Les Grandes Batailles de la 2ᵉ Guerre mondiale

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!

This series main selling point, according to Netflix is "rare footage from around the world, expertly restored in full color, tells the story as you've never seen it before."

It's true. I've never seen it told with such inaccuracy.

From a purely narrated standpoint, it's not a totally bad documentary. It omits a TON, but makes up for it somewhat by revealing little known details and recollections from people who lived it.

My main beef with this series is that their main selling point is bs. The Dunkirk episode supposedly depicts Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers attempting to pick off English boats and ships in the channel supporting the British Expeditionary Force's evacuation of France. But the footage is not of Stukas, but some other aircraft I had some trouble recognizing. In the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire is mentioned frequently, but the footage is of Hawker Hurricanes, which was already considered obsolete by Spitfire standards by the Summer of 1940. However, the big aerial fight scenes depicting German He-111 medium range bombers and Bf-109E fighters engaging Spitfires over London, are actually re-enactments from the 1969 historical drama "Battle of Britain." The Bf-109Es were not actual Messerschmitts, even, but Spanish HA-1112 Buchons built after the war in the 1950s, that existed in flying condition in greater numbers than actual Messerschmitts, many of which were destroyed by the Allied and Soviet forces as they closed in on Berlin.

Often, substitute footage is used when authentic footage is unavailable or scarce. I get it though. The layman won't be able to tell the difference. What I didn't like so much was that Netflix is peddling this as "rare footage ... expertly restored in full color" -- which leads you to believe all of it, at the very least, is from the era in question, and it's been colorized to give a more accurate depiction of the war.

The final straw for me was a scene during the Pearl Harbor episode, which supposedly depicted Japanese dive bombers attacking Pearl Harbor, with the big red sun emblazoned on their fuselages. But this footage is actually of a US Navy dive bomber called the SBD Dauntless, its stars and bars "photoshopped out" and replaced with the rising sun of Japan. What the hell, Netflix? Top Gun did something similar, by reimagining the USAF F-5 Tiger as the fictious Mig-28, but I doubt any of us went into that theater thinking that this was anything more than RAD on steroids.

If you want to watch a really good documentary on WW2, Ken Burns's "The War" is a great choice. Also, the History Channel ran a terrific series called the "War Room" -- and instead of taking liberties with scarce historical footage, they supplemented their narrative with really neat graphic animations that talked about the tactics and strategies that either lost or won the battles. This Netflix series is a bit of clickbait, and a little bait and switch. There are so many better sources to learn about WW2.

I stumbled across this late on a Friday night. The last war documentary that I'd seen was Peter Jackson's "They Shall Not Grow Old" and I had been yearning for a similar experience ever since. Well, safe to say-- I found it. This is an enthralling watch. The colorization of such massively historical events allows us viewers 70+ years later to empathize in an unimaginable way, and is careful enough to give us fresh insight into perspectives from both sides. Well done to all involved. Netflix in my opinion is hit or miss but this is without a doubt as good as it gets. Top class. A real tribute to the heroic men and women of that generation.

Side note: Pay no heed to the so-called political connotations suggested by other reviewers. Having watched the entire series through, my mind never once went there, I was too enraptured by the images and the quality on display. It in no way detracts from the documentary itself, if you're reading this prior to watching don't let such comments dismay you. I couldn't recommend this film highly enough.

Its so sad listening to so many butthurt complainers nitpicking at everything in this documentary. Honestly you could make a 30 or 40 part documentary series on ww2 and not even scratch the surface of the entire war and do every aspect and every service person justice. Those who complain that their country isn't mentioned... so what. You can't mention every damn country in detail.

I think this documentary series does a splendid job as acting as an introductory series to perhaps children/teenagers learning about ww2 for the first time. (then move on to books) Personally I knew most of the information but I enjoyed hearing it again with some coloured footage. The narrator is really easy to listen to and his commentary is mixed in with some war authors and some vetrans (who are becoming very very few, so these documentations of their experiences are essential)

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?