The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers is a 1966 Italian-Algerian film directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, dramatizing the Algerian National Liberation Front's urban guerrilla campaign against French colonial rule in Algiers between 1954 and 1957. Shot in a documentary-like style with non-professional actors and grainy black-and-white cinematography, the film presents both the insurgents' and the French military's tactics with a deliberate, often uncomfortable evenhandedness. The film was banned in France for several years after its release, and it has since become a widely studied text on urban insurgency and counterinsurgency, reportedly screened for military and government audiences including at the Pentagon, alongside its standing as a landmark of political filmmaking.