---
title: "The Weather Underground (2002) review"
description: "I’m treading carefully with this one given today’s political climate, but I really loved The Weather Underground. I found this after watching and loving One..."
url: https://www.joekarlsson.com/reviews/the-weather-underground/
---

# The Weather Underground (2002)

Oct 5, 2025 | Rated 3.5 out of 5 | Dir. Bill Siegel, Sam Green

I’m treading carefully with this one given today’s political climate, but I really loved The Weather Underground. I found this after watching and loving One Battle After Another, and it covers the real-life events of radical Vietnam War-era political activists and the aftermath of their work.

This feels like a documentary that shouldn’t be allowed to be aired - which is exactly what makes it so valuable. I learned a lot about the movement, what worked and what didn’t, and frankly found parts of it inspiring. But the most interesting aspect is watching them deal with the aftermath: going underground, hiding, paying the costs of their choices.

The film was made in 2002, the year after 9/11, and you can feel that weight in every frame. There’s a palpable twinge of guilt as they grapple with having committed acts of political terrorism while the national sentiment toward those acts had completely shifted beneath them. Watching them struggle to see their place in society - to reconcile who they were with who they became - is genuinely fascinating. I’d love to see an update on where they are today.

I love these early 2000s digital documentaries. They’re charming and feel appropriately indie and accessible for taboo subjects like this. The lo-fi aesthetic somehow makes the radical content more digestible without sanitizing it.

Also on [Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/joekarlsson/film/the-weather-underground/)

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Joe  
Karlsson

I write about my homelab, AI tools, databases, and the weird stuff I build on the side.

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