How to watch ‘one of most depressing and scary films ever made’ only ever shown on TV four times

Picture a world that exists under the threat of imminent destruction as escalating tensions across the globe push conflicts to evermore destructive levels until someone does something monumentally stupid and irreparable.

Actually, it's not that hard to imagine is it?

This is the stage set by one of the most depressing and traumatic films ever made, and then it just keeps going further into the misery no matter how much you wish it didn't.

This is Threads, the 1984 film that everyone should watch but probably only needs to be seen once which stars Reece Dinsdale and Karen Meagher as young Sheffield couple Jimmy and Ruth who have a baby on the way.

However, their attempts to figure out the trials and tribulations get thrown sideways by a global thermonuclear war which wipes out most of the population of the UK and leaves the rest wishing they were dead.

Threads gave the world one of the iconic images of post-apocalyptic fiction (BBC)

The most harrowing thing about Threads is that rather than ending with the bombs dropping and the world ending the drama continues as the survivors eke out a living in the post-apocalyptic hellscape as society degrades to the point that even language is breaking down.

Threads was shown on the BBC in 1984 and attracted a huge audience, and was shown again the following year to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Back when they showed it in the past, the film came with a disclaimer where newsreader John Tusa explained how distressing the film Brits were about to watch was going to be.

It would be another 18 years before it was shown on TV again, and then there was another 21 year wait before it was shown again last year to coincide with the film's own 40th anniversary.

For those wanting to know how to watch it, Threads is now available to stream on BBC iPlayer, so you can watch this traumatising tale as often as you like as long as you've paid your TV licence.

For those who haven't seen Threads, it's a film the critics praised as 'unsettlingly powerful' and 'unrelentingly graphic and grim, sobering, and shattering'.

Should you already have seen it, we would understand if you had no need to set your eyes upon the film again

Despite this, there is a remake in the works from the people behind recent Netflix drama Adolescence.

They've confirmed that they are working on a TV adaptation of Threads, which will no doubt leave viewers absolutely traumatised by what they're witnessing.

Still, with the world feeling less safe than it has done for a while it could be worth reminding people what bleak f**king misery would be a consequence of the end of the world.