Oklahoma City

On 19 April 1995 a truck exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A hundred and sixty-eight people were killed, including children in the daycare inside. The documentary does not present this as one man's work; it looks at the chain that came before it. Barak Goodman starts with the confrontations between federal forces and civilian groups at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and Waco in 1993. Both ended in deaths and both were taken as evidence by the militia movement. Timothy McVeigh radicalised in that atmosphere and timed the attack to the anniversary of the Waco siege. The narrative is built from archive footage, FBI records, and interviews with officials of the period and with the victims' families. Who it's for: Anyone interested in American politics, the history of the far right, and documentaries that place an event in its context. Who it's not for: The post-explosion footage is heavy and the passages about the child victims are hard. The film also focuses on the process of radicalisation more than the victims' story.