Vietnam War documentaries
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- DirectorDavid ZeigerStarsMichael AlaimoEdward AsnerJoe BangertNO! SIR! tells an almost entirely forgotten story of the military men and women who forced the U.S. government to end the Vietnam War
- DirectorPeter DavisStarsTin ChanChau DiemNgo Dinh DiemA startling and courageous landmark documentary that unflinchingly confronted the United States' involvement in Vietnam at the height of the controversy that surrounded it.
- DirectorEmile de AntonioStarsHarry S. AshmoreDaniel BerriganJoseph ButtingerA documentary chronicling the background to, and history of, the Vietnam War.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsDieter DenglerWerner HerzogEugene DeatrickGerman-American Dieter Dengler discusses his service as a U.S. naval pilot in the Vietnam War. Dengler also revisits the sites of his capture and eventual escape from the hands of the Viet Cong, recreating many events for the camera.
- DirectorDoan HoangStarsNam HoangVan TranAnne HoangAccompanied by gripping images from the war, 'Oh, Saigon' is an in-depth, compelling documentary about one refugee family's attempts to face its divided past and heal the physical and emotional wounds of the Vietnam War.
- StarsTempestt BledsoeEdward BurnsDean CainOriginal Vietnam War footage presented in high definition along with narrations by war veterans and the voices of Hollywood stars.
- StarsWill LymanHenry KissingerWilliam C. WestmorelandAn in-depth look at the Vietnam War.
- StarsJoseph B. AndersonPeter BraestrupAnthony AstuccioA comprehensive history of the American stage of the Vietnam War.
- DirectorScott BassTy PonderStarsJerry AndersonPat FarleyHoward FisherBETWEEN THE LINES explores the Vietnam War through the prism of the surfing sub-culture. The film looks at the dramatic effect that the Vietnam War and draft had on young American men who rode waves. Narrated by John Milius, Between the Lines explores the choice that most draft age surfers faced during the Vietnam War era: either go to war or evade the draft. It was one or the other. Between the Lines delves into the lives of two surfers who choose opposite paths. Pat Farley and Brant Page. While following the lives of these two surfers the film chronicles the impact of the Vietnam War on the surfing lifestyle. From the peaceful shores of Hawaii to the canopy jungles of Vietnam, Between the Lines excavates the surfing cultures response to an extraordinary circumstance.
- DirectorGail DolginVicente FrancoStarsMai Thi KimHeidi Neville-BubGerald FordSeparated at the end of the Vietnam war, an "Americanized" woman and her Vietnamese mother are reunited after 22 years.
- DirectorBill CouturiéStarsTom BerengerEllen BurstynJ. Kenneth CampbellFeature-length documentary film featuring real-life letters written by American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines during the Vietnam War to their families and friends back home.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardJoris IvensWilliam KleinStarsAnne BellecKaren BlanguernonFidel CastroIn seven different segments, Godard, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy and support for the North Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.
- DirectorBarbara SonnebornStarsXuan Ngoc NguyenBarbara SonnebornIn this film made over ten years, filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn goes on a pilgrimage to the Vietnamese countryside where her husband was killed. She and translator (and fellow war widow) Xuan Ngoc Nguyen explore the meaning of war and loss on a human level. The film weaves interviews with Vietnamese and American widows into a vivid testament to the legacy of war.
- DirectorFreida Lee MockTerry SandersStarsEverett Alvarez Jr.Ron BlissFred CherryThe story of U.S. fighter pilots shot down over North Vietnam who became POWs for up to 8 and a half years.
- DirectorPierre SchoendoerfferStarsJoseph B. AndersonStuart WhitmanThe director, a French veteran of the Indochina war (La 317e Section), returned to follow a platoon of American soldiers for six weeks at the height of fighting in Vietnam in 1966. The documentary discusses the background and fate of the soldiers and emphasizes how much American culture pervades the soldiers' behaviors in the midst of jungle life and fighting.
- DirectorErrol MorrisStarsRobert McNamaraJohn F. KennedyFidel CastroThe story of America as seen through the eyes of the former Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara.
- DirectorCoco SchrijberStarsEddie AdamsMichael HerrVeterans of the Vietnam War tell about their experiences. The disasters but also the glorious moments of war. The central figure in the documentary is the scenario writer of Full Metal Jacket, Michael Herr. The veterans describe how it felt to kill for the first time and how those feelings still hunt them.
- DirectorRory KennedyStarsRichard NixonHenry KissingerStuart HerringtonDuring the final days of the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon as South Vietnamese resistance crumbled. An unlikely group of heroes emerged as Americans and South Vietnamese took matters into their own hands.
- DirectorJoris IvensMarceline Loridan IvensDuring some months, the Dutch movie director Ivens and some North Vietnamese colleagues filmed the life of North Vietnamese peasants under the menace of heavy American bombardments. The result is an indictment of all forms of war.
- StarsGavin MacFadyenA detailed history of key Vietnam War battles, from 1954 to 1975.
- DirectorPeter WhiteheadStarsEric AllanMary AllenHugh ArmstrongA documentary following US, Peter Brook's experimental play about the moral issues surrounding the Vietnam War, Benefit of the Doubt is the only known film record of the Royal Shakespeare Company production. It was filmed by Peter Whitehead concurrently with his Tonite Let's All Make Love in London (1967), on the surface a very different film, yet both share a central concern with the war, protest and Britain's political and cultural relationship with America.
- DirectorKim MordauntStarsPhonesai SilavanLaith StevensLinthong SyphavongLaos: the most bombed country, per capita, on the planet. Australian bomb disposal specialist Laith Stevens has to train a new young "big bomb" team to deal with bombs left from the US "Secret War", but meanwhile, the local children are out hunting for bomb scrap metal. Vividly depicting the consequences of war with the incredible bravery of those trying to clear up the mess.
- DirectorAnthony GiacchinoThe Camden 28 explores how and why 28 individuals intentionally placed themselves at risk of arrest and imprisonment while protesting the war in Vietnam. Featuring a treasure of archival materials and current interviews with former FBI agents involved in the case and scholars such as Howard Zinn, The Camden 28 is a story about a potent form of dissent that has special relevance to our current political climate.
- DirectorHenry CorraPrivate McKinley Nolan vanished forty years ago in Vietnam on the Cambodian frontier. Some say he was captured, some say he was a traitor, some even say he was an American operative. The US Army officially claims he was radicalized and "went native", joining the Viet Cong and later encountering the Khmer Rouge. In 2006, retired US Army Lt. Dan Smith, revisiting the battlefields of his youth, may have encountered the elusive McKinley, alive. So began a journey into the heart of darkness.
- DirectorMark DanielsAn examination of the how television news in the US has covered war from Vietnam to the present day.
- DirectorFrancine ParkerStarsJane FondaDonald SutherlandPamela DoneganAvailable for the first time since it mysteriously disappeared in 1972 after only one week in theaters, this raucous film is a riveting slice of the Vietnam anti-war movement.
- DirectorEugene S. JonesStarsMichael MilehamMost powerful Vietnam war doco not available except on Facebook page
- DirectorKevin SimStarsWilliam CalleyMark HallileyKenneth Hodges"Four Hours in My Lai" is a documentary film made by Yorkshire Television in England concerning an infamous massacres of Vietnamese civilians in Tu Cung sub-hamlet, better known to the US Army as My Lai (4) and commonly referred to as "Pinksville", on 16th March 1968. This massacre was carried out by "Charlie Company" - members of C Company, 1st battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Light Infantry Brigade of the US Army. The film-makers interview participants in and survivors of the tragedy, trying to understand how such an atrocity could have happened.
- DirectorGeorge ButlerStarsJohn KerryDavid AlstonDan BarbieroA documentary on Senator John Kerry's Navy tour of duty in Vietnam, his contributions to the peace movement that followed, and the ultimate shape of his future political career.
- DirectorJoseph StrickStarsRichard HammerInterviews with five former American soldiers who were present at the March 16, 1968 attack on the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War; they discuss the orders that were issued leading up to the attack, their expectations of what they would find there, and the subsequent massacre of the inhabitants and destruction of the village, as well as possible motivations for the killings and rapes which took place.
- DirectorJordan KronickWhen 846 young men entered West Point in 1963, they signed up with an American army at peace. At their graduation ceremony in 1967, the Vietnam War was raging. 'Into Harm's Way' is the first person chronicle of the West Point Class of 1967.
- DirectorLynne SachsStarsDaniel BerriganPhilip BerriganDavid DarstOn May 17, 1968, three Catholic priests, a nurse, an artist and four others walked into a Catonsville, Maryland draft board office, grabbed hundreds of selective service records and burned them with homemade napalm. Their poetic act of civil disobedience helped galvanize an increasingly disillusioned American public against the Vietnam War. Investigation of a Flame is an intimate look at this Sixties protest within our current times, when foes of Middle East peace, abortion, and technology resort to violence to access the public imagination. Lynne Sachs combines volatile, long-unseen, archival footage with interviews with Daniel and Philip Berrigan and other members of the Catonsville Nine, encouraging viewers to ponder the relevance of civil disobedience and the implications of personal sacrifice today.
- 20111h 44mNot Rated6.8 (595)71MetascoreDirectorCarl ColbyStarsWilliam ColbyDale AndradeZbigniew BrzezinskiA son's riveting look at a father whose life seemed straight out of a spy thriller. The secret world of a legendary CIA spymaster. Told by William Colby's son Carl, the story is at once a probing history of the CIA, a personal memoir of a family living in clandestine shadows, and an inquiry into the hard costs of a nation's most cloaked actions.
- DirectorBeryl FoxStarsBernard FallThai NguyenA documentary on the war in South Vietnam shot entirely on location. There is no narration and no use of archive footage. The participants speak for themselves. The filmmakers spend time with units from many services: army, tanks, marines, ARVN, air cavalry. They accompany an air force napalm and strafing attack on a Viet Cong bunker complex. There are many scenes both of Saigon streets and of peasant village life. Soldiers speak of their experiences and their mission to fight Communism in Vietnam. One American informant says that the Vietnamese peasant is not interested in ideology, but in social justice, a piece of land, fair taxation, and to be left alone. Some interviews are used as voice-over. Participants, American and Vietnamese, are very natural, with little or no posturing for the camera. There are scenes of dead Viet Cong, and one showing a VC suspect being drowned to aid interrogation.
- 20091h 32mNot Rated7.7 (2.4K)75MetascoreDirectorJudith EhrlichRick GoldsmithStarsPeter ArnettBen BagdikianAnn BeesonAn exploration of the life and work of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, former Marine and military strategist, who was responsible for the publication of secret government documents that revealed the truth behind America's involvement in Vietnam.
- DirectorMichael RubboStarsMichael RubboRichard HughesPresents the people of Saigon as seen through the eyes of 3 young American journalists exploring the consequences of the Vietnam war, and the American presence in Saigon.
- DirectorMalcolm ClarkeStarsBob GuntonA grim portrait of Vietnam War Veterans, living out their lonely lives in the American wilderness, unable to cope with the lasting effects of their traumatic war experiences.
- DirectorVan Thuy TranStarsRoy Mike BoehmThe Sound of the Violin in My Lai is a short film that examines the history and legacy of the My Lai massacre, an incident of the Vietnam War in which hundreds of Vietnamese civilians were massacred by U.S. Army soldiers. The film investigates the effects of the massacre, with the story centering on the return of American soldiers Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn to My Lai on the 30th anniversary of the event.
- DirectorCarlton SherwoodStarsCarlton SherwoodKenneth W. CordierGeorge DayIn the mid 1960's thousands of young American men left their families, homes and jobs and went to fight for their country in Southeast Asia. Many of them never returned. Others were shot down and captured behind enemy lines. They were forced to suffer years of brutal treatment at the hands of the Communist captors. In the opinions of this political affiliation, their horrifying days of darkness, starvation and torture were made worse by the actions of a young American Officer named John Kerry.
- DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsVerna BloomJay CocksHarvey KeitelIn the late Spring of 1970, nationwide protests against the war in Vietnam focused in the Wall Street area of New York City and ultimately in a major anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. A group of New York University film students documented the demonstrations as they happened in both cities. Later, in New York, the massive amount of black and white and color 16mm footage was edited into this important record of the day by day events. The extended final scene, shot by Edward Summer in a hotel room in Washington, D.C., is a spontaneous conversation among Martin Scorsese, Harvey Keitel, Jay Cocks and Verna Bloom who, along with a large group of NYU students, found themselves frustrated and perplexed by the events and hopeful that the protests would result in change.
- DirectorRobert KennerStarsMichael HagiwaraPing WuA documentary about the Battle of Ong Thanh and the protest at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the Vietnam War.
- DirectorMichael JorgensenWhile working in Southeast Asia, a war torn veteran of the Vietnam War discovers a mysterious man claiming to be an American MIA and so begins his struggle to prove the lost soldier's identity and reunite him with his family.
- StarsMike Wallace
- DirectorBestor CramMike MajorosAn emotional, poetic, and lyrical journey back in time to reflect on the highly contested Vietnam War.
- DirectorBill CouturiéJonas McCordStarsRaymond BakerCharles A. BeckwithAlbert Allen DobbsThis documentary film comprises of interviews with five Vietnam War veterans in 1982 in prison for violent crimes committed after leaving the military, interwoven with film and television clips from the period. All five interviewed were decorated for bravery and none of the five men had a criminal record prior to going to Vietnam.
- DirectorJerry BlumenthalPeter GilbertGordon QuinnStarsJoe MantegnaThe last American officials were airlifted out of Vietnam from the embassy roof in Saigon in 1975. Most have never returned. In 1998, World T.E.A.M. (The Exceptional Athlete Matters) Sports organized a 16-day, 1100 mile bicycle expedition through once war-torn Northern and Southern Vietnam. A non-profit organization that focuses on events for the disabled, World T.E.A.M. Sports drew an array of veterans from the U.S. and Vietnam, as well as celebrity riders like Greg La Monde and Senator John Kerry. Those without use of their legs used special hand-powered bikes, while blind riders pedaled from the back of tandem bikes. What is immediately apparent on the veterans' arrival in Vietnam is that their biggest handicaps are the ghosts of their pasts. Past enemies ride as one team in peace across a landscape they once killed to stay alive on. Much more than a race, the ride is an exorcism; the real finish line is the painful emotional confrontation each must make alone along the way.
- DirectorTessa CoombsStarsKenneth BranaghPhil CaputoClark CliffordSince the end of the French colonial rule, Vietnam has been divided. The north is run by Communists, the south by anti-Communists.
- DirectorRobert ArmfieldNancy BerkmanStarsMichael ArlenPeter ArnettAutmer AskleyCNN revisits the Vietnam War two decades later and examines the political, military and social legacies of the conflict.
- DirectorCraig DuffGreg KildayStarsBrian AndrewsDavid Mattingly
- DirectorKoji MasutaniStarsJohn F. KennedyVIRTUAL JFK investigates one of the most debated "what if" scenarios in the history of U.S. foreign policy: What would President John F. Kennedy have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963, and had he been re-elected in 1964? The film employs what Harvard historian Niall Ferguson calls "virtual history," assessing the plausibility of counterfactuals - "what ifs" - and the outcomes they might have produced. The heart of the film deals with the question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace?
- StarsLouis Gossett Jr.
- DirectorBarry Alexander BrownGlenn SilberStarsKarleton ArmstrongBetty BoardmanAllen GinsbergInterviews with people involved with and leading the Madison, Wisconsin area resistance to the Vietnam war.
- DirectorWinterfilm CollectiveStarsRusty SachsJoe BangertScott ShimabukuroFor three days in 1971, former US soldiers who were in Vietnam testify in Detroit about their war experiences. Nearly 30 speak, describing atrocities personally committed or witnessed, telling of inaccurate body counts, and recounting the process of destroying a village. The atrocities are casual, seem routine, and are sanctioned or committed by officers. Images from the war illustrate the testimony; there's a side discussion among veterans about racism and a couple of interviews about the soldiers' self-realization. The testimony appears in the US Congressional Record on April 6 and 7, 1971. A "winter soldier" contrasts with Paine's "summer soldier and sunshine patriot."
- DirectorDavid MunroStarsJohn PilgerHenry KissingerRichard NixonDisturbing documentary, shot on site less than a year after the Khmer Rouge downfall, depicting the shocking situation and recent history of Cambodia.
- DirectorClay ClaiborneStarsMartin SheenVIETNAM: AMERICAN HOLOCAUST exposes one of the worst cases of sustained mass slaughter in history, carefully planned and executed by presidents of both parties. Our dedicated generals and foot soldiers, knowingly or unknowingly, killed nearly 5 million people, on an almost unimaginable scale, mostly using incendiary bombs. Vietnam has never left our national consciousness, and now, in this time, it has more relevance than ever. Claiborne documents the Whitehouse fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and further, raises the question of whether JFK was assassinated to promote the Vietnam War. Martin Sheen, who played the leading role in Apocalypse Now almost 30 years ago, has generously lent his powerful voice to this actual history of the War in Vietnam.