What It's About:

Emile de Antonio's excoriating documentary is a revealing history lesson that relates how in the mid-'40s, a diminutive Marxist named Ho Chi Minh gradually became a national hero, beloved by most Vietnamese-North and South. Combining newsreel footage with candid interviews of political and military leaders, the film dissects America's role in Southeast Asia, going back to French colonial rule in Indochina, and tracks our reasons for ultimately engaging in the war.

Why I Love It:

One of our finest anti-war films and spookily prescient today, "Year" captures the "arrogance of power" our top national leaders projected in the '60s, with the windy Hubert Humphrey exclaiming "it is hard to win the peace' (with the emphasis on "win"). Meanwhile, we watch old Tricky Dick Nixon, the old Cold Warrior and gifted globalist, patiently explain why it would be bad for America to let Indochina go Communist, as if speaking to a bunch of high school kids. Then we behold the incumbent LBJ, looking drawn and defeated, who adopts a consistently defensive and defiant posture on the war (a bit like fellow Texan "W"). You'll pig out on the parallels to Iraq.