The Vietnam War is a ten-part, ten-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The series tells the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film.
The Vietnam War features testimony from more than 60 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.
Ten years in the making, the series brings the war and the chaotic epoch it encompassed viscerally to life. Written by Geoffrey C. Ward, produced by Sarah Botstein, Novick and Burns, it includes rarely seen, digitally re-mastered archive footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, revelatory audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations.
The series features nearly 80 iconic musical recordings from many of the greatest artists of the era, and original music from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross as well as the Silk Road Ensemble featuring Yo-Yo Ma.
Episode one. After a long and brutal war, Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh end nearly a century of French colonial occupation. With the Cold War intensifying, Vietnam is divided in two at Geneva. Communists in the North aim to reunify the country, while America supports Ngo Dinh Diem’s untested regime in the South.
| No. | Episode | Original air date | Running time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Déjà Vu" (1858–1961) | September 17, 2017 | 1 hour 22 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| After a long and brutal war, Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh end nearly a century of French colonial occupation. With the Cold War intensifying, Vietnam is divided in two at Geneva. Communists in the North aim to reunify the country, while America supports Ngo Dinh Diem's untested regime in the South. | |||
| 2 | "Riding the Tiger" (1961–1963) | September 18, 2017 | 1 hour 24 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| President Kennedy and his advisers wrestle with how deeply to get involved in South Vietnam. As the increasingly autocratic Diem regime faces a growing communist insurgency and widespread Buddhist protests, a grave political crisis unfolds. | |||
| 3 | "The River Styx (PBS)/Hell Come To Earth (BBC)" (January 1964 – December 1965) | September 19, 2017 | 1 hour 54 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| With South Vietnam in chaos, hardliners in Hanoi seize the initiative and send combat troops to the South, accelerating the insurgency. Fearing Saigon's collapse, President Johnson escalates America's military commitment, authorizing sustained bombing of the North and deploying ground troops in the South. | |||
| 4 | "Resolve (PBS)/Doubt (BBC)" (January 1966 – June 1967) | September 20, 2017 | 1 hour 54 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| Defying American airpower, North Vietnamese troops and materiel stream down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into the south, while Saigon struggles to 'pacify the countryside'. As an anti-war movement builds back home, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and marines discover that the war they are being asked to fight in Vietnam is nothing like their fathers' war. | |||
| 5 | "This Is What We Do" (July 1967 – December 1967) | September 21, 2017 | 1 hour 25 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| American casualties and enemy body counts mount as marines face deadly North Vietnamese ambushes and artillery south of the DMZ and army units chase an elusive enemy in the Central Highlands. Hanoi lays plans for a massive surprise offensive, and the Johnson administration reassures the American public that victory is in sight. | |||
| 6 | "Things Fall Apart" (January 1968 – July 1968) | September 24, 2017 | 1 hour 24 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| On the eve of the Tet holiday, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launch surprise attacks on cities and military bases throughout the South (Tet Offensive), suffering devastating losses but casting grave doubt on promises from the Johnson administration that there is 'light at the end of the tunnel.' The president decides not to run again and the country is staggered by assassinations and unrest. | |||
| 7 | "The Veneer of Civilization (PBS)/Chasing Ghosts (BBC)" (June 1968 – May 1969) | September 25, 2017 | 1 hour 47 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| Public support for the war declines, and American men of draft age face difficult decisions and wrenching moral choices. After police battle with demonstrators on the streets of Chicago, Richard Nixon wins the presidency, promising law and order at home and peace overseas. In Vietnam, the war goes on and soldiers on all sides witness terrible savagery and unflinching courage. | |||
| 8 | "The History of the World (PBS)/A Sea of Fire (BBC)" (April 1969 – May 1970) | September 26, 2017 | 1 hour 49 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| With morale plummeting in Vietnam, President Nixon begins withdrawing American troops. As news breaks of an unthinkable massacre committed by American soldiers, the public debates the rectitude of the war, while an incursion into Cambodia reignites anti-war protests with tragic consequences. | |||
| 9 | "A Disrespectful Loyalty (PBS)/Fratricide (BBC)" (May 1970 – March 1973) | September 27, 2017 | 1 hour 49 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| South Vietnamese forces fighting on their own in Laos suffer a terrible defeat. Massive US airpower makes the difference in halting an unprecedented North Vietnamese offensive. After being re-elected in a landslide, Nixon announces that Hanoi has agreed to a peace deal. American prisoners of war will finally come home - to a bitterly divided country. | |||
| 10 | "The Weight of Memory" (March 1973 – Onward) | September 28, 2017 | 1 hour 47 minutes (PBS)/55 minutes (BBC) |
| While the Watergate scandal rivets Americans' attention and forces President Nixon to resign, the Vietnamese continue to savage one another in a brutal civil war. When hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese troops pour into the South, Saigon descends rapidly into chaos and falls. For the next 40 years, Americans and Vietnamese from all sides search for healing and reconciliation. | |||
