Featuring Daniel Ellsberg and Patricia Ellsberg. Unrated. Plays Thursday to Saturday, May 20 to 22, Monday, May 24, and Wednesday, May 26, at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que

As the Vietnam War recedes into the mists of time, befogged by ever stupider wars waged in the name of the American people, it becomes increasingly valuable to reclaim singular characters like Daniel Ellsberg. And this engrossing biography illuminates much about the man and his times, even if you think you remember all that.

Ellsberg’s story runs parallel to that of Robert McNamara, JFK’s secretary of defense and another cold warrior whose adventurism ran counter to more thoughtful impulses. But, unlike McNamara, this combat veteran and “best and brightest” Pentagon consultant couldn’t stifle his gag reflex when the Vietnam experiment started heading south and few others would admit it.

Using archival footage, current interviews, and recently declassified material, the Oscar-nominated film—which breezes by at 92 minutes—explores moral and personal conflicts that led Ellsberg, a few brave friends, and his enthusiastic children to copy and disseminate thousands of pages of internal memos proving that the Pentagon knew it was in a no-win situation and was lying about it to prop up corrupt policies by presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Not hyperbolically titled if you happened to be Tricky Dick or his fellow crooks, The Most Dangerous Man in America leaves you with one important question: who will do the right thing when Barack Obama decides he can’t be the president who “lost” Afghanistan?

Here, the film is paired with the documentary American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein, about a fellow who has made enemies by daring to suggest that Israelis, of all people, could be a tad more concerned about the human rights of others.