Chernobyl
A five-episode HBO miniseries dramatizing the 1986 Soviet nuclear disaster and its aftermath, rated TV-MA. It is an unflinching, heavily researched adult drama built around prolonged depictions of radiation sickness, institutional cover-up, and mass casualties -- intense and emotionally harrowing throughout.
Episodes to know about
The series opens with a character preparing and then carrying out a suicide by hanging, shown briefly but unambiguously before the main story begins.
First responders at the reactor begin showing acute radiation effects within minutes: vomiting, reddened and blistered skin, and a worker's hip and hand visibly burning from contact with irradiated material.
Residents, including children, stand on a bridge watching the fire and are shown breathing radioactive ash; the series makes clear all will die from the exposure.