Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (Season 1)

Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (2021) is a documentary series you can watch online on iFILM. Across five parts it traces how a single morning in the autumn of 2001 split modern history in two and set the United States on a course it's still reckoning with.

Director Brian Knappenberger doesn't open with the towers. He rewinds to the 1980s and the Afghan mountains, where the network later known as al-Qaeda first took shape. From there the series threads through missed intelligence, ignored warnings, the day itself, and the aggressive military response that grew into years of campaigns overseas. The testimony comes from a wide range of people — survivors, former intelligence officers, soldiers, analysts, and the politicians who made the calls. Archival footage and their personal accounts sit side by side, putting human faces on the record.

Rather than offer a tidy account, the series presses on the harder questions: the cost of retaliation, and what those choices did to the country making them. If the politics of the 2000s interest you without the polish, it's worth your evening. Stream Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (2021) online on iFILM.