The story of American politics and military policies as seen through the eyes of the former Secretary of Defense, under President Kennedy and President Johnson, Robert S. McNamara. McNamara is a controversial and influential political figure. He offers a candid journey through some of the most seminal events in contemporary American history. He offers insights into the 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the effects of the Vietnam...

"The act of killing" is an examination of the murder of political dissidents in Indonesia by government sponsored death squads in the years following the military coup in 1965, in which the filmmakers were successful in persuading those responsible to reenact the killings for the camera in the fashion of American movies.