuclear warheads becomes a possible worldwide threat. U.S. submarine Capt. Frank Ramsey signs on a relatively green but highly recommended Lt. Cmdr. Ron Hunter to the USS Alabama, which may be the only ship able to stop a possible Armageddon. When Ramsey insists that the Alabama must act aggressively, Hunter, fearing they will start rather than stop a disaster, leads a potential mutiny to stop him.

As a renowned producer and close associate of Dan Rather, Mary Mapes believes she’s broken the biggest story of the 2004 election: revelations of a sitting U.S. President’s military service. But when allegations come pouring in, sources change their stories, document authenticity is questioned, and the casualties begin to mount.

As a seasoned homicide detective, Thomas Craven has seen the bleakest side of humanity. But nothing prepares him for the toughest investigation of his life: the search for his only daughter Emma's killer. Now, he is on a personal mission to uncover the disturbing secrets surrounding her murder, including corporate corruption, government collusion and Emma's own mysterious life.

A group of journalists covering George Bush's planned invasion of Iraq in 2003 are skeptical of the presidents claim that Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction."

The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962—the nuclear standoff with the USSR sparked by the discovery by the Americans of missile bases established on the Soviet-allied island of Cuba.

A madman captures a young boy and rigs him with explosives. Ray Fitzpatrick, still haunted by the loss of his own son, will defy orders to stop the clock and save a life

A U.S. Army Captain uses her years of tactical training to save humanity from sixteen nuclear missiles launched at the U.S. as a violent attack threatens her remote missile interceptor station.

An executive in charge of a nuclear power plant in the Mid-East must stop his son-- who turns out to be the Anti Christ -- from blowing it up.

Mack is a former soldier who, after the war, moved to a town with a nuclear power plant, where nearly everybody works. Life is peaceful for him there, until a gang of mercenaries led by Ron storm the reactor and take everybody hostage, including a group of children on a school trip. Now Mack is in a race against the clock and must use his military training to defeat Ron before he puts the reactor into meltdown. Along the way he discovers Ron’s motive, which unravels a greater secret Mack’s town is hiding.

Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight - one that takes a terrifying suspense-building turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean at the point of no return.

In a post-apocalyptic world, a warrior wandering through the desert comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by a murderous gang that is after the water they control.

A group of armed robbers fleeing the police head for the New Jersey Tunnel and run right into trucks transporting toxic waste. The spectacular explosion that follows results in both ends of the tunnel collapsing and the handful of people who survived the explosion are now in peril. Kit Latura is the only man with the skill and knowledge to lead the band of survivors out of the tunnel before the structure collapses.

Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before.

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

Terrorist Jaffad Ben Zayidi steals four nuclear bombs from a sunken American submarine and hides them in four major cities throughout the world. The charges can be activated by an 11-digit code. Zayidi dies and his accomplice, nicknamed "The Executioner," is about to blow up the bombs. The Executioner is chased by FSB, whose agent Marie has previously infiltrated Zayidi's team.

In the Oregon mountains, a pair of hunters encounter a machete-wielding killer in an abandoned church. Meanwhile, five campers arrive to examine some property one of them has inherited but are warned by the forest ranger not to venture forth. Soon after they set up camp, they begin hearing strange noises, encounter a mysterious singing girl and start disappearing one by one.

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

John 'Breacher' Wharton leads an elite DEA task force that takes on the world's deadliest drug cartels. When the team successfully executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they think their work is done – until, one-by-one, the team members mysteriously start to be eliminated. As the body count rises, everyone is a suspect.

Alex Thomas was the man in charge of protecting the president but, when the time came to fulfill his duties, everything just went wrong. His conscience haunted by a bullet, and his devotion to his country stronger than ever, Alex teams with a seasoned reporter to navigate a treacherous web of lies, unlocking a dangerous conspiracy, and enter a deadly world in which skilled assassins and highly-trained ex-special ops lurk in every shadow.

In a remote village in Karelia, Sergeant Vaskov commands an anti-aircraft unit that protects a rail depot. While his men are transferred to the front line, he is reprimanded for their unruly behavior. He retorts that he wants replacements that aren't drunks or womanizers. In response, he is assigned a unit made up entirely of young women, fresh from training.

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization.

When miner Charley 'Boomer' Baxter sets off a series of massive mining detonations in West Virginia, a gigantic earthquake is soon rocking the North Atlantic, exposing a deep seismic fault that runs the length of the North American continent. Joining forces with government seismology expert Dr Amy Lane, Boomer must now race against time to stop the chasm that is threatening to tear America - and the entire world - in half.

In WWII Western Germany, Private David Manning reluctantly leaves behind a mortally wounded fellow soldier and searches for survivors from his platoon, only to learn from commanding officer Captain Pritchett that they have all been killed in action. Despite requesting a discharge on the grounds of mental disability, Manning is promoted to sergeant and assigned to lead a new platoon of young inductees.

Fifty years into the future, the sun is dying, and Earth is threatened by arctic temperatures. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun — but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team is sent to finish the mission as mankind’s last hope.

When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.

It is late spring of 1942, and the Great Patriotic War is in full swing. A long way off from the front-line, at some God-forgotten junction, the Germans make an air landing operation in an attempt to get through to the Kirov railway and the White Sea - the Baltic Sea Canal. These aren't just ordinary paratroopers. This is a team of seasoned and highly trained infiltrators, the elite of the Waffen-SS, superhumans. The only thing in their way is an anti-aircraft artillery unit of corporal Vaskov and five young women in training. It may seem like a fight of local significance, but the countrys main strategic transportation artery is at stake. Can the corporal and his 'petite newbies' prevent Nazi sabotage and at what cost? Television version: An extended version made out of four 45 minute episodes was released on Channel One Russia, on 9 May 2016. Available on PrimeVideo.

A group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world is taken over by aggressive, flesh-eating zombies.

Captain Glass of the USS Arkansas discovers that a coup d'état is taking place in Russia, so he and his crew join an elite group working on the ground to prevent a war.

When two American girls on a bike trip in a remote part of Argentina split up and one of them goes missing, the other must find her before her worst fears are realized.

A hijacked 767 will crash in just 97 minutes when its fuel runs out. Against the strong will of NSA Deputy Toyin, NSA Director Hawkins prepares to have the plane shot down before it does any catastrophic damage on the ground, leaving the fate of the innocent passengers in the hands of Tyler, one of the alleged hijackers on board who is an undercover Interpol agent - or is he?

Evan Lake, a veteran CIA agent, has been ordered to retire. But when his protégé uncovers evidence that Lake's nemesis, the terrorist Banir, has resurfaced, Lake goes rogue, embarking on a perilous, intercontinental mission to eliminate his sworn enemy.

Two investigators of paranormal hoaxes, the veteran Dr. Margaret Matheson and her young assistant, Tom Buckley, study the most varied metaphysical phenomena with the aim of proving their fraudulent origins. Simon Silver, a legendary blind psychic, reappears after an enigmatic absence of 30 years to become the greatest international challenge to both orthodox science and professional sceptics. Tom starts to develop an intense obsession with Silver, whose magnetism becomes stronger with each new manifestation of inexplicable events. As Tom gets closer to Silver, tension mounts, and his worldview is threatened to its core.

After his family is kidnapped during their sailing trip in Spain, a young Wall Street trader is confronted by the people responsible: intelligence agents looking to recover a mysterious briefcase.

Female protagonist’s brother dies under mysterious circumstances. Extremely vivid nightmares begin to haunt her and she decides to turn to the Institute of somnology for help. Along with other patients, they are induced into a «collective lucid dream». But at the dawn, they will awake to a completely different reality that is more horrifying than any nightmare.

After 30 years of searching, Harry has finally met the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, before they even have a chance to go on their first date, Harry intercepts some chilling news: WWIII has begun and nuclear missiles will destroy Los Angeles in less than an hour!

Epic film about WWII, a sequel to Utomlyonnye solntsem (1994). Evil Stalin is terrorizing people of Russia while the Nazis are advancing. Russian officer Kotov, who miraculously survived the death sentence in Stalin's Purge, is now fighting in the front-lines. His daughter, Nadia, who survived a rape attempt by Nazi soldiers, is now a nurse risking her own life to save others. In the war-torn nation even former enemies are fighting together to defend their land. People stand up united for the sake of victory. Written by Steve Shelokhonov

At the University of Chicago, a research team that includes brilliant student machinist Eddie Kasalivich experiences a breakthrough: a stable form of fusion that may lead to a waste-free energy source. However, a private company wants to exploit the technology, so Kasalivich and physicist Dr. Lily Sinclair are framed for murder, and the fusion device is stolen. On the run from the FBI, they must recover the technology and exonerate themselves.

When a man's daughter is suddenly taken during a championship hockey game – with the captors demanding a billion dollars by game's end – he frantically sets a plan in motion to rescue her and abort an impending explosion before the final buzzer.

When a mysterious caller plants a bomb under his car seat, a bank executive begins a high-speed chase across the city to complete a specific series of tasks — all with his kids trapped in the back seat.

Paramilitary operative David Wolfe stumbles upon an international conspiracy connecting presidential cabinet members to a Middle Eastern terrorist plot. Wanting to expose the truth, Wolfe defies orders and returns to the US as an army of one fighting for American security and integrity

During a routine patrol, a reporter is given permission to interview a hardened cold-war warrior and captain of the American destroyer USS Bedford. The reporter gets more than he bargained for when the Bedford discovers a Soviet sub and the captain begins a relentless pursuit, pushing his crew to breaking point.

After the G20 Summit is overtaken by terrorists, President Danielle Sutton must bring all her statecraft and military experience to defend her family and her fellow leaders.

When a nuclear strike causes an electromagnetic pulse that cuts off all power, water, and communication to the entire western United States, Reese finds herself plunged into an all-too-real fight to survive. As pandemonium grips her city, Reese and her father set out on a desperate journey in search of safety--a perilous trek through a world gone mad where every encounter with a stranger could be your last.

Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.

Russia, 1936: revolutionary hero Colonel Kotov is spending an idyllic summer in his dacha with his young wife and six-year-old daughter Nadia and other assorted family and friends. Things change dramatically with the unheralded arrival of Cousin Dmitri from Moscow, who charms the women and little Nadia with his games and pianistic bravura. But Kotov isn't fooled: this is the time of Stalin's repression, with telephone calls in the middle of the night spelling doom - and he knows that Dmitri isn't paying a social call...

A young man learns that his parents had been used in an atomic-weapons experiment shortly before his birth, and that the results have had some unexpected effects on him.

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

Two men and a woman circle the globe in a satellite armed with a nuclear device. The third world war breaks out, and a few months later the satellite crashes. They survive the crash but one man gets killed by survivors and the other man gets caught. The woman stays by the remains of the the satellite but is soon caught by evil punks who have taken power.

In Knockemstiff, Ohio and its neighboring backwoods, sinister characters converge around young Arvin Russell as he fights the evil forces that threaten him and his family.

A Marine Colonel is brought to court-martial after ordering his men to fire on demonstrators surrounding the American embassy in Yemen.

High school senior Alex has an encounter with mysterious lights that appear over her small town. She soon develops dangerous, supernatural abilities, and turns to her childhood friend Sean. The authorities target them and a chase ensues as officials try to discover the truth behind Alex's transformation.

A US Fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.

After a collision with a comet, a nearly 8km wide piece of the asteroid "Orpheus" is heading towards Earth. If it hits it will cause an incredible catastrophe which will probably extinguish mankind. To stop the meteor NASA wants to use the illegal nuclear weapon satellite "Hercules" but discovers soon that it doesn't have enough firepower. Their only chance to save the world is to join forces with the USSR who have also launched such an illegal satellite. But will both governments agree?

A powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way the USA goes to war—as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during the Vietnam War.

It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.

When Chechen rebels take over a Russian nuclear reactor, it’s up to a special ops marksman to rescue the hostages and prevent nuclear catastrophe.

When a small outpost is ambushed, a US Army squad must take the battle below ground on a high-stakes mission in a new type of warfare the likes of which they have never seen.

NATO operative Jacques Kristoff (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is summoned into action—on his birthday, no less—to track down Galina Konstantin (Laura Harring), who has stolen an extremely valuable and dangerous top-secret container from the Slovakian Government. Finding Galina doesn't take long, and Jacques must wrap up the mission by returning Galina and the contraband to his superiors by train. Things seem to be going smoothly as Jacques and Galina board the train posing as a couple, but soon all hell breaks loose.

A city in Washington state awakens to the surreal sight of foreign paratroopers dropping from the sky—shockingly, the U.S. has been invaded and their hometown is the initial target. Quickly and without warning, the citizens find themselves prisoners and their town under enemy occupation. Determined to fight back, a group of young patriots seek refuge in the surrounding woods, training and reorganizing themselves into a guerrilla group of fighters.

An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.

When a Delta Force special ops mission goes terribly wrong, Air Force drone pilot Reaper has 48 hours to remedy what has devolved into a wild rescue operation. With no weapons and no communication other than the drone above, the ground mission suddenly becomes a full-scale battle when the team is discovered by the enemy.

During the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his team of Army inspectors are dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert. Rocketing from one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but stumble instead upon an elaborate cover-up that threatens to invert the purpose of their mission.

A deadly airborne virus finds its way into the USA and starts killing off people at an epidemic rate. Col. Sam Daniels' job is to stop the virus spreading from a small town, which must be quarantined, and to prevent an over reaction by the White House.

Two hundred years ago a supernova exploded somewhere in the Lyra constellation. Now the lethal burst of radiation is headed straight for Earth, and time is swiftly running out. The only thing standing between humanity and complete devastation is astrophysicist Dr. Kelvin (Brian Krause), who heads up a project to save the planet.

Fed up of his business partner, Ernest Trend hires the services of two exterminators. When things go drastically wrong and they murder the wrong man, the race is on to frame an innocent video surveillance man.

Four young friends, while taking a shortcut en route to a local boxing match, witness a brutal murder which leaves them running for their lives.

In the mid-17th century, Poland was the largest, most democratic, and most tolerant country in Europe. However, a tragic civil war brought about the gradual decline of the once glorious republic... An epic story about the Ukrainian uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth magnates in the 17th Century.

While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.

Nate takes his family for a camping trip to reconnect. When they pull off at a rest stop, a gang of thieves hides their stash from an armored car robbery among the family belongings. They soon find themselves on the run and the gang will stop at nothing to get their money back.

A blackout leaves those affected to consider what is necessary, what is legal, and what is questionable, in order to survive in a predatory environment.

Following the murder of her family at the hands of her father in the wake of World War I, a young woman is sent to live in a convent. However, the demons that plagued her father follow, reawakening the nightmares of her past.

When mankind beams a radio signal into space, a reply comes from ‘Planet G’, in the form of several alien crafts that splash down in the waters off Hawaii. Lieutenant Alex Hopper is a weapons officer assigned to the USS John Paul Jones, part of an international naval coalition which becomes the world's last hope for survival as they engage the hostile alien force of unimaginable strength. While taking on the invaders, Hopper must also try to live up to the potential that his brother, and his fiancée's father—an Admiral—expect of him.

A dangerous CIA renegade resurfaces after a decade on the run. When the safe house he's remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead.

A newly appointed small-town sheriff and his begrudging deputy get tangled up in a web of lies and corruption involving shady businessmen and the cartel while investigating the murder of a mysterious woman.

A Foreign Service Officer in London tries to prevent a terrorist attack set to hit New York, but is forced to go on the run when she is framed for crimes she did not commit.

Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.

For years, Andrei Evilenko eluded the obsessive Detective Lesiev and the psychiatric profiler Aron Richter. Spurred on by his rabid fury at the gradual crumbling of his precious Soviet Union, Evilenko is a man who will live, die and kill as a communist.

During routine manoeuvres near Hawaii in 1980, the aircraft-carrier USS Nimitz is caught in a strange vortex-like storm, throwing the ship back in time to 1941—mere hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A U.S. Marine Corps colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.

Desperate to land a man on the moon before Russia does, NASA hastily preps a would-be spaceman for a mission that would leave him alone in a lunar shelter for a year.

In a top secret Cold War military project an unstoppable, malignant organism who feeds on light and energy is unleashed threatening to destroy everything in its path.

Explore how one man's relentless drive and invention of the atomic bomb changed the nature of war forever, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and unleashed mass hysteria.
