Trailer For Netflix's New World War 2 Series Features A Lot Of Famous Directors

Netflix has released the first trailer for Five Came Back, its upcoming documentary series about five American film directors who interrupted their careers to serve in World War II and came home to make more movies.

The series is based on Mark Harris' book, Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War. It tells the stories of five American directors: John Ford (Stagecoach), William Tyler (Ben-Hur), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It's A Wonderful Life), and George Stevens (A Place in the Sun). Veteran directors Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Greengrass, Francis Ford Coppola, and Lawrence Kasdan illuminate their stories and share their perspectives. The three-part series is narrated by Meryl Streep.

"Film was an intoxicant from the early days of the silent movies," Spielberg said in a statement. "And early on, Hollywood realized that it had a tremendous tool or weapon for change, through cinema."

Coppola added: "Cinema in its purest form could be put in the service of propaganda. Hitler and his minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels understood the power of the cinema to move large populations toward your way of thinking."

Five Came Back was directed by Laurent Bouzereau and premieres on March 31. Bouzereau directed the making-of features for a number of big-name movies, including Jurassic Park and Titanic.