1964's groundbreaking movie, "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" stars Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Kennan Wynn, Tracy Reed, and Slim Pickens. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the film is loosely based on the novel Red Alert, a Cold War political thriller written by Peter George. Dr. Strangelove is a satirical thriller following a vast array of military and government officials in the middle of a crisis that could instigate the end of the world as they know it. Three of the characters (U.S. President Merkin Muffley, British Officer Lionel Mandrake, and wheelchair-bound ex-Nazi scientist providing the United States government with nuclear expertise, Dr. Strangelove) are played by Peter Sellers. Sellers was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of the three very different, albeit very comical, characters. George C. Scott plays General Turgidson, and overly patriotic military man, and Sterling Hayden plays General Jack D. Ripper, an appropriate tongue-in-cheek character name, as General Ripper is insane with a thirst for nuclear power and world domination. Though the film is notorious for its hysterically satirical nature, Dr. Strangelove manages to convey an undercurrent of serious, intelligent commentary on the Nuclear age and as such the movie was officially regarded as "culturally significant" by the US Library of Congress in 1989. Now, one of Stanley Kubrick's most famous, historically prevalent masterpieces is being preserved in the National Film Registry.moreless