1:23:45

Chernobyl 1×1

Valery Legasov: What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories? In these stories, it doesn't matter who the heroes are. All we want to know is: who is to blame?

Bryukhanov: What about radiation?
Anatoly Dyatlov: Obviously, down here it's nothing. But in the reactor building, I'm being told, 3.6 roentgen per hour.
Fomin: Well, that's not great, but it's not horrifying. Not at all. From the feedwater, I assume?
Anatoly Dyatlov: Mm-hmm.
Fomin: We'll have to limit shifts to six hours at a time, but otherwise...

Zharkov: I wonder how many of you know the name of this place... We all call it "Chernobyl," of course. What is its real name?
Bryukhanov: The Vladimir I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station.
Zharkov: Exactly. Vladimir I. Lenin. And how proud he would be of you all tonight. Especially you, young man, and the passion you have for the people. For is that not the sole purpose of the apparatus of the State? Sometimes, we forget. Sometimes, we fall prey to fear. But our faith in Soviet socialism will always be rewarded.

Zharkov: Now, the State tells us the situation here is not dangerous. Have faith, comrades. The State tells us it wants to prevent a panic. Listen well. It's true, when the people see the police, they will be afraid. But it is my experience that when the people ask questions that are not in their own best interest, they should simply be told to keep their minds on their labor and leave matters of the State to the State.

Zharkov: We seal off the city. No one leaves. And cut the phone lines. Contain the spread of misinformation. That is how we keep the people from undermining the fruits of their own labor.

---

Sitnikov: I sent my dosimetrists into the reactor building. The large dosimeter from the safe, the one with the 1,000-roentgen capacity--
Anatoly Dyatlov: What was the number?
Sitnikov: There was none.

Sitnikov: We found another dosimeter from the military fire department. It only goes to 200 roentgen, but it's better than the small ones.
Fomin: And?
Sitnikov: It maxed out. Two hundred roentgen.
Fomin: ... What game are you playing?

Anatoly Dyatlov: What's wrong with you? How'd you get that number from feedwater leaking from a blown tank?
Sitnikov: ... You don't.
Anatoly Dyatlov: Then what the fuck are you talking about?!

Sitnikov: I walked around the exterior of Building 4. I think there's graphite on the ground in the rubble.
Anatoly Dyatlov: You didn't see graphite.
Sitnikov: I did.
Anatoly Dyatlov: You didn't! You didn't!! Because it's not there!
Fomin: What? Are you suggesting the core... what? Exploded?
Sitnikov: Yes.

Fomin: Sitnikov... You're a nuclear engineer, so am I. Please tell me how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Not a meltdown, an explosion. I'd love to know.
Sitnikov: I can't.
Fomin: Are you stupid?
Sitnikov: No.
Fomin: Then why can't you?
Sitnikov: I... I don't see how it could explode. But it did.

--
+ Quotes on the IMDb