🎞️ The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo — Netflix’s Explosive New War Documentary That Challenges History

Boxofficehype
Nov 7
4 min read

“One photograph changed the world. But what if it wasn’t taken by the man we think?” 📸

Netflix is closing out the year with one of its most controversial and powerful documentaries yet — The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo, premiering November 28, 2025.

Directed by Bao Nguyen (Be Water), the gripping documentary reopens a 52-year-old mystery behind one of the most famous images in history — the Vietnam War’s Napalm Girl. But what begins as a story about truth and memory quickly spirals into a global debate over ethics, journalism, and justice.

📸 The Iconic Photograph That Shocked the World

On June 8, 1972, the world saw an image that would define an era: A nine-year-old girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, screaming and running naked down a road, her skin burning after a napalm attack in Trảng Bàng, Vietnam.

That haunting photo — known as The Terror of War — was published by the Associated Press (AP), credited to photographer Nick Ut, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

But half a century later, a shocking claim has emerged: What if Nick Ut didn’t take it?

🕵️‍♂️ The Truth Behind the Lens — A 52-Year Secret Uncovered

The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo begins when Carl Robinson, a former AP photo editor in Saigon, reveals a secret that has haunted him for decades.

He confesses that the photo that changed history may have been wrongly credited — that a local Vietnamese stringer (a freelancer) named Nguyen Thanh Nghe actually took the shot.

Enter Gary Knight, an acclaimed war photographer and co-founder of VII Photo Agency. Intrigued and disturbed, Knight launches a two-year investigation to uncover the truth and seek justice for the man who may have been erased from history.

“If what we’re uncovering is true,” Knight says in the film, “then this is one of the greatest journalistic injustices of the 20th century.”

🎬 Inside the Investigation – From Saigon to the Shadows of History

Knight’s investigation, spanning from Vietnam to London, digs into 55 interviews, archival evidence, and testimonies from veteran journalists, editors, and witnesses who were there.

What he finds is both shocking and heartbreaking.

According to Robinson’s account:

In 1972, he received film rolls from Nick Ut and two Vietnamese stringers, one of whom wasn’t a regular AP freelancer.
The negatives were labeled meticulously, but when the now-famous image was chosen by AP’s photo editor Horst Faas, he allegedly said, “Make it Nick Ut.”
Robinson claims the decision was made to help Ut’s career after his brother — also a photojournalist — was killed years earlier.

The film suggests that Nguyen Thanh Nghe, a local driver for NBC who also freelanced photos, sold the image to AP for $20 and was never credited.

Nghe himself, now an elderly man, appears in the documentary, stating simply:

“I took the photo.”

⚡ Netflix’s Most Controversial Documentary of 2025

Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival (January 2025), The Stringer instantly ignited global controversy. While audiences praised its fearless storytelling and moral complexity, the Associated Press issued a six-month rebuttal report, standing by Nick Ut and calling the film’s claims “factually inaccurate.”

Ut, along with Phan Thi Kim Phuc herself, has publicly defended the original credit, while AP considers possible defamation action against the filmmakers.

That tension makes The Stringer not just a documentary — but a global debate about truth, ethics, and who gets to write history.

🎥 Behind the Camera – A Filmmaker’s Quest for Truth

Directed by Bao Nguyen (Be Water), the film combines investigative journalism with cinematic visual storytelling, making it one of the year’s most visually haunting documentaries.

“It’s about the weight of a single image — and how it can define, distort, or destroy lives,” Nguyen explains.

Shot across Vietnam, London, and the U.S., the documentary features breathtaking cinematography by Andrew Yuyi Truong and Ray Lavers, paired with a haunting score by Gene Back that lingers long after the credits roll.

🧩 The Power of Photography — Who Owns the Truth?

Beyond the controversy, The Stringer asks deeper questions:

📷 Who owns a moment in history — the person who captured it, or the one who published it?

🕰️ How far will institutions go to protect their legacy?

💔 And what happens when justice comes 50 years too late?

For journalists, photographers, and history enthusiasts, this is a film that redefines what it means to tell the truth.

🗓️ The Stringer: Key Details

Title	The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo
Genre	Documentary / Investigation / History
Director	Bao Nguyen (Be Water)
Produced by	Fiona Turner, Terri Lichstein
Cinematography	Bao Nguyen, Andrew Yuyi Truong, Ray Lavers
Edited by	Graham Taylor
Music	Gene Back
Runtime	100 minutes
Production Companies	XRM Media, The VII Foundation, Linlay Productions
Distributor	Netflix
Premiere	Sundance Film Festival, Jan 25, 2025
Netflix Release Date	November 28, 2025

💬 Critical Buzz & Early Reviews

Critics at Sundance hailed The Stringer as “a haunting meditation on truth and legacy.” Others called it “the next All the Beauty and the Bloodshed — fearless, emotional, and essential.”

While controversy brews, the documentary’s emotional pull is undeniable. Nguyen’s patient storytelling and Knight’s conviction transform this investigation into a cinematic reckoning — one that’s equal parts journalism and morality play.

🔥 Final Thoughts – The Photograph That Still Burns

The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo is more than a documentary — it’s a reckoning with memory, ethics, and the price of truth.

As Netflix audiences prepare for its November 28 release, one thing is clear: The Vietnam War may have ended, but the battle for truth is far from over.