Path to War

Path to War is a drama about Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency and the decisions that drew the United States deeper into the Vietnam War. After succeeding John F. Kennedy, Johnson pursues an ambitious domestic agenda and wins a landslide election, only to find the situation in Southeast Asia demanding his attention almost immediately. Encouraged by advisers who favor a strong response, he authorizes escalating military action while struggling to keep the war from consuming his broader plans for the country.

The film was directed by John Frankenheimer, the eighteenth of the eighteen features he made, following Ambush. It was written by Daniel Giat and produced by Guy Riedel for HBO, with a budget of 17 million dollars. Michael Gambon plays Johnson, heading a cast that includes Donald Sutherland as Clark Clifford, Alec Baldwin as Robert McNamara, Bruce McGill as George Ball, James Frain as Richard Goodwin and Felicity Huffman as Lady Bird Johnson, among twenty-five credited performers and ninety credited crew members.

On IMDb, Path to War holds a rating of 7.3 from around 4,700 votes, while on TMDB its rating is 6.7 from a much smaller number of votes. The larger and more favorable sample on IMDb, alongside the modest vote count on TMDB, suggests a film best known to viewers with an interest in its historical subject. It runs 165 minutes.