Stories told through the contemporary lives of individuals with a focus on not only on the extraordinary, but also on the compelling and often overlooked, elements of life.
In the summer of 1955, American Alfred Hobbs and his new Danish wife Jakobine were living in Casablanca, Morocco, where they discovered a vintage London taxi. Over the next four years the couple would drive the old car acr... SEE MORE >>
Eva is a young, beautiful and smart overachiever with a loving family and a great sense of humor. She also shares a terrible bond with some very special friends. Eva and her online friends all have cystic fibrosis, a fatal... SEE MORE >>
After Newtown: Guns in America is an unprecedented
exploration of America's
enduring relationship with firearms. From the first European settlements in the
New World to frontier justice, from 19th-century immigrant riot... SEE MORE >>
In four groundbreaking hours, America Revealed leaps outside the mundane to take viewers on a soaring journey above the great American landscape, revealing the country as it has never been seen before. America Revealed har... SEE MORE >>
The Amish first migrated to the United States more than 200 years ago and created a community built on the belief that worldliness not only prevents closeness to God, but also introduces influences that are destructive to ... SEE MORE >>
Autism is the fastest rising developmental disorder in the industrialized world. With an astounding 600% increase in diagnoses in the last 20 years, scientists are still grappling with its cause. Research has been frustrat... SEE MORE >>
Seen through the work of eight leading artists, Axis of Light is a poignant and absorbing observation of the beauty and mystery of the Middle East which is often ignored, especially today where anger and violence demand ce... SEE MORE >>
In Iran, according to Islamic law, homosexuality is punishable by death. Ironically, sex-change operations are not only legal; they are embraced by a society that accepts male or female but nothing in between. Iran's gende... SEE MORE >>
This award winning film documents the remarkable courage of Ngwang, a 13-year-old Buddhist nun and Bagdro, a 20-year-old Buddhist monk who lead demonstrations against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Following a forceful ... SEE MORE >>
With all of the problems facing the world today including war, poverty, weapons, environmental degradation, starvation, overpopulation and severe desperation among millions, people are longing for meaning. Many seek answer... SEE MORE >>
In this intimate portrait, several dwarfs who appeared in Jan Krawitz and Thomas Ott's 1982 film Little People welcome the camera into their lives once again. Through a prism of "then and now" the characters in the film re... SEE MORE >>
When David Vetter died at the age of 12, he was already world famous: the boy in the plastic bubble. Mythologized as the plucky, handsome child who had defied the odds, his life story is in fact even more dramatic. It is a... SEE MORE >>
This film tells the story of Hoa, a Vietnamese-boy who was seriously hurt and disfigured when an American non-detonated phosphor-bomb blew up in his face. After watching a news report on television, a Swedish businessman ... SEE MORE >>
Mark O'Brien, a poet and journalist, has lived for four decades paralyzed by polio and confined to an iron lung. Incorporating vivid imagery of O'Brien's poetry and his candid, wry and often profound reflections on work, s... SEE MORE >>
For three decades, Vice President Dick Cheney has waged a secretive, and often bitter battle to expand the power of the presidency. Now in a direct confrontation with Congress, as the administration asserts executive priv... SEE MORE >>
Welcome to the thought-provoking world of bioethics, a constantly evolving drama of complex choices: from new ways to be conceived to new definitions of life and death; from the surgical and pharmacological mitigation of n... SEE MORE >>
Five
decades after Castro's revolution, Cuba’s Secret Side explores Cuba's dual
personality: the side seen on newsreels and by tourists, and the reality
lived by its vibrant and astoundingly diverse people. Knowing t... SEE MORE >>
This is a film about the struggle for control of MCM, the only media company in Burma with any foreign investment. Australian publisher Ross Dunkley started and owns 49% of Burma's leading newspaper, The Myanmar Times, whi... SEE MORE >>
A Vietnamese mother and her Amerasian daughter are reunited after 22 years. Heidi Bub (aka Mai Thi Hiep), a young Vietnamese American woman from Tennessee, always dreamed of a joyful reunion, but unlike the cliche happy en... SEE MORE >>
"This documentary beggars belief. No storyteller could make this up, and few dramas could get anywhere near its overwhelming power."-- Times Online (UK)
On Nov. 5, 2001, Dr. Andrew Bagby was murdered in Pennsylvania; the pr... SEE MORE >>
Over a single generation, the Web and digital media have remade nearly every aspect of modern culture, transforming the way we work, learn, and interact in ways that we are only beginning to understand. FRONTLINE producer... SEE MORE >>
In 1870, America's untamed West was dry, sparsely vegetated, and constantly eroding. But beneath the surface lay a treasure unlike any in the world: the bones of countless prehistoric creatures. For the emerging field of A... SEE MORE >>
This is the last installment in the groundbreaking NOVA series that began in 1987 and followed seven students starting out at Harvard Medical School. Over the past two decades, NOVA has documented these individuals' trial... SEE MORE >>
Best Director, Documentary Edge Festival (New Zealand)
This film tackles a difficult subject in a funny, sad, and honest way. The filmmakers follow a group of people who plan to donate their bodies to the Otago Medical Sch... SEE MORE >>
The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of the "Great Plow-Up," followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s nearly swept away the breadba... SEE MORE >>
FRONTLINE/World is a series that turns its lens on the global community. Each episode features two or three "short stories" told by a diverse group of reporters and video journalists, taking viewers on adventurous journeys... SEE MORE >>
Turning to the latest tools of genealogy and genetics, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. unravels the American tapestry by exploring the family histories of 12 renowned Americans. He follows the threads of his guests'... SEE MORE >>
How far would you go to sustain the life of someone you love, or your own? When the moment comes, and you're confronted with the prospect of "pulling the plug," do you know how you'll respond? Unfounded rumors of federal "... SEE MORE >>
This 10-part series, with renowned cultural critic and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., journeys deep into the ancestry of a group of remarkable individuals and provides new understanding of personal identity and Am... SEE MORE >>
FLYING THE SECRET SKY: THE STORY OF RAF FERRY COMMAND tells a story of passionate risk-taking, of young men braving dangerous flights in primitive aircraft. These "cowboys of the air" are forgotten heroes of the war, who ... SEE MORE >>
** Best Documentary of Current Significance, Emmys (Chicago/Midwestern) **
A group of incarcerated teenage girls get a shot at redemption in a most unlikely form: a musical based on their lives. As they write and stage thei... SEE MORE >>
FRONTLINE looks at the impact of the Internet on adolescence through the eyes of teens and their parents. The film takes viewers into the private worlds kids are creating online -- from kids who are harassed and bullied, ... SEE MORE >>
Happy Everyday: Park Life in China presents a version of retirement unlike anything seen in the West—elderly ravers dancing to techno music, playing in mass maraca troupes, and taking over children’s playgrounds for th... SEE MORE >>
Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans. How can a seemingly healthy 44-year-old suddenly drop dead from a massive heart attack? His case is not unusual, as this documentary explains. More than half of all peop... SEE MORE >>
Many people have big dreams, but only a few bold adventurers live them. Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell took a wild idea--retrace Marco Polo's entire 25,000-mile, land-and-sea route from Venice to China and back--and... SEE MORE >>
The Italian Americans examines the distinctive qualities of one immigrant group's experience, and how over time these qualities have shaped and challenged America. Moving chronologically through history from the mid 19th c... SEE MORE >>
For an entire year, adventure filmmaker and author Karin Muller immersed herself in Japanese society, traveling from one end of the country to the other, struggling to navigate a notoriously complex and often contradictory... SEE MORE >>
THE JEWISH AMERICANS, an extraordinary three-part documentary series written and directed by the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker David Grubin, examines the struggle of a tiny minority to make its way into the American mainstr... SEE MORE >>
Spanning millennia, this history of the Jewish people explores how a small group who started as desert nomads overcame countless obstacles to survive to the present day. From slavery to the loss of their temple; from exile... SEE MORE >>
Jim Thorpe, The World’s Greatest Athlete is a biography of the Native American athlete who became a sports icon in the first half of the 20th century. Beginning with Thorpe’s boyhood in Indian Territory it chronicles h... SEE MORE >>
JOIN US follows four families as they leave a controlling and abusive church in South Carolina and come to realize that they have been members of a cult. The film documents them intimately as they enter Wellspring, the on... SEE MORE >>
In a special series, acclaimed filmmaker David Sutherland (The Farmer’s
Wife, Country Boys) creates an unforgettable portrait of Robin
Charboneau, a 32-year-old divorced single mother and Oglala S... SEE MORE >>
Notoriously
press and camera-shy, David Geffen reveals himself for the first time in this
unflinching portrait of a complex and compelling man. His far-reaching
influence—as agent and manager, record industry mogul, H... SEE MORE >>
Beyond the familiar coast of Maine, known for peaceful summer vacations, lobster and outdoor activities is a very different Maine. Matricide gets a modern twist in this bittersweet story of a Josh Osborne, a boy who devot... SEE MORE >>
This film opens the door on Jehovah's Witnesses. They are moral conservatives who stay out of politics, but their many human rights court victories benefit all who live under democracy. They refuse blood transfusions on re... SEE MORE >>
As shown in Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball, baseball has become a national rite of passage for Japan's youth that calls on them to exhibit the highest Japanese values: hard work, dedication, selflessness and good sportsma... SEE MORE >>
What is a chemical weapon? And who should be held accountable in the wake of what is arguably the largest chemical warfare operation in American history? A former US ambassador to Vietnam referred to Agent Orange as "the l... SEE MORE >>
From Latin Jazz and Mambo to Salsa, Tejano, Chicano Rock, Latin pop and Reggaeton, LATIN MUSIC USA tells the story of the rise of new music forged from powerful Latin roots and reveals the often overlooked influence of Lat... SEE MORE >>
Latino Americans, a landmark three-part, six-hour
documentary series,
is the first major documentary series for television to chronicle the rich and
varied history and experiences of Latinos, who have helped shape the... SEE MORE >>
What happens when a person can't feel pain? This film examines the day-to-day lives of three children who literally feel no pain. We follow 3-year old Gabby from Minnesota, 7-year old Miriam from Norway and 10-year old Ja... SEE MORE >>
Lifecasters unites fiction and
documentary filmmakers to tell stories of three people who use their strength,
creativity, and determination to reach their goals—a bit later in life. Each of this innovative documentaryâ... SEE MORE >>
Every so often a giant emerges on the stage of science, someone who transcends the narrow boundaries of a particular line of research and alters our perspective of the world. E.O. Wilson is such a man. While studying ants,... SEE MORE >>
MAKE 'EM LAUGH: THE FUNNY BUSINESS OF AMERICA is a series of six one-hour episodes chronicling over 100 years of the funniest moments in the history of entertainment. The series features the most popular routines, the mos... SEE MORE >>
Review the story of how women have helped shape America over the last 50
years through one of the most sweeping social revolutions in our
country’s history, in pursuit of their rights to a full and fair share
of po... SEE MORE >>
Eleni Gabre-Madhin is a woman with a dream. The charismatic Ethiopian economist wants to end hunger in her famine-plagued country. But rather than relying on foreign aid or new agricultural technology, hers is a truly radi... SEE MORE >>
THE MEDAL OF HONOR traces the history of America's highest award for valor in combat through powerful stories of those who have received this honor and asks fundamental questions about what it means to have the courage of ... SEE MORE >>
With over six million children now on behavior modifying medications -- some starting as young as two years old -- FRONTLINE continues its investigation, which began with the program MEDICATING KIDS, into the controversia... SEE MORE >>
Today, millions of American children are being prescribed powerful behavior modifying drugs such as Ritalin, Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. But are these medications really necessary -- and safe -- for young children, or merely... SEE MORE >>
** Grand Prize Winner, 2010 Banff Mountain Film Festival **
Raised in a farming village in the mountains of southern Peru, Feliciano works as a porter on the Inca Trail in hopes of some day taking his son to live in the cit... SEE MORE >>
Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker John Korty, MIRACLE IN A BOX is an inspiring film about the coming together of three events: the bequest of a grand piano, the student competition to win it, and the months of work requi... SEE MORE >>
FRONTLINE and ITVS explore the scientific, ethical and political debate that surrounds Parkinson's disease: a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder that affects about one million Americans. Beginning with the story ... SEE MORE >>
Most of us best know the chicken from our dinner plates: whether as thigh, wing, or drumstick. We barely pause a moment to consider the bird's many virtues. This one-hour film by Mark Lewis expands the frontiers of popula... SEE MORE >>
"Funny, lively, thoroughly absorbing documentary... smart tightly focused and deeply affecting, 'Naturally Obsessed' is an inspiration." -The Washington Post
An award-winning film that tells a vivid, suspenseful story about... SEE MORE >>
In his
latest film, Marian Marzynski (Return to
Poland, A Jew Among the Germans, Shtetl) returns to the Warsaw ghetto of his childhood. In Never
Forget to Lie, Marzynski tells the extraordinary story of how he as a
Jew... SEE MORE >>
OF WIND AND WAVES: THE LIFE OF WOODY BROWN is an award-winning documentary of the 94-year-old legend who has conquered the worlds of surfing, sailing and soaring. Woody Brown has not only lived a life full of remarkable ad... SEE MORE >>
Six months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, FRONTLINE producer June Cross came across 82-year-old Herbert Gettridge working alone on his home in the lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood devastated when the lev... SEE MORE >>
On
a quest to impact the lives of others and find a meaning for his own, Joe Sciacca—a blue-collar roofer and
Vietnam War veteran from New York—returns annually to Vietnam, seeking out the
poor, diseased, and disabl... SEE MORE >>
The Panama Canal was the costliest undertaking in human history. It literally required moving mountains, in one of the most challenging environments on earth, breaking the back of the great range that connects North and So... SEE MORE >>
Away from professional stadiums, bright lights, and manicured fields, there's another side of soccer. Tucked away on alleys, side streets, and concrete courts, people play in improvised games. Every country has a different... SEE MORE >>
Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Prohibition tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed.
The culmination of nearly a century of a... SEE MORE >>
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed an order that would eventually uproot 120,000 people of Japanese descent -- nearly two-thirds of them American-born -- from the western states of the US, incarcerating them until the end... SEE MORE >>
Between 2008 and 2009, hundreds of thousands of prisoners with serious mental illnesses were released into communities across America, the largest exodus in the nation's history. Typically, mentally ill offenders leave pr... SEE MORE >>
Photographed in Yosemite National Park, featuring world-class rock climber, Ron Kauk, this high definition film carries a strong but subtle environmental message. Through imagery and occasional narration, he relates his in... SEE MORE >>
The Atlantic Rowing Challenge is a race for hard-core rowers. It is an event for those who crave an adventure and are willing to pay for it financially, physically and emotionally. At $19,000 to enter, and another $150,0... SEE MORE >>
From vaccines to antibiotics, clean water to nutrition, bio-terror threats to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the six-part series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge tells the compelling stories of global health challenges a... SEE MORE >>
In a true story that has won awards at festivals around the world, Luna, a baby killer whale, gets separated from his family on the rugged, wild coast of Vancouver Island. All alone, he seems determined to make friends wit... SEE MORE >>
Part KING LEAR, part American Western, this film is a family drama about a controversial issue: should we be able to control how we die? It begins one morning at Stern Ranch, when solar energy pioneer Bob Stern finds out h... SEE MORE >>
Buddhism, one of the most ancient belief systems in the world, is practiced by nearly 350 million people today. Presented by Bettany Hughes, this program visits seven of the most famous ancient and modern Buddhist location... SEE MORE >>
This visually stunning program traces the history and message of Islam by following the journeys of six young pilgrims from across the Muslim world to Mecca. It explores their lives and beliefs as well as the beautiful and... SEE MORE >>
A vivid and bittersweet portrait of the 200-year old history of the Shakers, whose influence was far out of proportion to the numbers of its members. The film is a beautifully crafted combination of rare archive material, ... SEE MORE >>
Four in five Americans say the US health-care system needs "fundamental" change. Can the US learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health-care system, or are these nations so culturally different fro... SEE MORE >>
THE SEIGE is a powerful documentary on the infamous 1996 siege in Lima. The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), lead by Nestor Cerpa, storms a party at the Japanese Ambassador's residence, taking hundreds of hosta... SEE MORE >>
This film puts a human face on the battle being waged in the deaf community over cochlear implants, a medical technology which is welcomed by some as the long-awaited cure for deafness and reviled by others as a cruel, abu... SEE MORE >>
No decision is more personal than the choice to end one’s life. For those with fatal and incurable diseases, seeking help to hasten death means navigating ethical questions as well as legal risks for those left behind, i... SEE MORE >>
In Japan sumo is not only the national sport but also a cultural treasure centuries old. Yet this highly traditional world is facing profound changes due to the postwar influx of foreign images, ideas, and influences, fore... SEE MORE >>
“The film is built from an
unusual mix of history, science and traditional Navajo culture, and its
emotional climax pulls no punches.â€â€”The New York Times
“Not since Kent Mackenzie's
1961 drama The Exiles has ... SEE MORE >>
Ken Burns's four-hour special program to bring the landmark nine-part documentary film series, BASEBALL, up to date. The Tenth Inning showcases the unforgettable heroics and achievements on the field over the past fifteen ... SEE MORE >>
Filmed over the course of twelve months, The Amish: Shunned (wt) follows six former members of the Amish community as they reflect and struggle with their decisions to leave one of the most closed and tightly-knit communit... SEE MORE >>
In TIME FOR SCHOOL, WIDE ANGLE continues its 12-year commitment to document the global education crisis through profiles of seven children in seven countries. All of the children are struggling to overcome daunting obstac... SEE MORE >>
This program seeks to answer the question, "Why does anyone still die of cancer?" Award-winning filmmaker Linda Garmon shares the story of her husband's battle with cancer, returning to the same hospitals and institutions ... SEE MORE >>
At age 17, filmmaker Laurel Chiten was in a terrible car accident. Months later, her neck began jerking out of control. Doctors finally figured out that Chiten had dystonia: a neurological disorder that forces your muscles... SEE MORE >>
Twisted: A Balloonamentary is a story about people who discover that once you make a balloon dog, you can do anything. A flying octopus, a Trojan horse, two 100-foot-tall soccer players -- all made out of balloons.
FRONTLINE profiles Thomas Lynch, a poet and undertaker whose family has cared for the dead in a small town in central Michigan for three generations. In The Undertaking, a critically acclaimed book, Lynch offered unique a... SEE MORE >>
It was perhaps the largest youth movement in human history. In 1968, China's Communist leader Mao Zedong sent more than 17 million teenagers "up to the mountain, down to the village" to learn from the peasants. His goal wa... SEE MORE >>
A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL tells the stories of five Ethiopian women who suffer from devastating childbirth injuries and make the spiritual journey to reclaim their lost dignity. Rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their... SEE MORE >>
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE presents a provocative anthology of five inspiring and sometimes heartbreaking stories, highlighting Native ingenuity and resilience over the course of three hundred years and upending stereotypes of Am... SEE MORE >>
An extraordinary, true story of contact between species, The Whale, narrated by Ryan Reynolds, is a classic combination of star power and grassroots heart.
When a young male orca, nicknamed Luna, loses contact with his f... SEE MORE >>
Hari, a 30-year-old taxi driver, lives in a small village in the Himalayan foothills of India. His father is a poor farmer. For generations, people like him have scraped a living by farming small parcels of terraced land. ... SEE MORE >>
The US is one of the very few countries in the world that allows children under eighteen to be prosecuted as adults and sentenced to life without parole. Between 1993 and 2006, 45 juveniles between fifteen and eighteen we... SEE MORE >>
This documentary is a portrait of a modern-day Saint Francis and his relationship with a flock of wild parrots. The location is San Francisco, where these birds, probably escaped pets, have begun to breed in the "wilds" of... SEE MORE >>
The 21st Century has been called "The China Century". China's blazing development continues to amaze Western observers, and many predict it's only a matter of time before the nation attains superpower status. China's Gen... SEE MORE >>
