December 6, 2025 – This documentary film uses the ideas of author George Orwell to highlight the dangers of Authoritarianism in the modern world, with an emphasis on his best-known novel, “1984.”

Writer-director Raoul Peck (“I Am Not Your Negro”) uses a wide variety of multimedia sources to tell Orwell's story from birth to death and to highlight his ideas on authoritarianism. He uses photographs, film sources from previous documentaries and films based on Orwell's books, like “Animal Farm” along with historical and current news footage about relevant past and current events.

The documentary weaves a story about Orwell's early years (his birth name is Eric Arthur Blair). His seminal years include a British police posting in Burma. Orwell said that he always regretted being part of British imperialism, and that regret informed his later opposition to authoritarianism.

The rise of Hitler and the resulting devastation of World War II further inspired his novel 1984. He began work on it right after the war, in 1947. In it, he wrote about people living under an oppressive authoritarian government in which language and objective reality itself is warped to support the aims of the government, and to cover up past crimes.

Under an authoritarian government, for instance, books about the history of slavery and racism, for instance, would be banned from schools; political parties and people criticizing the government would be called enemies; news stories that reveal government corruption would be called “fake news.” An authoritarian government would rewrite history to conform with a version of reality that advances its agenda.

These same kinds of events that are happening now are very similar to three examples Orwell's “Newspeak” in 1984: “Freedom is slavery, war is peace and ignorance is strength.” Another key feature of 1984 is mass surveillance of society to seek out nonconformity. The documentary likens this to the mass surveillance of people by tech companies like Apple, X and Facebook, which are closely aligned with the U.S. government, which some call an oligarchy, a form of authoritarianism.

This documentary, featuring not only Orwell's books, but his memoirs and letters, shows how the United States, along with some other countries, like Israel, are marching towards authoritarianism. There is some hope, according to the documentary, and that lies with the great masses of people, who may still share some common decency. If the masses of people unite against lies, cruelty, murder, torture, starvation, loss of liberty and the mistreatment of people, they can prevail. This movie rates a B.

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