Trailer for the documentary Hillsborough.
On April 15, 1989, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest played the English FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. Overcrowding in the stands that day led to the death of 96 Liverpool fans – it was the biggest disaster in the history of British sport. Hillsborough reconstructs the events and how they reverberated through the years that followed, using interviews with family members, survivors and police officers, as well as news reports, reenactments and closed-circuit TV footage from that fateful day. The main focus is on the actions of the authorities, who blamed the tragedy on drunken Liverpool fans as a way of diverting attention from their own failure at crowd control and the absence of a proper emergency plan. It wasn’t until April 2016, a full 27 years later, that those left behind received official recognition, bringing to an end their battle for justice for their loved ones. The fans were blameless, and responsibility for these terrible events lay unequivocally with the police officers in command.