Already a WLRN member? You may have an unactivated WLRN Passport member benefit. Check to see.
For more than three decades, Ken Burns and his colleagues at Florentine Films—directors, writers, producers, editors, and cinematographers—have produced some of the most critically acclaimed and most watched documentaries on public television.
Join the Conversation
Explore the history of country music – from its roots in ballads, hymns and the blues to its mainstream popularity – and meet the unforgettable characters and storytellers who made it “America’s Music.” Directed by Ken Burns. Tune in or Stream September 15 at 8/7c. #CountryMusicPBS
The Vietnam War | Broadcast Version
The Vietnam War is a ten-part, 18-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. In an immersive 360-degree narrative, Burns and Novick tell the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. The Vietnam War features testimony from nearly 100 witnesses.
Defying The Nazis: The Sharps' War
Join an American couples courageous mission in 1939 to help refugees escape Nazi-occupied Europe. Over the course of two years, the pair will risk their lives so that hundreds can live in freedom. A new film by Ken Burns and Artemis Joukowsky.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson rose from humble origins to cross baseballs color line and become one of the most beloved men in America. A fierce integrationist, Robinson used his immense fame to speak out against the discrimination he saw on and off the field, angering fans, the press, and even teammates who had once celebrated him for turning the other cheek. After baseball, he was a widely-read new
Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies
Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies matches the epic scale of the disease, reshaping the way the public sees cancer and stripping away some of the fear and misunderstanding that has long surrounded it. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, paternalism and misperception.
The Roosevelts: An Intimate History chronicles the lives of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, three members of the most prominent and influential family in American politics.
THE ADDRESS tells the story of a tiny school in Putney, Vermont, the Greenwood School, where each year the students are encouraged to memorize, practice and recite the Gettysburg Address.
The story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York Citys Central Park in 1989. Directed and produced by Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns, the film chronicles the Central Park Jogger case, from the perspective of the five teenagers whose lives were upended by this miscarriage of justice.
The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of the Great Plow-Up, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation.
PROHIBITION tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed. Prohibition was intended to protect all Americans from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse. But, paradoxically, the enshrining of a faith-driven moral code in the Constitution caused millions of Americans to rethink their definition of morality.
Introducing an unforgettable array of players, teams and fans, the film showcases the era's extraordinary accomplishments as well as its devastating disappointments. Combining extraordinary highlights, stunning still photographs, and insightful commentary by players, managers, and fans, THE TENTH INNING interweaves the story of the national pastime with the story of America.
Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales, the film is a story of people from every conceivable background—rich and poor, soldiers and scientists, natives and newcomers—who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.
The War is the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four American towns. The war touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America and demonstrated that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson was the first African American Heavyweight Champion of the World. His dominance over his white opponents spurred furious debates and race riots in the early 20th century. Enter the ring in Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, a provocative new PBS documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns.
In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled "horseless carriage." Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson's trip would prove them wrong.
In his time, Mark Twain was considered the funniest man on earth. Yet he was also an unflinching critic of human nature, using his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. In this series, Ken Burns has created an illuminating portrait of the man who is also one of the greatest writers in American history.
Jazz has been called the purest expression of American democracy; a music built on individualism and compromise, independence and cooperation. Ken Burns follows the growth and development of jazz music from the gritty streets of New Orleans to Chicago's south side, the speakeasies of Kansas city and to Times Square.
This two-part documentary explores the life of one of America's greatest architects -- hated by some, worshipped by others and ignored by many. Using archival photographs, live cinematography, interviews, newsreel footage and home movies, the film tells the story of Wright's turbulent life and his extraordinary professional career.
The film tells the remarkable story of the entire Corps of Discovery – not just of the two Captains, but the young army men, French-Canadian boatmen, Clark’s African-American slave, and the Shoshone woman named Sacagawea, who brought along her infant son. As important to the story as these many characters, however, was the land itself, and the promises it held.
For fifty years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” Empire of the Air examines the lives of three remarkable men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity combined in unexpected and often tragic ways.
Between 1861 and 1865, Americans made war on each other and killed each other in great numbers if only to become the kind of country that could no longer conceive of how that was possible. What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America.
For 200 years, the United States Congress has been one of the country's most important and least understood institutions. Using historical photographs and newsreels, evocative live footage and interviews, Ken Burns chronicles the events that have shaped the first 200 years of congress and, in turn, our country.
His paintings were burly. Energetic. And as uncompromising as the Midwestern landscapes and laborers they celebrated. Thomas Hart Benton depicted a self-reliant America emerging from the Depression. Ken Burns tells the bittersweet story of an extraordinary American artist who became emblematic of the price all artists must pay to remain true to their talents and themselves.
He was hailed as a champion of the poor and reviled as a dictator. Louisiana's Huey Long rose to Governor and U.S. Senator on a platform of social reform and justice, all the while employing graft and corruption to get what he wanted. Ken Burns reveals a complex and comprehensive portrait of the man, his politics and the power he so obsessively sought.
This 1985 Ken Burns film chronicles the creation and history of the Statue of Liberty and what it represents to all Americans. Narrated by David McCullough, the film traces the development of the monument--from its conception, to its complicated and often controversial construction, to its final dedication--and offers interviews with a wide range of Americans to explore the meaning of the statue.
They called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, but because of their ecstatic dancing, the world called them Shakers. Ken Burns creates a moving portrait of this particularly American movement, and in the process, offers us a new and unusually moving way to understand the Shakers.
Today it's a symbol of strength and vitality. 135 years ago, it was a source of controversy. This documentary examines the great problems and ingenious solutions that marked the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. From conception to construction, it traces the bridge's transformation from a spectacular feat of heroic engineering to an honored symbol in American culture.
