ISIS: Birth of a Terrorist State is a harrowing look behind the scenes of the so-called Islamic State that emerged in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The documentary captures the rise of ISIS, commonly called Daesh in Arabic circles, and gives a glimpse into life for those living inside its confines. Though it is a 2014 production, it is as relevant today for understanding the culture, politics, economy, and war aims of the Islamic State.

While the film offers important insights about, and rare access to, the organization and “state” of Daesh, both the interviews and the narrator suggest the Western perspective of the film. The film's mood is urgent and ominous, and makes reference to ISIS as the “face of terrorism for the United States and the West.” The film opens, for example, with a shot of 9/11 in New York City, as if to indicate that this distinctly American trauma is the starting point for the rise of Daesh. The movie raises the matter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a source of instability, suggesting the radicalization of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi resulted from his capture and imprisonment by American forces. The film moves quickly to focus on the motives and mechanisms of ISIS to build a state—the new “caliphate”—to try to erase the lines of Syria and Iraq in favor of a new “Islamic State” guided by stringent and brutal interpretations of Islamic law. The film accounts for the new “state's” resources and potential for self-sufficiency, placing it beyond the average terrorist group. The film then turns to the ethnic and religious battle lines being drawn at the fringes of the Islamic State, including Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Shiʿa pushing back against ISIS, suggesting the difficulties of sectarian war that lay ahead.

The film sometimes uses language that simplistically paints ISIS in purely religious terms, on multiple occasions referencing ISIS as “jihadists” in their “holy war.” While it clearly is a movement predicated on radical conception of Islamic law and authority, the association with religion belies the political circumstances of the rise of ISIS as well as the multiple motives behind its actors and supporters, such as those from Saddam Hussein's largely secular regime.

The film also gives ISIS perhaps too much credit, describing the land the group controls as “half the size of France,” and returning repeatedly to a graphic map of its territory when in fact ISIS control in parts of Iraq and Syria were and are much more tenuous. Baghdad is referred to as a “state of permanent chaos and violence,” and the film paints sometimes simple sectarian images of “humiliated” Sunnis “dreaming of revenge.” While sectarian and ethnic identities have been mobilized in Iraq and Syria, the film is not nuanced in the depiction of different societal factions.

The film intersperses video from inside Syria and Iraq with interviews with academics, European and Iraqi elites, and individuals caught up in the conflict. The interviewees are mostly members of the Iraqi and the French governments or security apparatus, but the film does not attend to how their perspectives might be shaded or motivated. None of this is to take away from Daesh's brutality, but rather point to the relatively narrow cast of characters on which the documentary relies.

This film came out around the same time as two others, PBS Frontline's The Rise of ISIS (October 2014), and Vice News’ The Islamic State (December 2014). The PBS account relies much more on American sources and interviews, and focuses on the power vacuum following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. The Vice program gained impressive access inside the territory of ISIS and benefited from more local perspectives. All three films are Western accounts of ISIS in the heyday of its rise. Taken together and comparatively, students could benefit from the different sourcing, but the story remains the same in all accounts: ISIS is a problem challenging the West and the world. Teaching materials could update to account for events in 2015–16, including U.S., Russian, Kurdish, and Iraqi efforts to rollback the gains of the Islamic State. Exploring the role of the U.S. war against Iraq, from invasion to withdrawal, would be a useful case study in the perils of interventionism and inadequate planning for postwar environments and nationbuilding. This film would be useful in courses on Middle East politics, international terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, or general surveys of international politics.

ISIS: The Birth of a Terrorist State is educational, showing how ISIS secures arms and runs a quasi-state off the resources and bounty of northern Iraq, such as the 200kg of gold looted from the Central Bank in Mosul. It also rightly notes the brutality of the regime for its laws and punishments, including execution, crucifixions, and beheadings, without including graphic footage that would ward away some viewers. The ISIS promise of a new caliphate attracts the disenfranchised from the region and even the West, but also imposes itself against the will of many who have no choice but to live as victims under the brutal regime. All of this is captured succinctly and powerfully in this fifty-four minute film suitable for most audiences interested in seeing what ISIS is and how it came about. Left unanswered in the film, and perhaps still lacking today, is the solution of what to do about it.