POV: My Way to Olympia (2013)

Who better to cover the Paralympics, the international sporting event for athletes with physical and intellectual disabilities, than Niko von Glasow, the world's best-known disabled filmmaker? Unfortunately — or fortunately for anyone seeking an insightful and funny documentary — this filmmaker frankly hates sports and thinks the games are "a stupid idea." Born with severely shortened arms, von Glasow serves as an endearing guide to London's Paralympics competition in My Way to Olympia. As he meets a one-handed Norwegian table tennis player, the Rwandan sitting volleyball team, an American archer without arms and a Greek paraplegic boccia player, his own stereotypes about disability and sports get delightfully punctured.

Secrets of the Dead - The Silver Pharaoh (2010)

The royal tomb of Pharaoh Psusennes I is one of the most spectacular of all the ancient Egyptian treasures. So why hasn't the world heard about it? Archaeologists, using the hieroglyphs inside the tomb, pieced together the identity of the pharaoh, and further investigation reveals political intrigue, a lost city, and a leader who united a country in turmoil and became the Silver Pharaoh.

Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War (1999)

Crucible of Empire demonstrates how and why the Spanish-American War constitutes such an important milestone in U.S. history. This program examines the events and attitudes that led to war, followed by an exploration of the conflict and its outcome. Early film footage and stills of battle scenes, plus rich visuals, a compelling story, and intriguing analogies to current foreign policy make Crucible of Empire a riveting documentary.

Leave it to Beavers (2014)

The fascinating story of beavers in North America - their history, their near extinction, and their current comeback, as a growing number of scientists, conservationists and grass-roots environmentalists have come to regard beavers as overlooked tools when it comes to reversing the disastrous effects of global warming and world-wide water shortages. Once valued for their fur or hunted as pests, these industrious rodents are seen in a new light through the eyes of this novel assembly of beaver enthusiasts and "employers" who reveal the ways in which the presence of beavers can transform and revive landscapes. Using their skills as natural builders and brilliant hydro-engineers, beavers are being recruited to accomplish everything from re-establishing water sources in bone-dry deserts to supporting whole communities of wildlife drawn to the revitalizing aquatic ecosystems their ponds provide.

Escape from Nazi Alcatraz (2014)

Colditz Castle, a notorious prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany, was supposed to be escape-proof. But at the end of World War II, a group of British officers dreamt up the ultimate escape plan: a two-man glider made out of bed sheets and floorboards. Now a crack team of engineers and carpenters rebuild the glider in the same attic using the same materials to find out if the legendary glider plan would have succeeded.

The Gathering of Swarms (2014)

A look at some of the planet's great gatherings, creatures that come together in inconceivable numbers - sometimes in millions, billions, and even trillions. Included are bats and bees, locust and ants, monarch butterflies in Mexico, 17-year cicada hatches, grunion in the Sea of Cortez and carp in the Mississippi River, sardine runs off the coast of South Africa, super flocks of parakeets in the Australian Outback, mayflies on the 4th of July, and even penguins and wildebeest. Some gather to breed or to migrate, some for protection, some simply to keep warm in the cold. But in the process, a kind of super-organism is created in which individual intelligence is superseded by a collective consciousness that shares information and moves with a single purpose for the benefit of all. Check out swarm intelligence, essentially a living embodiment of social media in the natural world.

* American Masters - Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself (2014)

Explore the tall-tale life of participatory journalist and Paris Review co-founder George Plimpton.

* American Eagle (2008)

Unique to North America, the bald eagle is the continent's most recognizable aerial predator, with a shocking white head, electric yellow beak and penetrating eyes. In the 1960s, this symbol of the United States became an emblem of environmental degradation, as the pesticide DDT and other human pressures brought it to the brink of extinction. Following their protection as an endangered species, bald eagles have come roaring back. Photographed by three-time Emmy-winning cinematographer Neil Rettig, this first-ever HD program on bald eagles focuses on the drama of the nest. Even in the best of times, it's a surprisingly tough struggle to maintain a one-ton home and raise chicks until they can hunt on their own. This is an intimate portrait of these majestic raptors' lives in the wild.

* America Reframed: (Series)

Official Site: Link

Through the lens of 26 independent films, America ReFramed tells the many stories of a transforming American culture and its broad diversity. In these weekly 60 or 90 minute independent films, the series takes an unfiltered look at relevant domestic topics (healthcare, immigration, the workplace, and politics) with personal storytelling tied to programming social themes.

America ReFramed showcases films that will give viewers a “snapshot” of the transforming American life —the guts, the glory, the grit of a new and changing America. From contemporary life on Native American reservations to stories of recovery on the Gulf, from hardships and revitalization in towns big and small, to stories from city streets across the country, these independent, personal and opinionated films document the times in which we live.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

It began as a housing marvel. Two decades later, it ended in rubble. But what happened to those caught in between? The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home. At the film's historical center is an analysis of the massive impact of the national urban renewal program of the 1950s and 1960s, which prompted the process of mass suburbanization and emptied American cities of their residents, businesses, and industries.

Those left behind in the city faced a destitute, rapidly de-industrializing St. Louis, parceled out to downtown interests and increasingly segregated by class and race. The residents of Pruitt-Igoe were among the hardest hit. Their gripping stories of survival, adaptation, and success are at the emotional heart of the film. The domestic turmoil wrought by punitive public welfare policies; the frustrating interactions with a paternalistic and cash-strapped Housing Authority; and the downward spiral of vacancy, vandalism and crime led to resident protest and action during the 1969 Rent Strike, the first in the history of public housing. And yet, despite this complex history, Pruitt-Igoe has often been stereotyped. The world-famous image of its implosion has helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoe's creation. To re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To implode the myth.

* We Were Here: The AIDS Years in San Francisco (2011)

Filmmakers David Weissman and Bill Weber co-directed the 2001 documentary, The Cockettes, chronicling San Francisco's legendary theater troupe of hippies and drag queens, 1969 -1972. We Were Here revisits San Francisco a decade later, as its flourishing gay community is hit with an unimaginable disaster. We Were Here is the first documentary to take a deep and reflective look back at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco. It explores how the City's inhabitants were affected by, and how they responded to, that calamitous epidemic. Though a San Francisco-based story, We Were Here extends beyond San Francisco and beyond AIDS itself. It speaks to our capacity as individuals to rise to the occasion, and to the incredible power of a community coming together with love, compassion, and determination.

* Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2013)

The first feature-length film about the internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. In recent years, Ai has garnered international attention as much for his ambitious artwork as his political provocations. AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY examines this complex intersection of artistic practice and social activism as seen through the life and art of China's preeminent contemporary artist. From 2008 to 2010, Beijing-based journalist and filmmaker Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to Ai Weiwei. Klayman documented Ai's artistic process in preparation for major museum exhibitions, his intimate exchanges with family members and his increasingly public clashes with the Chinese government. Klayman's detailed portrait of the artist provides a nuanced exploration of contemporary China and one of its most compelling public figures.

* 5 Broken Cameras (2013)

Nominated for an Oscar, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal first-hand account of life and nonviolent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village where Israel is building a security fence. Palestinian Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, shot the film and Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi co-directed. The filmmakers follow one family’s evolution over five years, witnessing a child’s growth from a newborn baby into a young boy who observes the world unfolding around him. The film is a Palestinian-Israeli-French co-production.

* Empty

From acclaimed filmmaker Ric Burns, Death and the Civil War explores an essential but largely overlooked aspect of the most pivotal event in American history. With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before - permanently altering the character of the republic, and the psyche of the American people. The work of contending with death on an unprecedented scale propelled extraordinary changes in the inner and outer life of Americans - posing challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began - challenges that called forth remarkable and eventually heroic efforts as Americans worked to improvise new solutions, new institutions, new ways of coping with death on an unimaginable scale.

Based on Drew Gilpin Faust's groundbreaking book, This Republic of Suffering - the film tracks the increasingly lethal arc of the war, from all but bloodless opening, through the chaos of Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg - down through the struggle, in the war's aftermath, to cope with an American landscape littered with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many unburied, most unidentified.

* American Cinema (1995)

The history of Hollywood and filmmaking comes alive in this spectacular nine hour celebration of movie magic. It's a mesmerizing, epic analysis that combines rare archival film, key scenes from immortal movies, interviews with leading filmmakers and commentary from noted film scholars and critics. As seen on PBS, this highly acclaimed series is the definitive chronicle of the American cinema, from its beginning to today. Includes interviews with Robert Altman, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Spike Lee, George Lucas, Sidney Lumet, Julia Roberts, Martin Scorsese, Gene Siskel, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, and many more.

Episode 1: The Hollywood Style
This program introduces the broad themes and stylistic conventions of classical Hollywood film, a combination of strong protagonists and story structure, with powerful emotional and technical effects.i>Presenter Joe Morton/i>

Episode 2: The Star
Early on, Hollywood saw that recognizable talent could minimize the financial risks of film production. In this program, Joan Crawford and Julia Roberts provide case studies of the cultural phenomenon of stardom.i>Presenter Kathleen Turner/i>Episode 3: Romantic ComedyFrom Frank Capra's It Happened One Night to such contemporary works as Pretty Woman, romantic comedies often mask keen social and psychological observations with breezy dialogue and ridiculous slapstick. This program explores the surface humor of such films, as well as their roots in questions of gender and sexuality.i>Presenter Kathy Selverstone /i>

Episode 4 Film Noir
This program examines the genre of film noir — its roots in German Expressionism; its links to the Cold War, from nuclear threats to blacklisting; and the use of special lighting and camera angles to emphasize themes of corruption and urban decay.i>Presenter Richard Widmark /i>

Episode 5 The Western
This program traces the history, aesthetic evolution, and sociological importance of one of American film's most popular genres, from John Ford's Stagecoach through the work of Arthur Penn, Sam Peckinpah, and Clint Eastwood.i>Presenter Eli Wallach/i> 

Episode 6 The Combat Film
This program describes the evolution of the World War II combat film (including those produced under directives from the federal government); the rise of the Vietnam film; the influence off actual newsreel documentaries on a fiction film genre; and the ways in which the combat film has filled social and political needs.i>Presenter Matthew Modine/i> 

Episode 7 The Studio System
Using Paramount Pictures as a case study, this program probes the economics of mainstream filmmaking and surveys Hollywood's past era of movie moguls and contract players and directors.i>Presenter Peter Coyote/i> 

Episode 8 Film in the Television Age
This program explores the relationship between film and television, from the studios' initial fear of television and the rise of the Hollywood spectacle film to today's more integrated entertainment industry.i>Presenter Cliff Robertson/i> 

Episode 9 The Film School Generation
In the 1960s and 1970s, a group of young mavericks—Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and others—tried to revolutionize the way American films were made and appreciated. This program explores the financial and cultural forces that made their success possible; the influence of classical Hollywood genres and new technology on their work; and their continuing evolution as idiosyncratic filmmakers with commercial clout.i>Presenter Mark Heenahan /i>

Episode 10 The Edge of Hollywood
Contemporary American independent cinema provides a forum for dissenting, unconventional filmmakers, many of whom are from minority communities. This program looks at the work of Spike Lee, Joel and Ethan Coen, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarrantino, and others and how limited budgets can often encourage innovation and experimentation.i>Presenter: Frances McDormand/i>

* America Revealed: Electric Nation (2012)

America Revealed is a unique look at what makes America tick, what it takes to keeps the biggest food machine in the world going, the delicate balance that keeps our supermarkets stocked with groceries and fast food restaurants supplied with fries. How we keep America moving with its vast and complex transport systems. How we propel ourselves through energy, what maintains the constant supply of fuel and electricity to our homes and businesses and finally how we keep up with the ever changing world, the import and export infrastructure that shapes our manufacturing industry.
From the Corn farmer in Central Valley, California to the live wire cable repairers in New Jersey. Viewers will discover a fascinating new perspective on the hidden patterns and rhythms of American life, by looking through the eyes of individuals who all play a part in keeping America fed, moving, powered and making goods.

Food Machine
Over the past century, an American industrial revolution has given rise to the biggest, most productive food machine the world has ever known.
Yul Kwon explores how this machine feeds nearly 300 million Americans every day. He discovers engineering marvels we’ve created by putting nature to work and takes a look at the costs of our insatiable appetite on our health and environment.
For the first time in human history, less than 2% of the population can feed the other 98%. Yul embarks on a trip that begins with a pizza delivery route in New York City then goes across country to California’s Central Valley, where nearly 50% of America’s fruits, nuts and vegetables are grown and skydives into the heartland for an aerial look of our farmlands.
He meets the men and women who keep us fed 365 days a year—everyone from industrial to urban farmers, crop dusting pilots to long distance bee truckers, modern day cowboys to the pizza deliveryman.

Nation on the Move
America is a nation of vast distances and dense urban clusters, woven together by 200,000 miles of railroads, 5,000 airports, and 4 million miles of roads.
These massive, complex transportation systems combine to make Americans the most mobile people on earth. Yul Kwon journeys across the continent by air, road and rail.
He ventures behind the scenes with the workers who get us where we need to go; at the Federal Aviation Administration command center, he listens in on a call with NASA, the secret service, the military, and every major airline to learn how our national flight plan works today.
He meets innovators creating ways to propel us farther and faster in years to come; in Las Vegas, he heads out into the wild night to see how transportation analysts are keeping traffic at bay by revolutionizing the use of one basic tool: the traffic light. And he uncovers the minor miracles and uphill battles involved in moving over 300 million Americans every day on infrastructure built in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Electric Nation
Our modern electric power grid has been called the biggest and most complex machine in the world – delivering electricity over 200,000 miles of high tension transmission lines. But even though the grid touches almost every aspect of our lives, it’s a system we know very little about.
Yul Kwon will travel around the country to understand its intricacies, its vulnerabilities, and the remarkable ingenuity required to keep the electricity on every day of the year. At New York State’s governing grid control room, he learns how a massive blackout cut power to 40 million Americans and to understand how we can protect against this type of colossal failure joins a live wire repair team who do their daring repairs from the side of a helicopter in flight.
He also visits the country largest coal mine, rappels down the side of wind turbine, takes a rare tour of a nuclear plant and travels on a massive tanker – where Kwon reflects on the challenges and opportunities we face now and in the days ahead to keep the power flowing.

Made in the USA
American manufacturing has undergone a massive revolution over the past 20 years. Despite all the gloom and doom, America is actually the number one manufacturing nation on earth. Yul Kwon crosses the nation looking at traditional and not-so traditional types of manufacturing.
Along the way, he meets the men and women who create the world’s best and most iconic products, engineers who are reinventing the American auto industry, steelworkers who brave intense heat to accommodate radical new ideas about recycling, and engineers who are re-imagining the microchip. He visits one of the most innovative manufacturers on earth: a small start-up company that is building personalized robots – machines that may one day reshape our homes and offices, driving our revolution further forward.
Yul further explores the emerging notion that manufacturing itself is changing from a system based on the movement and assembly of raw materials like steel and plastic to a system in which ideas and information are the raw materials of a new economy based around communications and social connections via companies like Facebook and Google.

* After Newtown: Guns in America (2013)

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 riots to gangland violence in the Roaring Twenties; from the Civil War to Civil Rights, guns have been at center of our national narrative for four hundred years. Americans have relied on guns to sustain communities, challenge authority, and keep the peace. Efforts to curtail their distribution and ownership have triggered epic political battles. On one side, the cry for gun control gets louder with each mass shooting. And on the other, Charlton Heston's 2000 rallying cry, "From my cold, dead hands," still resonates across the lan

* Tupperware! (2004)

In the 1950s, American women discovered they could earn thousands — even millions — of dollars from bowls that burped. "Tupperware ladies" fanned out across the nation's living rooms, selling efficiency and convenience to their friends and neighbors through home parties. Bowl by bowl, they built an empire that now spans the globe. AMERICAN EXPERIENCE presents Tupperware!, a documentary by Laurie Kahn-Leavitt. Narrated by Kathy Bates, this funny, thought-provoking film reveals the secret behind Tupperware's success: the women of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds who discovered they could move up in the world without leaving the house. TUPPERWARE! charts the origins of the small plastics company that unpredictably became a cultural phenomenon.  

* American Masters - Edward R. Murrow: This Reporter (1990)

Legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow is undoubtedly the first hero in the history of American broadcasting, a distinguished reporter who forever set the industry gold standard through his unparalleled courage, integrity and newsgathering excellence. From his electrifying World War II frontline coverage to his once-in-a-lifetime interviews with such prominent 20th century icons as John F. Kennedy, Louis Armstrong and Fidel Castro, Murrow truly understood the spellbinding beauty and power of the spoken word, and television would forever be indebted to his unique contributions. Narrated by former CBS newsman Charles Kuralt, THIS REPORTER presents a compellingly candid portrait of Murrow's illustrious career and features rarely-seen clips from the CBS News Archives and interviews with his esteemed peers. From his gutsy search for journalistic truths during the McCarthy era to his celebrated Person to Person chats with Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando, this in-depth documentary explores how Murrow's pioneering work left an indelible mark on American broadcasting. Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, and Barbara Walters are on-hand to reflect upon the fascinating life of America's first television journalist.

* Snow Monkeys (2014)

The show takes a look at the lives and struggles that snow monkeys face.

* Inside Animal Minds: Who’s the Smartest (2014)

What makes an animal smart? Many scientists believe the secret lies in relationships. Throughout the animal kingdom, some of the cleverest creatures — including humans — seem to be those who live in complex social groups, like dolphins, elephants and apes. Could the skills required to keep track of friend and foe make animals smarter? To find out, NOVA goes inside the social lives of some of the smartest animals on the planet.