The Man Who Saved the World

On 26 September 1983, the Soviet Union's early warning system indicated that American missiles were heading towards Moscow. However, lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov, the duty officer at the USSR's command centre, wasn't convinced that the threat was real, so he decided not to confirm the attack. He thereby prevented a retaliatory strike that would have caused all-out nuclear war. Petrov's instincts turned out to be correct, since the warning turned out to be a system malfunction. Three decades later, this incredible series of events is documented to sobering effect by Danish director Peter Anthony, who follows Petrov on a cathartic trip to the United States. The resulting footage is distractingly shot like a traditional narrative feature, and it is combined with dramatic re-enactments of that fateful night in 1983. The end product rarely feels like a documentary, but Petrov's story is fascinating, and there's no doubt that it deserves to be told.