The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a national hero, the brilliant scientist who during WWII led the scientific team that created the atomic bomb. But after the bomb brought the war to an end, in spite of his renown and his enormous achievement, America turned on him - humiliated and cast him aside. The question the film asks is, "Why?"

Napoleon

In David Grubin's NAPOLEON watch Napoleon's rise from obscurity to victories that made him a hero to the French people and convinced him he was destined for greatness. Learn of his love for Josephine Beauharnais, and his rise to Emperor. Witness his extraordinary achievements and ultimately his fall, his final battles, his exile to Elba, and his defeat at Waterloo. For nearly two decades he strode the world stage like a colossus -- loved and despised, venerated and feared. From his birth on the rugged island of Corsica to his final exile on...

Language Matters with Bob Holman

There are over 6,000 languages in the world. We lose one every two weeks. Hundreds will be lost within the next generation. By the end of this century, half of the world's languages will have vanished. Language Matters with Bob Holman is a two hour documentary that asks: What do we lose when a language dies? What does it take to save a language?

Tesla

Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. Although eclipsed in fame by Edison and Marconi, it was Tesla's vision that paved the way for today's wireless world. His fertile but undisciplined imagination was the source of his genius but also his downfall, as the image of Tesla as a mad scientist came to overshadow his reputation as a brilliant innovator.

A Portrait of Samson Raphaelson

An interview with playwright and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. First aired on PBS's "Creativity with Bill Moyers".

Truman

He was a farmer, a businessman, an unknown politician who suddenly found himself president. Of all the men who had held the highest office, Harry Truman was the least prepared, but would prove to be a surprise.

Bill T. Jones: Still/Here

Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with w...

Young Dr. Freud

This documentary retraces the life of the famous Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, from his birth to the publication of his landmark book on dream interpretation. Dr. Freud revolutionary theories spawned the psychoanalytic school of psychology.

A Life Together: Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon

Performance and conversation with husband-and-wife poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon at a New Jersey festival, in their Wilmot (N.H.) hometown and their Eagle Pond farmhouse.

RFK

David Grubin's probing and perceptive biography reassesses the remarkable and tragic life of Bobby Kennedy, whose early life was spent in the shadow of his elder brother John. After JFK's assassination, he discovered his own identity in the forefront of American politics before his career was also tragically curtailed by an assassin's bullet.

Rx: The Quiet Revolution

How a patient-centered philosophy can improve outcomes and enrich the lives of patients.

Kofi Annan: Center of the Storm

This documentary follows the life of Kofi Annan, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Secretary General of the United Nations. With unprecedented access, filmmakers follow Annan as he accepts the Nobel Prize, struggles to get food to Afghans threatened with starvation, travels to Tokyo and Thailand to raise funds and garner support for the interim government in Afghanistan, and celebrates East Timor's new independence.