The China Syndrome

The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film directed by James Bridges and written by Bridges, Mike Gray, and T. S. Cook. The film stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas (who also produced). It follows a television reporter and her cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. "China syndrome" is a term that describes a fictional result of a nuclear meltdown, where reactor fuel melts through reactor containment structures and into the underlying earth, "all the way to China".

The China Syndrome premiered at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or while Lemmon received the Best Actor Prize. It was theatrically released on March 16, 1979, twelve days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, which gave the film's subject matter an unexpected prescience. It became a critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised the film's screenplay, direction, and performances (most notably of Fonda and Lemmon), while it grossed $51.7 million (equivalent to $229,343,000 in 2025) on a production budget of $5.9 million (equivalent to $26,173,000 in 2025). The film received four nominations at the 52nd Academy Awards: Best Actor (for Lemmon), Best Actress (for Fonda), Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction.