October H8TE – The Fight for the Soul of America (October 8) is a 2025 documentary film produced by Wendy Sachs and Debra Messing.
Synopsis.
The film covers the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses after the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. It describes how "anti-Israel sentiment came to a fever pitch in the immediate aftermath of the massacre" and argues such sentiment "morphed into antisemitism". The film includes interviews with Michael Rapaport, Noa Tishby, U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Sheryl Sandberg, Dan Senor, Scott Galloway, and Mosab Yousef. It explores the organization Students for Justice in Palestine, and argues that SJP promoted anti-Zionism and antisemitism on campus. The film also covers the role of social media in allegedly stoking antisemitism among young people.
In the film, University of California, Santa Barbara's (UCSB) student body president describes how she was harassed online and on campus after she condemned the October 7 attack.
Production.
Co-produced by Wendy Sachs and Debra Messing, the film was co-edited by Inbal Lessner and Nimrod Erez.
Sachs said she wanted the film to show a non-Jewish audience "what antisemitism looks like today—for them to see, when they see a 'Zionists not allowed' sign, that means 'Jew'".
Critical reception.
The documentary was shown at Miami's Jewish Film Festival. Sharon Farber's score was nominated for a Hollywood Music In Media Award. 
"The Times of Israel" criticized the film for not closely examining Qatar's influence, citing its own reporting claiming Qatar contributed as much as $4.7 billion to US academic institutions between 2001 and 2021. In "The Jerusalem Post", Greer Fay Cashman called the film Sachs's "crowning achievement". In "Haaretz", Judy Maltz said the film paints a "black-and-white picture" of the conflict.
Michael O'Sullivan of "The Washington Post" praised the film's "often-moving first-person student testimony" and noted its easily disproven claim that Hamas may be behind SJP, while lamenting its lack of criticism of the Israeli government and military. Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" called out some cherry-picking and "questionable conclusions", adding, "But there's no denying the importance of its message and the need for corrective action by political, academic, religious and civil leaders".
Siddhant Adlakha criticized the film for "its omissions, which circumvent any history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict both before and after Oct. 7, 2023." Writing for "Variety", Alissa Simon called it "one-sided", but wrote that it was still "worth seeing" for its coverage of antisemitism and the political fallout of the campus protests. In "Defector", Jake Romm wrote, "calling it a film at all is generous" and that watching it is more akin "to being trapped in a room with someone as they show you posts on their phone". Romm described the film as being about American Zionist paranoia and asserted that it is the pro-Palestinian movement that is being persecuted.