Director Santiago Mitre’s much-lauded, fact-based Argentina, 1985 dramatizes the South American country’s return to democracy after suffering seven years under a military junta. The new civilian government is determined to hold the leading officers accountable for carrying out the barbaric “Dirty War” of torture, liquidation, and disappearing about thirty thousand people. Mitre’s script, cowritten with Argentines Mariano Llinás and Martín Mauregui, deeply humanizes the struggle to try the generals in the biggest war crimes case since the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals.

Argentina, 1985 has very deservedly racked up accolades, winning the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film; three prizes, including a nomination for the Golden Lion for best picture, at the Venice Film Festival; and many other awards and nominations, most prominently being Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature Film.

Mitre’s gripping two-hour, twenty-minute masterpiece is arguably the best political feature since Costa-Gavras’s 1969 Z, which was rather uniquely nominated for the Academy Awards for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, winning in the latter category. This classic film about the assassination of Greece’s peace candidate and the Greek colonels’ overthrow of the government before they could stand trial had a major impact on Mitre.