The Great War (All 26 Episodes)

In 1964 The BBC ran a 26 part documentary series on the First World War containing almost 18 hours in total. The documentary was the most complete on WWI at the time from pre-war tensions through to the final conflicts and the aftermath as Europe tried to rebuild and reconcile. Narrated by Michael Redgrave and with input by a huge number of those involved it was an important series for many reasons not least being filmed fifty years after the start of the war it had access to those that future WWI documentaries never could.

The play list below has all 26 episodes plus two bonus episodes the BBC screened in 2014 the fiftieth anniversary of the original release. The series itself in a way is a look back at the history of documentaries in a decade were such programming was becoming popular. During and for some time after the second world war the Newsreel dominated and while newsreels showed actual events much was re-enacted in a documentary fashion.