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Documentaries to Watch Now

Stream these American Experience documentaries anywhere, anytime. We will update this page as new films become available.

Films

  • The Busing Battleground poster image The Busing Battleground
    Film

    The Busing Battleground

    The Busing Battleground viscerally captures the class tensions and racial violence that ensued when Black and white students in Boston were bused for the first time between neighborhoods to comply with a federal desegregation order.

  • Nazi Town, USA poster image Nazi Town, USA
    Film

    Nazi Town, USA

    Nazi Town, USA tells the unknown story of the German American Bund, a 1930s pro-Nazi group with chapters in suburbs and big cities across the country. Many believe the Bund represented a real threat of fascist subversion in the U.S.

  • Rachel Carson poster image Rachel Carson
    Film

    Rachel Carson

    An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking writings revolutionized our relationship to the natural world and launched the modern environmental movement.

  • American Coup: Wilmington 1898 poster image American Coup: Wilmington 1898
    Film

    American Coup: Wilmington 1898

    The little-known story of a deadly 1898 race massacre and coup d’état in Wilmington, North Carolina, when white supremacists overthrew the multi-racial government of state’s largest city through a campaign of violence and intimidation.

  • Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act poster image Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act
    Film

    Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act

    The dramatic story of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. The film highlights the determined people who literally put their bodies on the line to pass the legislation that changed the lives of all Americans.

  • Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP poster image Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP
    Film

    Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP

    The story of civil rights hero Walter White — one of the most influential Black men in mid-century America and leader of the NAACP from 1929 to 1955, yet one of the least known figures in civil rights history.

  • Mr. Polaroid poster image Mr. Polaroid
    Film

    Mr. Polaroid

    Before the iPhone, the Polaroid camera let people instantly chronicle their lives. Along with instant photo mania, its company culture became the model for Silicon Valley. Mr. Polaroid is the story of Edwin Land, the man behind the camera.

  • The American Diplomat poster image The American Diplomat
    Film

    The American Diplomat

    Explore the lives and legacies of three African American ambassadors who broke racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations and left a lasting impact on the Foreign Service.

  • Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space poster image Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space
    Now streaming

    Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space

    Meet the influential author and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Also a trained anthropologist, Hurston collected folklore throughout the South and Caribbean — reclaiming, honoring and celebrating Black life on its own terms.

  • The Sun Queen poster image The Sun Queen
    Film

    The Sun Queen

    Scientist Mária Telkes dedicated her career to harnessing the power of the sun. Though undercut and thwarted by her male colleagues, she persevered to design the first successfully solar-heated house in 1948 and held more than 20 patents.

  • Stonewall Uprising poster image Stonewall Uprising
    Film

    Stonewall Uprising

    In 1969, homosexuality was illegal in almost every state... but that was about to change. The Stonewall riots marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement.

  • The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer poster image The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer
    Film

    The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

    A brilliant scientist, Oppenheimer was tasked with the development of the atomic bomb in the top-secret Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico during World War II.

  • The American Vice President poster image The American Vice President
    Film

    The American Vice President

    What happens when the president is unable to serve? Explore the dramatic period between 1963 and 1976, when a grief-stricken, then scandal-stricken America was forced to define the role of the vice president and the process of succession.

  • The Harvest: Integrating Mississippi's Schools poster image The Harvest: Integrating Mississippi's Schools
    Film

    The Harvest: Integrating Mississippi's Schools

    Explore what happened when the small Mississippi town of Leland integrated its public schools in 1970. Told through the remembrances of students, teachers and parents, the film shows how the town – and America – were transformed.

  • The Gilded Age poster image The Gilded Age
    Film

    The Gilded Age

    Meet the titans and barons of the glittering late 19th century, whose materialistic extravagance contrasted harshly with the poverty of the struggling workers who challenged them. The vast disparities between them sparked debates still raging today.

  • The Boys of '36 poster image The Boys of '36
    Film

    The Boys of '36

    The story of nine working-class young men from the University of Washington who took the rowing world and America by storm when they captured the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

  • The Eugenics Crusade poster image The Eugenics Crusade
    Film

    The Eugenics Crusade

    The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the unlikely –– and largely unknown –– campaign to breed a “better” American race, tracing the rise of the movement that turned the fledgling science of heredity into a powerful instrument of social control.

  • The Cancer Detectives poster image The Cancer Detectives
    Film

    The Cancer Detectives

    The Cancer Detectives tells the untold story of the first-ever war on cancer and the coalition of people who fought tirelessly to save women from cervical cancer—which was once the number one cancer killer of women.

  • Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal poster image Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal
    Film

    Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal

    In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY discovered their neighborhood had been built on a former chemical waste dump. Housewives activated to create a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.

  • The Blinding of Isaac Woodard poster image The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
    Film

    The Blinding of Isaac Woodard

    In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.

  • Casa Susanna poster image Casa Susanna
    Film

    Casa Susanna

    In the 1950s and ’60s, an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge at a house in the Catskills region of New York. Known as Casa Susanna, the house provided a safe place to express their true selves.

  • The Perfect Crime poster image The Perfect Crime
    Film

    The Perfect Crime

    The shocking story of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two wealthy college students who murdered a 14-year-old boy in 1924 to prove they were smart enough to get away with it.

  • The Lie Detector poster image The Lie Detector
    Film

    The Lie Detector

    Discover the story of the polygraph, the controversial device that transformed modern police work, seized headlines and was extolled as an infallible crime-fighting tool. A tale of good intentions, twisted morals and unintended consequences.