The Stringer: Index analyzed the iconic “Napalm girl” photo

On January 25, 2025, the documentary The Stringer premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Bao Nguyen, the film follows an investigation led by a group of journalists into the authorship of the Napalm girl photo — an iconic image from the Vietnam War and one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century.

Taken on June 8, 1972, the photo shows Kim Phuc, then aged nine, naked and badly burned alongside other children fleeing a napalm attack on the Vietnamese village of Trảng Bang, bombed by South Vietnamese aircraft. It has been credited for over half a century to Nick Ut, a Vietnamese-American photographer with the Associated Press.

The film team commissioned Index to carry out an independent appraisal to verify whether Nick Ut was indeed able to take the photo. By using dozens of shots taken that day by the various photographers present at the site, as well as film recordings and historical satellite images of the site, we produced a 3D reconstruction of the dynamics preceding and following the moment when the photo in question was taken.

This analysis, along with the presentation of our analysis method and conclusions, is integrated into the film in the form of a video sequence. The official release date of The Stringer documentary has not yet been announced.