Peter Watkins, the radical British filmmaker who won an Oscar for his controversial drama-documentary The War Game about a nuclear attack on Britain, has died aged 90. His family announced that he died in hospital on Thursday in Bourganeuf, near Felletin in central France, where he had lived for 25 years. They described him as “one of the most incisive, inventive, and unclassifiable voices” in cinema.
Watkins was an uncompromising figure who clashed with the BBC after it refused to broadcast The War Game on television, deeming it “too horrifying”. The film, which depicted a nuclear strike on Canterbury, was eventually shown on TV in 1985, on the 40th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. It won the Oscar for best documentary in 1967.
Born in 1935 in Norbiton, Surrey, Watkins studied at RADA after national service. He joined the BBC in 1962 and made Culloden (1964), a pioneering pseudo-documentary about the 1746 battle. Following his dispute with the BBC, he worked abroad, directing films such as Privilege (1967), Punishment Park (1971), and a biopic of Edvard Munch (1974).
Watkins later made The Journey (1983–1987), an 873-minute documentary about nuclear weapons, and his final film, The Commune (2000), a 345-minute recreation of the 1871 Paris uprising. He is survived by two sons, Patrick and Gérard.
