Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond (2006) is Edward Zwick's war thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a hardened smuggler caught in the chaos that tore through Sierra Leone at the close of the nineties.

Danny Archer trades in stones that rebels dig from the ground and swap for guns. Solomon Vandy, a Mende fisherman played by Djimon Hounsou, stumbles on a huge pink diamond at a rebel mine and buries it — his one chance to ransom his son, dragged off to fight in a unit of boy soldiers. Archer wants the stone; Solomon wants his child. The two strike an uneasy bargain and push across enemy lines, trailed by journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), who is chasing the truth about conflict gems.

Shot in Mozambique and South Africa, the film refuses to soften the recruitment of children or the price the West pays for a sparkle in a shop window. DiCaprio and Hounsou both earned Oscar nominations, and the story pushed the jewellery trade to answer for itself. Across 143 minutes, an ornament and a human life sit on the same scale. Stream Blood Diamond (2006) online on iFILM.