Synopsis
Hearts and Minds (1974) is Peter Davis's documentary about the Vietnam War, free to watch online on iFILM. The title comes straight from Lyndon Johnson, who kept insisting that real victory meant winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese. Davis takes that slogan and turns it against the men who said it.
Shot and released while the fighting was still going on, the film cuts back and forth between two worlds. In one, generals and policymakers — among them Army chief William Westmoreland — explain the war in calm, certain language. In the other, the camera sits with bombed villages, burned skin, grieving parents and soldiers who came home wrecked. Davis rarely argues out loud. He just places the words next to the wreckage and lets you feel the gap.
It took the Oscar for Best Documentary, and the win turned into one of the most talked-about ceremonies in Academy history after the antiwar speech that followed. If you want Vietnam through human faces rather than a textbook timeline, this is about as unflinching as the subject gets. Watch Hearts and Minds (1974) online on iFILM.
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