That’s a wrap on the 96th Academy Awards, and what an evening it was. Celebrating the very best in movies from the past year, Oppenheimer earned the prestigious Best Picture and a host of other accolades while a range of other acclaimed efforts from Poor Things to The Zone Of Interest won big too. This year’s Best Documentary Feature category was home to a host of must-see projects, but it was ultimately 20 Days In Mariupol that earned the win.
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What is 20 Days In Mariupol about?
Released in 2023 and currently sitting at an incredible 100% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, 20 Days In Mariupol is a Ukrainian documentary directed by Mstyslav Chernov.
The hugely impactful movie follows the filmmaker and his colleagues spending 20 days in the city of Mariupol in February and March 2022. Capturing footage during the first weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the documentary makes for a harrowing and devastating experience.
A team from PBS’s Frontline and the Associated Press (AP) accompanies the director in his efforts to document and chronicle what it was like during those days of invasion for those directly affected.
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“I’ll be the first director on this stage who will say, ‘I wish I never made this film,’” Mstyslav explained when he took to the Oscars stage with his team to collect the award. “I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities,” his speech continued.
The film competed with Bobi Wine: The People’s President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, and To Kill a Tiger.
How to watch 20 Days In Mariupol streaming free
You can stream 20 Days In Mariupol for free over on the PBS website, as the documentary was produced by PBS Frontline and distributed by PBS Distribution. If you go directly to the PBS website, the option to stream the film for free is displayed at the top of the homepage.
Alternatively, you can access the movie on Amazon Prime Video with a free trial of PBS Documentaries, which offers seven days of free access to the channel’s content.
There is also the option on Prime Video to rent or buy the film from just $1.99 (standard definition, HD is $2.99).
All in all, 20 Days In Mariupol couldn’t be more accessible, and even with it being one of the biggest wins of the night, it’s still a film that the majority will yet have seen. It’s an incredibly difficult documentary to watch, on the other hand, in terms of its upsetting content, with some of the footage likely to prove impossible to shake once seen.
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