Four Hours in My Lai

This award winning documentary explores the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, through interviews with the U. S Servicemen involved and Vietnamese survivors of the massacre. Both sides tell the same horrific story, detailing the torture, rape and murder of innocent civilians, including women and children. Some of the Servicemen push the blame onto their training and the orders of their superiors, while others are simply haunted by the crimes they admit they committed. The film goes on to explore the limited prosecution of Charlie Company Soldiers, and support the received from authorities, up to and including President Nixon.

The descriptions of events is harrowing, and the accompanied by photos of victims immediately before their murders are painful to the point of distressing. This is a powerful documentary that provides deep, personal insights into the events that took place, the circumstances that led to those events, and more broadly, asks questions about how otherwise reasonable, moral men could commit such atrocities. Rightly lauded when it first aired, this film still deserves to be seen today.