A Cold War Movie That Gives Too Much Credit to Ronald Reagan
A review of the new film 'The Brink of War,' which depicts the 1986 Reykjavik summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The author argues that while the film corrects liberal misconceptions about Reagan's intelligence, it swings too far in the opposite direction by overly romanticizing his role.
Why it matters
Examines how historical narratives of the Cold War are shaped by modern political perspectives and cinematic portrayals.
The Brink of War , a new film about the Reykjavik summit, is too kind to the Gipper.
Illustration by Liz Sanders / The Atlantic. Source: Dirck Halstead / Getty. August 14, 2026 Share Save Americans do not know enough about the Cold War, and much of what they think they know is wrong. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Republicans took a victory lap, rightly noting that the Soviet collapse was unimaginable when President Ronald Reagan first took office. Liberal critics, however, argued—also rightly—that the Soviet Union was a decaying, economically crippled giant by the time Reagan was inaugurated. In the years since, explanations of the ending of that great conflict have been reduced to the equivalent of partisan bumper stickers: We crushed the Kremlin in the arms race , or The U.S.S.R. imploded without any pressure from the West .
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