''Hostages'' is a

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

documentary series Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

directed by Joshua Bennett, Maro Chermayeff, Jeff Dupre, Abbas Motlagh and

Sam Pollard Sam Pollard may refer to: * Sam Pollard (missionary) (1864-1915) British missionary to China * Sam Pollard (filmmaker) Samuel D. Pollard is an American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered numerous awards su ...

. The series was released worldwide on 28 September 2022 by

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Synopsis

The four-part series explores events of the

1979 Iranian revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...

and the 1979–81 Iran hostage crisis, examining other dimensions of the crisis, like the U.S. role in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

politics during the 70's, and its impact on 1980 U.S. presidential elections, as well as the aftermath of the Iranian revolution. Some footage used in the series were never seen before.

Cast

The series consists of footage from Iranian revolutionaries, hostage-takers and other Islamic Republic officials, as well as interviews with involved people like Mohsen Sazegara,

Abolhassan Banisadr Seyyed Abolhassan Banisadr ( fa, سید ابوالحسن بنی‌صدر; 22 March 1933 – 9 October 2021) was an Iranian politician, writer, and political dissident. He was the first president of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution abolis ...

Masoumeh Ebtekar Masoumeh Ebtekar ( fa, معصومه ابتکار; born 21 September 1960) was the former Vice President of Iran for Women and Family Affairs, from August 9, 2017, to September 1, 2021. She previously headed Department of Environment from 1997 ...

, and some of the hostages including Michael J. Metrinko,

John W. Limbert John W. Limbert (born 1943) is an American diplomat. He is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran in the US State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He is a veteran U.S. diplomat and a former official at the U.S. Embass ...

, and

Victor L. Tomseth Victor L. Tomseth (born April 14, 1941) is a former American diplomat and U.S. Ambassador (1993–1996) to Laos. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in Tehran, Iran and was among the Americans taken hostage by the Iranians from 1979 to 1981. Early ...

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=22074190 2020s American documentary television series Films about Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Cultural depictions of Ruhollah Khomeini HBO original programming Documentaries about politics Documentaries about historical events 2022 American television series debuts Works about the Iranian Revolution