Twilight's Last Gleaming [1977] [DVD]

If Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now had survived, he might have ended up like Burt Lancaster in this absolutely riveting thriller. Lancaster, a brilliant, medal-heavy war hero, decides to force the US government to come clean about why it fought in Vietnam. He does this by hijacking a nuclear missile silo and periodically raises the temperature by pushing the right buttons. While President Charles Durning sweats, Richard Widmark and the army gathers outside Lancaster's underground bunker.

As with Lancaster's 1964 movie Seven Days in May, this is a clever, plausible and rather subversive movie that capitalised on President Carter's avowed policy of open government.