Peter Davis

Hearts and Minds

Hearts and Minds

A startling and courageous film, Peter Davis’s landmark 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds unflinchingly confronted the United States’ involvement in Vietnam at the height of the controversy that surrounded it. Using a wealth of sources—from interviews to newsreels to footage of the conflict and the upheaval it occasioned on the home front—Davis constructs a powerfully affecting picture of the disastrous effects of war. Explosive, persuasive, and wrenching, Hearts and Minds is an overwhelming emotional experience and the most important nonfiction film ever made about this devastating period in history.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1974
  • 112 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • English
  • Spine #156

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • High-definition digital restoration, supervised by director Peter Davis and cinematographer Richard Pearce, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Audio commentary featuring Davis
  • A collection of over two hours of Davis’s unused footage, including excerpts from interviews with presidential adviser George Ball, broadcast journalist David Brinkley, French journalist and historian Philippe Devillers, and political activist Tony Russo; additional excerpts from General William Westmoreland’s interview; additional audio excerpts from presidential adviser Walt Rostow’s interview; and scenes from a funeral and a military hospital in South Vietnam
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Davis, film critic Judith Crist, and historians Robert K. Brigham, George C. Herring, and Ngo Vinh Long

New cover by Luba Lukova

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • High-definition digital restoration, supervised by director Peter Davis and cinematographer Richard Pearce, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Audio commentary featuring Davis
  • A collection of over two hours of Davis’s unused footage, including excerpts from interviews with presidential adviser George Ball, broadcast journalist David Brinkley, French journalist and historian Philippe Devillers, and political activist Tony Russo; additional excerpts from General William Westmoreland’s interview; additional audio excerpts from presidential adviser Walt Rostow’s interview; and scenes from a funeral and a military hospital in South Vietnam
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Davis, film critic Judith Crist, and historians Robert K. Brigham, George C. Herring, and Ngo Vinh Long

New cover by Luba Lukova

Hearts and Minds
Cast
Georges Bidault
Featuring
Clark Clifford
Lieutenant George Coker
Daniel Ellsberg
Randy Floyd
Nguyen Ngoc Linh
Robert Muller
General Nguyen Khanh
Walt Rostow
Nguyen Thi Sau
Edward Sowders
Father Chan Tin
General William Westmoreland
Credits
Director
Peter Davis
Produced by
Bert Schneider
Produced by
Peter Davis
Film editors
Lynzee Klingman
Film editors
Susan Martin
Photographed by
Richard Pearce
Associate producers
Tom Cohen
Associate producers
Richard Pearce
Research
Brennon Jones
Sound
Tom Cohen
Production managers
Brennon Jones
Production managers
Michael Burns
Assistant film editors
Charles Musser
Assistant film editors
Antoinette Cooper
Assistant film editors
David Davis
Assistant film editors
Bonnie Kozek
Sound editor
James Nelson

Current

Hearts and Minds: Moving the People
Hearts and Minds: Moving the People
The American war in Vietnam was officially divided into two halves: the military war and “the other war: the war to win the hearts and minds of the people,” which gives Peter Davis’s 1974 documentary its title. Whereas the aim of the military w…

By Ngo Vinh Long

Hearts and Minds: A Historical Context
Hearts and Minds: A Historical Context
Hearts and Minds is the classic antiwar documentary film of the Vietnam era. It was released in 1974, one year after the United States withdrew its military forces from Vietnam and a year before North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front (NLF) fo…

By George C. Herring

Hearts and Minds: The Human Connection
Hearts and Minds: The Human Connection
One of the most important contributions Peter Davis’s Hearts and Minds makes to our national dialogue on the Vietnam War is its portrayal of ordinary Vietnamese. For years, the Vietnamese had been conspicuous by their absence in American film and t…

By Robert K. Brigham

Hearts and Minds: The Right Side of History
Hearts and Minds: The Right Side of History
Peter Davis’s provocative, Oscar-winning Hearts and Minds, released to the American public in 1974, is that rare documentary whose truths and relevance have been underlined and amplified by the passage of time. The title is derived from President L…

By Judith Crist

Hearts and Minds: Vietnam and Memory
Hearts and Minds: Vietnam and Memory

The brutal lessons of Vietnam remained in America’s national consciousness for a generation. September 11 gave us collective amnesia, and they’ve had to be learned again.

By Peter Davis

Unused Footage from Hearts and Minds
Unused Footage from Hearts and Minds
Only a small fraction of the footage Peter Davis shot for Hearts and Minds made it into his 112-minute Academy Award­–winning documentary on the Vietnam War. Davis and his crew filmed hundreds of hours in the United States, Vietnam, and France—s…

By Karen Stetler

Remembering Bert Schneider
Remembering Bert Schneider

The filmmaker’s recollections of the great producer.

By Peter Davis