The Killing Fields

The Killing Fields follows Sydney Schanberg, a New York Times correspondent reporting from Cambodia as the civil war escalates in the early 1970s. Working alongside him are his Cambodian interpreter and friend Dith Pran and the American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the Khmer Rouge take control of the capital in 1975, foreign nationals are evacuated, and Schanberg arranges for Pran's family to leave the country. Pran chooses to remain with the journalist to help him continue reporting. Schanberg is eventually able to leave Cambodia, but Pran, as a local, is unable to join him and is forced into the brutal labour camps of the Khmer Rouge.

The film is a British production directed by Roland Joffé, working from a screenplay by Bruce Robinson and produced by David Puttnam. It was Joffé's first feature, and it opened in November 1984. Sam Waterston plays Schanberg, Haing S. Ngor plays Dith Pran, and John Malkovich appears as Al Rockoff. The cast also includes Julian Sands, Craig T. Nelson and Spalding Gray.

Made on a budget of about 14 million dollars, the film earned roughly 35 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.8 from around 63,000 votes, while on TMDB its rating is 7.5 from some 864 votes. A critics' rating of 8.7 from 45 reviews places it somewhat above those audience scores. Joffé went on to direct The Mission and Fat Man and Little Boy, among later films.