Tora! Tora! Tora!

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) is a war drama you can watch online on iFILM. A joint American and Japanese production, it reconstructs the morning of December 7, 1941, when Japanese planes struck the U.S. fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor and pulled America into World War II.

The film refuses to pick a villain. On one side, Admiral Yamamoto's staff spends months wargaming a long-shot raid while diplomats stall the talks in Washington. On the other, the Americans simply cannot believe an attack is coming: radar picks up the aircraft, codes have been broken, warnings go out, and every one of them drowns in red tape and overconfidence. The title comes from the code signal the lead Japanese pilot radioed back once he knew the surprise had worked.

Three directors split the work, Richard Fleischer for the U.S. scenes, Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda for the Japanese ones. The flying sequences were shot with real aircraft and full-scale ship mock-ups instead of effects shortcuts, and the picture took home an Academy Award for its visuals. Stream Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) online on iFILM.