{ "id": "epy7se8tbv", "slug": "hearts-and-minds", "title": "Hearts and Minds", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary", "label": "Documentary and biographical films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-by-subject-politics-war-society", "label": "Documentary films by subject: politics, war, and society", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-by-subject-politics-war-society" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-by-subject-politics-war-society.yr-1927-2016", "label": "Released 1927 to 2016", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-by-subject-politics-war-society.yr-1927-2016" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000: Documentary and biographical films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary", "label": "Documentary and biographical films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Hearts and Minds (1974) is Peter Davis and Bert Schneider's Oscar-winning anti-war documentary on the Vietnam War, titled from Lyndon Johnson's 'hearts and minds' phrase, released in 1975 after Rostow's lawsuit.", "snippet": "Hearts and Minds (1974) is Peter Davis and Bert Schneider's Oscar-winning anti-war documentary on the Vietnam War, titled from Lyndon Johnson's 'hearts and minds' phrase, released in 1975 after Rostow's lawsuit.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-by-subject-politics-war-society.yr-1927-2016", "markdown": "# Hearts and Minds\n\n**Hearts and Minds** is a 1974 American documentary directed by Peter Davis that examines the United States' involvement in the [Vietnam War](https://www.edgepedia.org/vietnam-war) through interviews, newsreel footage, and scenes of the war and its effects on Americans and Vietnamese. It takes its title from President Lyndon B. Johnson's statement, made as he escalated American involvement, that \"the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there\"; Davis uses the phrase ironically.[1](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/210-hearts-and-minds) The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and was added to the [National Film Registry](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-film-registry) in 2018.[2](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1975) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071604/awards/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / producers | Peter Davis, directing and co-producing with Bert Schneider through BBS Productions[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) |\n| Release | Screened at Cannes on 13 May 1974; US general release in March 1975 after a change of distributor[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) • [1](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/210-hearts-and-minds) |\n| Budget and scale | About $950,000 of Columbia funds allotted by Schneider; roughly 200,000 feet of film shot, a shooting ratio near 100 to 1[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) • [5](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/HeartsAndMinds.pdf) |\n| Interviews | Formal interviews with more than 40 individuals, from officials such as Clark Clifford and Daniel Ellsberg to US veterans and Vietnamese civilians[6](https://registry.clir.org/projects/2360/) |\n| Awards | Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (1975); Golden Globe nominee; National Film Registry 2018[2](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1975) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071604/awards/) |\n| Reception | 90% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes (42 reviews); Metascore 68 for the re-release[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hearts_and_minds) • [8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hearts-and-minds-re-release/critic-reviews/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Content and method\n\nThe film is a compilation of newsreel and documentary footage together with original interviews. It includes scenes such as peasants toiling in fields in Hung Dinh village under armed guard, Johnson telling a news conference that success in the war depends on the \"hearts and minds\" of the Vietnamese people, and the religious leader Father Chan Tin describing Vietnam's history of resisting foreign invaders and arguing that the war amounted to genocide.[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) Ebert noted the film's now-famous images, including the summary execution of a [Viet Cong](https://www.edgepedia.org/viet-cong) suspect and a burned girl running screaming down a road, alongside interviews with US pilots who spoke of enjoying the thrills of bombing missions and one pilot haunted by what his bombs had done.[10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hearts-and-minds-1974)\n\n**Editing as argument.** Davis built the film by juxtaposition, cutting between pro-war statements and images of the war's consequences. The historian George C. Herring, writing in the Criterion Collection's essay series, described the treatment as episodic rather than strictly chronological, but with a rough chronology taking US involvement from its origins through escalation to failure and withdrawal.[11](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/211-hearts-and-minds-a-historical-context) A scholarly comparison with [Michael Moore](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-moore)'s *Fahrenheit 9/11* characterizes both films as constructing argument through \"an intricate succession of incongruous, contradictory, and ultimately ironic words and images.\"[12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15456889ajc1302_1) Ebert criticized this method as heavy-handed, arguing that the juxtaposition of carefully selected but unrelated material sometimes looked like propaganda, though he judged the raw material powerful enough to overcome the manipulation.[10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hearts-and-minds-1974) Davis himself rejected the label of neutral observer, saying he wanted to convey the experience of the war almost in real time rather than have a narrator take that experience away from the audience.[13](https://historyisaweapon.com/dinn/words/peterdavisham.html)\n\nThe film's portrayal of ordinary Vietnamese was, in the view of one [Criterion](https://www.edgepedia.org/criterion) essay, one of its most important contributions: it was \"much more than an anti-American film, as some critics asserted, mostly because it took the pain and suffering of all Vietnamese seriously.\"[14](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/213-hearts-and-minds-the-human-connection)\n\n## Origin and production\n\nDavis had come to prominence with the television documentaries *Hunger in America* (1968) and *The Selling of the Pentagon* (1971). According to a contemporary Los Angeles Times account, he was originally inspired to make the film when [Daniel Ellsberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/daniel-ellsberg), a former military analyst and [RAND Corporation](https://www.edgepedia.org/rand-corporation) executive, leaked the classified [Pentagon Papers](https://www.edgepedia.org/pentagon-papers) to The New York Times in 1971, documents that revealed the Johnson administration had misrepresented the purpose of the war to Congress and the public. Ellsberg appears in the film as an interview subject.[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) Looking back in 2001, Davis said he began with three questions: \"Why did we go to Vietnam, what did we do there and what did the doing in turn do to us?\"[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345381/hearts-and-minds)\n\nProducer [Bert Schneider](https://www.edgepedia.org/bert-schneider), whose company BBS Productions had made *Easy Rider* (1969) and *Five Easy Pieces* (1970), held a six-picture contract with Columbia and allotted $950,000 of the studio's funds for Davis to produce and direct the picture.[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) In his 1974 review, Roger Ebert noted that the film took roughly a year to shoot on a budget of roughly $1 million, which made it, at that point, the most ambitious American documentary since *Woodstock*.[10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hearts-and-minds-1974) Davis's crew shot roughly 200,000 feet of film, a shooting ratio of approximately 100 to 1, extremely rare in the 1970s, and spent a further year editing at BBS's studio in Los Angeles.[5](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/HeartsAndMinds.pdf) The CLIR Hidden Collections Registry records formal interviews with more than 40 individuals conducted in the early 1970s, ranging from Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and broadcast journalist [David Brinkley](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-brinkley) to wounded veterans such as former prisoner of war Lieutenant George Coker, and to Vietnamese figures including former South Vietnamese president General Nguyễn Khánh and coffin maker Mui Duc Giang.[6](https://registry.clir.org/projects/2360/)\n\n## Release battles\n\nThe film screened at Cannes on 13 May 1974 and was received enthusiastically there, but its American release became a yearlong dispute. Columbia, which had funded the picture through Schneider's contract, expressed second thoughts about distributing a politically controversial documentary while in debt and facing a BBS lawsuit over unpaid royalties; the studio also demanded additional permission releases from interview subjects.[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) In December 1974 the film's Los Angeles booking was cut short when [Walt Rostow](https://www.edgepedia.org/walt-rostow), a former aide to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, filed a temporary restraining order objecting to clips from his 1973 interview, including his comment that [Ho Chi Minh](https://www.edgepedia.org/ho-chi-minh) could not have been \"elected dogcatcher\" in 1956. A judge ordered the film withdrawn unless two minutes were cut; Rainbow, the company of filmmaker Henry Jaglom that had bought the film from Columbia, chose withdrawal. On 23 January 1975 the restraining order was denied in court.[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS) After Warner Brothers agreed to release it, the film reached general release in March 1975.[1](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/210-hearts-and-minds)\n\n## The Oscar and its controversy\n\nAt the 47th Academy Awards on April 8, 1975, Davis and Schneider received the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.[2](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1975) Schneider used his acceptance speech to read a message of \"greetings of friendship to all American people\" from the [Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam](https://www.edgepedia.org/provisional-revolutionary-government-of-the-republic-of-south-vietnam) delegation then at the Paris peace talks. Later in the ceremony host [Frank Sinatra](https://www.edgepedia.org/frank-sinatra) read a statement written by [Bob Hope](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-hope) disclaiming responsibility \"for any political references,\" and the episode drew both boos and applause.[1](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/210-hearts-and-minds)\n\n## Reception and legacy\n\nContemporary reviews were divided on method but largely admiring of effect. The San Francisco Chronicle's Steven Winn credited \"the director's skill at assembling information and allowing it to speak for itself\"; the Chicago Reader called it \"one of the most unsettling discussions of Vietnam and its aftermath ever to appear in any medium\"; Anthony Lane in The New Yorker objected that the film \"gives no clue that atrocities were committed by the other side.\"[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hearts-and-minds-re-release/critic-reviews/) The re-release holds a Metascore of 68, while Rotten Tomatoes records a 90% Tomatometer from 42 reviews and a 90% audience score.[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hearts-and-minds-re-release/critic-reviews/) • [7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hearts_and_minds)\n\n**Influence.** Michael Moore has said the film \"is not only the best documentary I have ever seen; it may be the best movie ever,\" and critics have traced the ironic juxtaposition style of *Fahrenheit 9/11* back to it.[15](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/hearts-and-minds-film-review-by-anton-bitel) • [12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15456889ajc1302_1) The Associated Press, surveying Vietnam War cinema, wrote that controversy greeted the film at release \"but time has only proved how soberly clear-eyed it was.\"[16](https://apnews.com/article/e233b1954a263d571ec73c671b8d1eab) The film was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2018, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Cinema Eye Honors named Davis's work among \"The Influentials\" in 2014 and 2016.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071604/awards/) Davis, revisiting the film in 2001, said that if it had any application afterward, it was to other conflicts America might enter \"without having done a sufficient amount of simple history homework.\"[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345381/hearts-and-minds)\n\nThe film remains widely available: as of recent listings it streams on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel and can be rented or purchased on Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and Amazon Video.[17](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/hearts-and-minds)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Judith Crist, \"Hearts and Minds: The Right Side of History,\" The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/210-hearts-and-minds)\n2. [The 47th Academy Awards (1975), Oscars.org](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1975)\n3. [Hearts and Minds (1974) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071604/awards/)\n4. [Hearts and Minds (1974), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55328-HEARTS-AND-MINDS)\n5. [Peter Davis, letter to the National Film Preservation Board](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/HeartsAndMinds.pdf)\n6. [\"Hearts and Minds\": Outtakes and Papers from a Groundbreaking 1970s Documentary Film, CLIR Hidden Collections Registry](https://registry.clir.org/projects/2360/)\n7. [Hearts and Minds, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hearts_and_minds)\n8. [Hearts and Minds (re-release) critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hearts-and-minds-re-release/critic-reviews/)\n9. [Hearts and Minds, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345381/hearts-and-minds)\n10. [Roger Ebert, review of Hearts and Minds (1974), Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hearts-and-minds-1974)\n11. [George C. Herring, \"Hearts and Minds: A Historical Context,\" The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/211-hearts-and-minds-a-historical-context)\n12. [\"Separated at Birth: Argument by Irony in Hearts and Minds and Fahrenheit 9/11,\" Atlantic Journal of Communication](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15456889ajc1302_1)\n13. [\"Documentary Is Never Neutral: Peter Davis on Hearts and Minds\"](https://historyisaweapon.com/dinn/words/peterdavisham.html)\n14. [\"Hearts and Minds: The Human Connection,\" The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/213-hearts-and-minds-the-human-connection)\n15. [Anton Bitel, Hearts and Minds review, Eye for Film](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/hearts-and-minds-film-review-by-anton-bitel)\n16. [\"10 movies that defined the Vietnam War on the big screen,\" AP News](https://apnews.com/article/e233b1954a263d571ec73c671b8d1eab)\n17. [Hearts and Minds streaming, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/hearts-and-minds)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Documentary films by subject: politics, war, and society › Released 1927 to 2016*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/hearts-and-minds", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/hearts-and-minds.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Hearts and Minds\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/hearts-and-minds. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Hearts and Minds](https://www.edgepedia.org/hearts-and-minds)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/hearts-and-minds](https://www.edgepedia.org/hearts-and-minds). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Hearts and Minds\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/hearts-and-minds. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Hearts and Minds is Peter Davis and Bert Schneider's Oscar-winning anti-war documentary on the Vietnam War, titled from Lyndon Johnson's 'hearts and minds' phrase, released in 1975 after Rostow's lawsuit." }