Five Came Back (Season 1)

Five Came Back (2017) is a three-part Netflix documentary series you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Laurent Bouzereau. During World War II, five of Hollywood's biggest directors — John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens — enlisted in the armed forces to film the war as it unfolded.

Five contemporary filmmakers each take one: Steven Spielberg on Ford, Francis Ford Coppola on Huston, Paul Greengrass on Wyler, Guillermo del Toro on Capra, Lawrence Kasdan on Stevens. Meryl Streep narrates. The series draws on archival footage including war documentaries these directors shot at the front, several of which were held back from public release for decades.

What carries it is the cross-generational reckoning — a living director sitting with a dead one's choices, made under conditions no studio shoot could replicate. Stream Five Came Back online on iFILM.