Items19The creator’s order
  1. 1The World at War (1973)The World at War (1973) 9.2/10 on IMDbFirst aired 31 Oct 1973The benchmark for archive-led war history, and still the place to start on World War II. Thames Television made its 26 episodes with the Imperial War Museum, and the interviews are what lift it: Albert Speer, Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge and SS general Karl Wolff speak alongside soldiers and…0
  2. 2The Great War (1964)The Great War (1964) 8.9/10 on IMDbFirst aired 30 May 1964The first series to put World War I veterans in front of a television camera, after a public appeal in the national press brought them forward, and their testimony is the reason to watch it now. The 26 episodes ran on the BBC in 1964, with Michael Redgrave narrating and historians including John…0
  3. 3The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996)The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996) 8.3/10 on IMDbFirst aired 10 Nov 1996A companion to the 1964 series rather than a replacement. Where that one gives you the veterans, this eight-part production from KCET, the BBC and the Imperial War Museum follows the war into the century it shaped, with Jay Winter as chief historian. A voice cast including Ralph Fiennes and Jürgen…0
  4. 4The Nazis: A Warning from History (1997)The Nazis: A Warning from History (1997) 8.7/10 on IMDbFirst aired 10 Sept 1997Six episodes on how the Nazis took power, held it and fell, and still the clearest introduction to the Third Reich on screen. Laurence Rees wrote and produced it with Ian Kershaw as historical and script consultant, so the argument rests on firm ground. Its distinctive strength is the eyewitness…0
  5. 5Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow (1996)Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow (1996) 8.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired 20 Jun 1996Made not long after the Soviet Union collapsed, when formerly secret Soviet archives opened to Western and Russian historians for the first time, this ten-part British-Russian series tells the Eastern Front and the Stalin years around it from the Soviet side. That is exactly the part of the war The…0
  6. 6Cold War (1998)Cold War (1998) 8.7/10 on IMDbFirst aired 19 Sept 1998Jeremy Isaacs, who produced The World at War, came back for the sequel the century needed: 24 episodes running from the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He co-produced it with Pat Mitchell for CNN, Kenneth Branagh narrates, and each episode pairs archive footage with…0
  7. 7People's Century (1995)People's Century (1995) 8.8/10 on IMDbFirst aired 13 Sept 1995The twentieth century told from below. Across 26 one-hour episodes, the BBC and WGBH Boston interviewed mostly ordinary men and women who had witnessed events up close, and let them carry each story of social, political and cultural change. You can dip into the hours that interest you rather than…0
  8. 8Vietnam: A Television History (1983)Vietnam: A Television History (1983) 8.7/10 on IMDbFirst aired 4 Oct 1983WGBH's 13-part history, with Stanley Karnow as chief correspondent and historical adviser, sees the war through the eyes of American soldiers and everyday Vietnamese people, including survivors of the Thuy Bo massacre. That breadth stirred controversy: Accuracy in Media answered it with a rebuttal…0
  9. 9Eyes on the Prize (1987)Eyes on the Prize (1987) 9.1/10 on IMDbFirst aired 21 Jan 1987Henry Hampton's history of the American civil rights movement is built from archival footage, stills and interviews with the movement's participants and its opponents, and hearing both gives it real force. Julian Bond narrates. The first six episodes aired in 1987 and a second run of eight…0
  10. 10The Death of Yugoslavia (1995)The Death of Yugoslavia (1995) 8.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired 3 Sept 1995Six episodes on the breakup of Yugoslavia, with access that still astonishes. Producer Norma Percy's team interviewed most of the main players, including Slobodan Milošević, Franjo Tuđman, Alija Izetbegović and Radovan Karadžić, and set their words against archive footage that had never been seen…0