The Stream: Lacks emotional heft considering the seriousness of the topic.

The Big Screen: It’s a well-edited thriller that has some tense moments.

The Final Bill: A ho-hum thriller about what should be a very impactful incident.

– Trip Fontaine
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writers: Noah Oppenheim
Stars: Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Idris Elba, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: R for language
Runtime: 1 hour 43 minutes
Production Companies: Netflix, First Light Productions, Prologue Entertainment
Platform: On Netflix October 24, 2025
Notable Trailers: Jay Kelly, Ballad of a Small Player, Frankenstein, Train Dreams

Alright, Streamers, here’s a movie that’s trying to be serious and provocative. Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite follows what happens in the 20 minutes after a nuclear missile is discovered on a trajectory to collide with the United States. It is told from three different perspectives of how the government and the military would respond to such a crisis. Crosstalk, zoom meetings and racing to bunkers hijinks ensue.

From the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, A House of Dynamite is a political thriller that has the same propulsive energy as those movies, but it loses steam along the way. This movie is very competently made. It looks good and has a score that appropriately attempts to accent the heightened tensions of each moment in this movie. The movie is well-edited as it pieces together a story that relies on tension building throughout. However, because this movie retells the events from different angles in separate segments, the tension that the movie is building actually doesn’t go anywhere. Unfortunately, as the movie goes along, you don’t learn anything new, and the audience doesn’t get enough about any characters to build any emotional connection to them. This movie inherently plays on the fears of a nuclear attack and the concern about the people in charge making life and death decisions related to nuclear war. It’s very scary in that sense, but I don’t know why I need to watch this movie for that. It just doesn’t have the dramatic heft it should have considering what’s going on in this movie.

I’d suggest watching Oppenheimer (instead or again, whichever applies to you) because it is the devastating indictment of the man and the men around him that created this world-destroying menace. I think that movie is more successful and being the gut-punch this movie wants to be.

Ultimately, A House of Dynamite is a pretty good thriller. While it tells its story from different points of view, they don’t really build on each other to grow the tension. It lacks a strong emotional punch, which is odd considering what’s happening in the film. It looks great and is well-edited, but it’s overall kind of meh and disappointing. You won’t be bored by the movie, but it’s just a handful if you’re scrolling through Netflix.