Les Grandes Batailles de la 2ᵉ Guerre mondiale

I love WW2 documentaries. However, the lack of respect shown to the diggers got to me. Australia entered world war 2 well before the USA. No mention of rats of Tobruk or Kokoda just to name a couple.

Overall the series had a great amount of knowledgeable information and footage.

First, in defense of the series against some of the review comments about the source of the video, just because you've seen it in a movie doesn't mean it's not real wartime footage. Older movies, before CGI, did that all the time to save money. For instance, we've all seen that crash of the plane onto the carrier deck in a movie or two, the one where it breaks in half and spins around. But it's real, not shot for a movie. Second, there's no way to cover everything important that occurred in WWII in 10 hours so obviously many important things will be left out. You can't cover the contributions of every country when so many participated so you pick the major combatants, etc. My main complaint is in many cases they cover some subjects in such a way as to focus on a more minor topic and leave out the major one. So many examples I can't list them all but here's just one: in the Battle of Britain episode they extensively cover the Spitfire without even a mention of the Hawker Hurricane when in fact there were many more Hurricanes used and Hurricanes were responsible for many more German losses than Spitfires. Yes, the Spitfire was the shiney new plane at the the time. But it's higher complexity meant lower percent availability of the smaller numbers of planes and the Hurricane's quicker turnaround time meant a single Hurricane could fly more sorties in a day. So why not take even 20 seconds to mention the most important British fighter in the Battle, especially the early stages?

If you're someone who'd like to better understand WWII in a thoughtful, comprehensive, well-paced film... this is it.

And here are 3 reasons why:

It is totally captivating. I've seen countless films on WWII, but this moves with a pace that allows you to absorb the key events while gaining insight on why things happened the way they did. Although I've seen so many accounts of the war, this summarized it better than any other film in my opinion.

It's binge-worthy. I stayed up all night long watching this - much more engaging than the typical war documentaries that put us all to sleep. I will watch it again with my wife and I know she will like it because you're compelled to watch the next episode.

It's relevant. The approach they've taken - beautifully restored and colorized film combined with thoughtful accounts by historians and veterans - is to be commended and treasured. But more importantly, it reminds us of what people with bad ideas can accomplish when the rest of us stay silent. A timeless and painful lesson.

Whilst there are no startling revelations within this series, as the WW2 conflict has been covered by countless other documentaries, the colouring of the footage does bring the subject matter home in a far more relatable manner.

In fact some of the colouring is so good, you feel like you're watching something that could have been filmed in the last decade.

A must see for any modern history enthusiasts!

From the beginning I was hooked. The way the show details the events, the strategies, the beautiful footage, interviews, etc was gripping and I binge watched the show over 2 days. It goes into the psychology of the most important people and what led to their decisions. It takes into account the culture of the individual countries at the time and is filled with suspense and twists. It was also very informative, I knew a little bit about WWII from high school classes, but this really helped fill in the gaps in a satisfying way. I feel like I've learned more than in the 2 days of watching this show than I would in a year of study. If you are slightly interested in the events of WWII and want a dramatic narrative of the most important events, this show is for you!