FIVE CAME BACK
Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY MINISERIES PREMIERE: This three-part documentary series – co-produced by Netflix and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Productions, directed by Laurent Bouzereau and based on the nonfiction book by Mark Harris – is an excellent, superbly researched examination of a crucial but little-known chapter in American cinema history. It’s the wartime film history of Hollywood directors John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens, and William Wyler, all of whom went to war to film combat or recruiting films, or even produce cartoons for the troops, during WWII. Meryl Streep narrates, and each of the classic directors is explained, and saluted, by a modern counterpart: respectively, Paul Greengrass on Ford, Guillermo del Toro on Capra, Francis Ford Coppola on Huston, Lawrence Kasdan on Stevens, and Spielberg himself on Wyler. This new documentary, like the ones made by its subjects in wartime, is unflinching, and not afraid to note inconsistencies and moral quandaries – which, of course, makes it even more valuable, interesting, and honest. Film fans and history buffs will be equally thrilled by Five Came Back, which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, coinciding with this Netflix rollout.