Crimson Tide: 30 Years On

The sweaty-palmed tension of Tony Scott’s submarine thriller remains effective three decades on

Credit: Buena Vista

Warning: Contains spoilers

Like The Hunt for Red October (1990), Tony Scott’s submarine thriller Crimson Tide seems more alarmingly plausible in recent years compared with when it was first released. The premise here — Russian ultranationalists threatening to strike the US with nuclear weapons — may have seemed dated and implausible in the mid-nineties. However, the ongoing events in Russia and Ukraine, combined with Putin’s alarming policy shift about the scenarios in which he would consider a nuclear response, have given Michael Schiffer’s screenplay added potency.