Overview
- French and British outlets report his death at 90, with Télérama citing October 31 and Courrier International relaying October 30 at Bourganeuf hospital.
- Watkins became a defining figure of docufiction with The War Game, which the BBC refused to air before it won the 1967 Oscar for Best Documentary.
- His confrontational works included Punishment Park’s faux-reportage on authoritarian repression, the pop-culture parable Privilege, and the biographical Edvard Munch.
- He spent more than 25 years living in rural France near Felletin and Bourganeuf after a long, often uneasy relationship with mainstream broadcasters.
- La Commune (2000), a 345‑minute reconstruction of the 1871 Paris uprising first shown at the Musée d’Orsay, exemplified his critique of television’s “monoforme.”