To the Shores of Iwo Jima

This Academy Award-nominated documentary chronicles the US assault on Japanese-held island Iwo Jima during World War II. The iconic image of six soldiers planting an American flag atop Mt. Suribachi is captured here as it happened, as is a stunning array of up-close and sometimes graphic footage, all shot by the military's own "embedded" photo-journalists. Some 7,000 US soldiers and 20,000 Japanese were killed during the course of this 5-week battle; less than five months later the US would carry out atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively bringing WWII to an end.

• documentary