Highly Rated American Experience FilmsLike this list

16 items

• The Donner Party

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  Aired in 1992 and chronicles the tale of the pioneer group that set out for California in the spring of 1846 that ended in disaster in the snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains the following winter.

• John Brown's Holy War

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  Aired in 2000. This series considers John Brown and his impact on American history. He was a farmer, a warrior, a family man and an avenging angel. More than 150 years after his execution, questions swirl around John Brown: was he a madman or a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• We Shall Remain

  America Through Native Eyes

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  Released in 2009. For hundreds of years, Native American leaders from Massasoit, Tecumseh, and Tenskwatawa, to Major Ridge, Geronimo, and Fools Crow valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• New York

  a Documentary Film. Episode One: 1609-1825, Country and the City

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  Released in 2010, this dramatic and lyrical first episode chronicles the rise of New York from its settlement by the Dutch in the early 17th century through the explosion of commercial growth sparked by the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. …Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Death and the Civil War

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  Released in 2012, this film explores how the American Civil War created a 'republic of suffering' and charts the far-reaching social, political, and social changes brought about by the pervasive presence and fear of death during the Civil War.

• The Poisoner's Handbook

  Killer Chemistry

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  Released in 2014, this series tells the story of the dawn of forensic investigation, focusing on a number of cases of death by poisoning as well as accidental death by exposure to deadly chemicals.

• Last Days in Vietnam

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  Released in 2015, this program details the final weeks of the Vietnam War where American servicemen and others begin the difficult mission of evacuating as many friends, family members, and South Vietnamese collaborators as possible before Saigon…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• 1964

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  Released 2015 and based on The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964, this production follows some of the most prominent figures of the time.

• Walt Disney

  He Made Believe

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  Released in 2015, this new film examines Disney's complex life and enduring legacy.

• Oklahoma City

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  Released in 2017. On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a former soldier deeply influenced by the literature and ideas of the radical right, parked a Ryder truck with a five-ton fertilizer bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Great War

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  Released in 2017 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of America's entry into the war on April 6, 1917, a six-hour documentary presented over three nights explores how World War I changed America and the world.

• The Circus

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  Released in 2018, this four-hour mini-series tells the story of one of the most popular and influential forms of entertainment in American history.

• Chasing the Moon

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  Released in 2019, this series recasts the Space Age as scientific innovation, political calculation, media spectacle, visionary impulses and personal drama.

• The Poison Squad

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  Released in 2020 and based on the critically acclaimed book by Deborah Blum, it tells the story of crusading government chemist Harvey Washington Wiley, the man who led the pure food movement against the food manufacturing industry in the early…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Vote

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  Released in 2020 one hundred years after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, it tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Poisoned Ground

  the Tragedy at Love Canal

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  Released in 2024. In the late 1970s residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY, discovered that their homes, schools and playgrounds were built on top of a former chemical waste dump. Housewives activated to create a grassroots movement that…Read moreRead more of this annotation