Netflix Goes to Vietnam

On April 30, 2025, Netflix released a five-part, nearly seven-hour documentary on the Vietnam war. This marked the 50th anniversary of the fall—or was it the liberation?—of Saigon. The Vietnam war as shown on Netflix does not look like the war that Ken Burns filmed for PBS in 2017. It is not a war “begun in good faith” by honorable men. It is a war begun in bad faith by men who ended up being skunked by history and hubris.