During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Soviet Navy officer Vasily Arkhipov refused to launch a nuclear strike and saved the world from nuclear war and total destruction.
Social & External
The people behind it
Jay O. Sanders
Narrator (voice)
Alisdair Simpson
Leon Ockenden
Vasily Arkhipov
Martin McDougall
Submarine Captain
Vasili Arkhipov
Self (archive footage)
Fidel Castro
John F. Kennedy
Nikita Khrushchev
A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.
Tomka is a boy who likes playing football with his friends. When the German army captures his town, the German soldiers establish their camp in the town stadium. Tomka with help from his friends and their parents organizes sabotage actions against the soldiers.
Tells the story of the tragic events in Ukraine in 1932-33, the genocidal Great Famine or the Holodomor, and one Welshman's attempts to tell the world what was happening.
Filmmaker Binevsa Bêrîvan travels to Armenia to capture the daily life, customs, and history of the country's Yazidi Kurdish community.
You can’t see them. You can’t hear them. And you never know exactly where they are. The life of submarines is secret and fascinating. In this film, we go inside one of the French navy's legendary vessels, the Rubis, and to where the next nuclear submarine, the Barracuda, is being built. From technological prowess to human exploits, the film submerges us in a timeless amphibian adventure.
12 American military prisoners in World War II are ordered to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy château and kill the Nazi officers vacationing there. The soldiers, most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes, agree to the mission and the possible commuting of their sentences.
Evocation of the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants were slaughtered by a Nazi Waffen SS company, based on a visit to Diors' Museum of the Three Wars" and archive photographs.
After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?
The role of African American soldiers during the World War II Allied invasion of Normandy.
Two police officers struggle to survive when they become trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon, Lt. Jim Reardon and Maj. Ian Campbell are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
In Montauban in 1944, Julien Dandieu is a surgeon in the local hospital. Frightened by the German army entering Montauban, he asks his friend Francois to drive his wife and his daughter in the back country village where Julien has an old castle. One week later, Julien decides to meet them for the week end, but the Germans are already occupying the village.
As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
In the midst of World War II, the battle under the sea rages and the Nazis have the upper hand as the Allies are unable to crack their war codes. However, after a wrecked U-boat sends out an SOS signal, the Allies realise this is their chance to seize the 'enigma coding machine'.
A couple sets up an African game preserve, only to have British and Italian armies fight over the waterholes.
Tackles the 1940 air campaign in which the RAF and the FAA defended the UK against the Nazis. Plot TBA.
A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.
Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.
“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...
WWII from Space delivers World War II in a way you've never experienced it before. This HISTORY special uses an all-seeing CGI eye that offers a satellite view of the conflict, allowing you to experience it in a way that puts key events and tipping points in a global perspective. By re-creating groundbreaking moments that could never have been captured on camera, and by illustrating the importance of simultaneity and the hidden effects of crucial incidents, HISTORY presents the war's monumental moments in a never-before-seen context. And with new information brought to the forefront, you'll better understand how a nation ranked 19th in the world's militaries in 1939 emerged six years later as the planet's only atomic superpower.
A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.
"Trinity and Beyond" is an unsettling yet visually fascinating documentary presenting the history of nuclear weapons development and testing between 1945-1963. Narrated by William Shatner and featuring an original score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, this award-winning documentary reveals previously unreleased and classified government footage from several countries.
A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the war.
When Sgt. First Class Brian Eisch is critically wounded in Afghanistan, it sets him and his sons on a journey of love, loss, redemption and legacy.
Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.
Explore how one man's relentless drive and invention of the atomic bomb changed the nature of war forever, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and unleashed mass hysteria.
As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.
Hidden in the heart of Russia, there is a Soviet-era city where thousands of people live and work behind barbed-wire fences monitored by armed guards. It is Ozyorsk (Ozersk), located in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, one of the most polluted places on the planet and home to the largest stockpiles of nuclear material. Its code name: City 40.
Meet the real-life airmen who inspired Masters of the Air as they share the harrowing and transformative events of the 100th Bomb Group.
Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.
The extraordinary story of how Hollywood changed World War II – and how World War II changed Hollywood, through the interwoven experiences of five legendary filmmakers who went to war to serve their country and bring the truth to the American people: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens. Based on Mark Harris’ best-selling book, “Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War.”
Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".
Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?
Experience the events of September 11, 2001 through the eyes of President Bush and his closest advisors as they personally detail the crucial hours and key decisions from that historic day.
This Oscar-winning documentary recounts the harrowing stories of five Hungarian Jews who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and Hitler's reign.
From its distinctive neighborhoods to its architectural homes, Los Angeles has been the backdrop to countless movies. In this dazzling work, Andersen takes viewers on a whirlwind tour through the metropolis' real and cinematic history, investigating the myriad stories and legends that have come to define it, and meticulously, judiciously revealing the real city that lives beneath.
National Geographic's riveting effort recounts all 12 crewed missions using only archival footage, photos and audio.
For the 20th anniversary of "Titanic," James Cameron reopens the file on the disaster.