Over its nearly 21-minute running time, circumstances during the immediate postwar period following the Second World War, leading to the formation of the United Nations are discussed.

The constant conflicts of the 1930s with Japanese aggression in China, Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War showed how ineffective the League had become.

[3] Part of the NFB's The World In Action series of documentary short films, Now – The Peace was intended to prepare Canadians for a postwar and was produced by the NFB at the suggestion of Archibald MacLeish, then-Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs for the U.S. government, focusing especially on the formation of the United Nations, the international organization devoted to world peace.

"During the early years of the NFB, its creative output was largely informed by the turbulent political and social climate the world was facing.

World War II, Communism, unemployment, the role of labour unions, and working conditions were all subjects featured by the NFB during the period from 1939 to 1946".