Movies: American history

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida....

In 1863, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points of America to seek vengeance against the psychotic gangland kingpin, Bill the Butcher, who murdered his father years earlier. With an eager pickpocket by his side and a whole new army, Vallon fight...

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates....

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King....

When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes...

Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world....

A cheap, powerful drug emerges during a recession, igniting a moral panic fueled by racism. Explore the complex history of crack in the 1980s....

A made-for-TV dramatization of George Washington's perilous gamble of crossing the Delaware River and attacking the British forces at Trenton....

A 40-day, 40-night road trip to the Trinity Site—where the first atomic bomb was detonated in the summer of 1945—covering many other atomic destinations and driving deep into the natural and social history of the American southwest....

In 30 years of a deeply committed career and 50 roles, Denzel Washington, double-Oscar winner, placed the figure of the Black man in all its complexity at the heart of the American paradoxes: from Black activist, rebel soldier to gangster torn betwee...

Did you know that the first cowboys were black? Using magnificent archives and testimonies from historians, Cécile Denjean restores justice to African-Americans in the story of the conquest of the West....

Porky Pig balks at learning the Pledge of Allegiance until Uncle Sam appears to him in a dream and gives him a lesson in American history....

Known as the most liberal U.S. senator and "Border Czar," VP Kamala Harris has a long track record of policy positions; an in-depth look....

Comes one hundred years from the two-day Tulsa Massacre in 1921 that led to the murder of as many as 300 Black people and left as many as 10,000 homeless and displaced....

A descendant of the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history, filmmaker Katrina Browne explores the contemporary legacy of slavery by traveling with fellow descendents from Rhode Island to Ghana and Cuba, retracing the Triangle Trade route. Along...

So much more than simply the story of the Thanksgiving meal, the epic saga of the Pilgrims is one of the fundamental narratives of our nation. This ambitious documentary presents the definitive history of the Pilgrims and their journey to and coloniz...

The spectacular moon landing in 1969 was also a success of more than 100 technicians and engineers from Germany, some of whom had already revolutionized weapons technology and built rockets in Hitler's service during World War II. The documentary ana...

Controversy erupts over a New-Deal-era mural of the namesake of San Francisco’s George Washington High School. The thirteen-panel artwork "The Life of Washington" by Victor Arnautoff offers a view of the Founding Father both celebratory and critical,...

This documentary celebrates the Black cultural renaissance that existed in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, OK, and investigates the 100-year-old race massacre that left an indelible, though hidden stain on American history....

By the end of his illustrious career, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves may well have been the preeminent lawman of the Old West. He brought upwards of 3,000 outlaws to justice and served in law enforcement for 32 years during Reconstruction after the ...