#9. The War
PBS
Ken Burns did not have much to add factually to our
knowledge of exhaustively covered WWII. Instead, this 15-hour
documentary — a docu-elegy, really — relied on the memories of surviving
soldiers and contemporaries to bring the emotional truth of the war to
life (a much harder job, after 60 years of war movies). Geopolitics and
troop movements aside, WWII was about millions of young people worldwide
preparing to die, and The War made their experience heart-rendingly
immortal.