The China Syndrome (1979)

James Bridges directs this blistering indictment of corporate negligence and regulatory capture, released mere days before the real-world Three Mile Island incident. Jack Lemmon delivers an excruciatingly tense performance as a veteran plant supervisor forced to choose between corporate loyalty and public safety after witnessing an engineered cover-up. The film turns the industrial control room into a claustrophobic pressure cooker, demonstrating how profit margins routinely supersede human life.