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Boettcher + Trinklein Television for PBS

Martin Luther: The Idea That Changed the World

A feature-length documentary on Luther built from dramatic reenactments and interviews with church historians, narrated by Hugh Bonneville. It runs from the thunderstorm and the monastery through Wittenberg, Worms and the German Bible.

ProvisionalFilm & seriesLutheran
Where to watch

Why this is listed

The Reformation documentary that spends its time on the theology rather than on the politics — what Luther actually thought justification meant, and why that got him into trouble. Chosen over the several anniversary productions because the historians on screen are doing history rather than celebrating.

Before you press play

The reenactments compress and invent dialogue in the ordinary documentary way; the interviews carry the argument and are properly sourced. It was made with Lutheran backing and it tells the Reformation largely from inside the Reformation's own account of itself — a Roman Catholic viewer will find Rome handled briskly and the counter-case underweighted. It touches only briefly on Luther's late writings against the Jews and on his response to the Peasants' War, both of which deserve more than they get here and are worth reading about separately. Nothing frightening beyond period executions described rather than shown; fine from about thirteen.

Suited to Adults. Age judgements are ours, not a rating board’s — you know your own family.

How to start

  1. Open pbs.org (opens an external site) and read what Boettcher + Trinklein Television for PBS says about itself before you read anything else.
  2. Read the note above first. It is there so an evening does not go wrong twenty minutes in.
  3. Watch it yourself before you watch it with children, if there are children.
  4. Read the passage it dramatises alongside it. The point is to send you back to the text, not to replace it.
  5. Afterwards, ask what the story added and what it left out. That conversation is worth more than the film.

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