96% on Rotten Tomatoes and it starts very soon.
If you're a fan of excellent documentaries then you might be familiar with the name of Ken Burns. To many, he's one of the most gifted filmmakers alive and the Emmy Award-winning and Oscar nominated documentarian is back with a new sprawling epic.
In The Vietnam War: Miniseries, Burns provides a detailed, concise and extraordinary history of The Vietnam War that features insights from U.S. soldiers, Americans who opposed the war, Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both sides of the conflict.
Basically, this is the definitive story of a dark chapter in American history that's told with patience, knowledge and extraordinary detail.
If you're unfamiliar with Burns' work, imagine the expertise and scale of the superb The World at War series, but mixed with the interview segments that were used in Band of Brothers.
As a historian and filmmaker, Burns adheres to the ideas that by examining the past, it's possible to illuminate the present.
Ten years in the making, the series brings the war and the chaotic epoch it encompassed viscerally to life.
Throughout the series, we're treated to rarely seen, digitally re-mastered archive footage from sources around the globe and photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century.
Aside from this, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies and revelatory audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations are used.
Even if you're not a massive student of history, it's clear that the human stories have really resonated with viewers.
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At present, the miniseries has an incredible 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 90% on Metacritic.
Like most of Burns' previous documentaries, the critics have been absolutely floored by his work.
Newsday: "A must-watch: The most important TV program of the year."
CNN: "PBS has again provided Burns with a huge canvas, and he has responded by painting a masterpiece."
Washington Post: "The experience of watching "The Vietnam War" includes terror, horror, disbelief, discovery, disgust, marvel, pride, ambivalence and tears."
For viewers in the UK and Ireland, the documentary starts on BBC4 at 21:00 on 25 September.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j-3Xi5BcKs
