# The Vietnam War (2017)

> A ten-episode documentary miniseries that recounts the Vietnam War through the testimony of nearly eighty witnesses from America, Vietnam and beyond.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/42089

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 10
- Episode runtime: 109 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: documentary, war, history
- Network: PBS
- Cast: Peter Coyote, Karl Marlantes, Bao Ninh, Tran Ngoc Toan, Lam Quang Thi, John Musgrave, Duong Van Mai, Mike Heaney
- TMDB rating: 9.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877514/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: sober, immersive, melancholic, unflinching, contemplative

## What critics say

Viewers and critics broadly acclaim the series as a landmark, immersive documentary that gives a multi-perspective account of the Vietnam War through testimony from Americans and Vietnamese on both sides.

## Synopsis

The Vietnam War is a United States documentary miniseries broadcast on PBS in 2017, produced by Florentine Films and WETA and presented as a ten-episode, roughly 109-minute-per-episode history. Narrated by Peter Coyote, it assembles testimony from nearly eighty witnesses, including American veterans and antiwar voices such as Marine Karl Marlantes and John Musgrave, alongside Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides, among them Bao Ninh and Bui Diem. Rather than following a single protagonist, the series builds its engine from the collision of these accounts: each episode lays out how decisions in Washington, Saigon and Hanoi played out on the ground, where soldiers and villagers lived with free-fire zones, body counts and shifting orders. The structure is chronological and cumulative, so the viewer gathers the war piece by piece from many incompatible memories. Its tone is sober, immersive and unflinching, with a melancholy weight rather than sensationalism. Archival footage and firsthand voices give it a visceral, grounded texture. Set across the 1950s through the 1970s in Vietnam, the United States and beyond, it suits viewers drawn to war history, Cold War politics and oral history. Fans of The World at War, Band of Brothers and The Cold War will find resonance in its scale and seriousness.

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