The BEST episodes of HBO Documentary Film Series

#1 - Back Nine At Cherry Hills The Legends Of The 1960 U.S. Open

Season 2008 - Episode 2 - Aired 6/11/2008

On a Saturday in June of 1960, at a golf course just outside of Denver, Colorado, three of the sport’s all time greatest and most colorful players found themselves locked in a battle. The climactic events of that day’s U.S. Open hit the newspapers the following morning, how Arnold Palmer staged one of the greatest comebacks in the tournament’s history to defeat a field that included 4-time champion Ben Hogan and a 20 year old upstart, Jack Nicklaus. But there was a deeper, underlying story that would come to fruition that afternoon.

#2 - My Depression (The Up and Down and Up of It)

Season 2015 - Episode 19 - Aired 7/13/2015

Through inventive animation and music, this documentary short explores writer/director/composer Elizabeth Swados’ personal struggle with lifelong depression, as well as her efforts to keep her “cloud” at bay.

#3 - Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden

Season 2013 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/3/2013

An espionage tale from inside the CIA's long conflict against Al Qaeda, as revealed by the remarkable women and men whose secret war against Osama bin Laden started nearly a decade before most of us even knew his name.

#4 - Hard Times: Lost on Long Island

Season 2012 - Episode 7 - Aired 7/9/2012

Explorers the impact of the shrinking of the middle class by telling the story of four families' struggle to find employment during the summer of 2010.

#5 - Gideon's Army

Season 2013 - Episode 16 - Aired 7/1/2013

An official selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, this documentary follows idealistic young defenders in the deep south who face particularly difficult challenges due to high bonds, mandatory minimum sentencing and a culture that is traditionally “tough on crime.” Despite low pay, long hours and staggering caseloads, these young professionals, with the help of the Southern Public Defender Training Center (SPDTC), take on the job in the name of public service.

#6 - American Winter

Season 2013 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/20/2013

Produced and directed by Emmy award-winning filmmakers, Joe and Harry Gantz, American Winter is a documentary feature film that follows the personal stories of families struggling in the aftermath of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Years after the recession began, millions of families are struggling to meet their basic needs, and many formerly middle class families are finding themselves in financial crisis, and needing assistance for the first time in their lives. Meanwhile, the social safety net that was created to help people in difficult times has been weakened by massive budget cuts, creating a perfect storm of greater need and fewer resources to help families in trouble. Filmed over the course of one winter in Portland, Oregon, American Winter presents an intimate and emotionally evocative snapshot of the state of our economy as it is playing out in many American families. Working together with the nonprofit organization 211info in Portland, the filmmakers were given full access to monitor and record calls from distressed families who were calling 211’s emergency hotline in search of help. They then began following the stories of some of these callers in more depth over several months. The film follows multiple families in their daily struggle to keep their heads above water, while facing overwhelming challenges and dwindling resources available to help them, creating a powerful firsthand view of Americans caught in today’s financial undertow. The experiences of the families in American Winter are a vivid illustration of what has been happening to families across America, including working families losing their homes, people who remain jobless or underemployed, children going hungry, families getting their heat shut off in the dead of winter, and people with health issues overwhelmed by medical costs. Framed through the personal stories of eight families, American Winter puts a face on the country's economic

#7 - The Education of Mohammad Hussein

Season 2014 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/9/2014

"The Education Of Mohammad Hussein" is an intimate look at how the largest Muslim community in the U.S. responds to the provocations of an antiIslamic preacher. Through the eyes of children, the film examines what it is like to come of age as a Muslim in the United States a decade after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

#8 - Mondays At Racine

Season 2013 - Episode 26 - Aired 10/14/2013

Mondays At Racine-- visits a Long Island beauty salon that welcomes women with cancer.

#9 - Toe Tag Parole: To Live and Die on Yard A

Season 2015 - Episode 21 - Aired 8/3/2015

In 2000, a California State Prison inmate serving Life Without Parole (LWOP) approached the warden to request a dedicated yard for men serving life sentences that would break the code of violence dominating prison life. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) subsequently transformed Yard A at California State Prison into The Progressive Programming Facility, which inmates call The Honor Yard. The only one of its kind in the United States, this experimental prison yard is free of violence, racial tensions, gang activity and illegal drug and alcohol use.

#10 - Living With Lincoln

Season 2015 - Episode 7 - Aired 4/13/2015

In the years following the Civil War, ancestors of documentary filmmaker Peter Kunhardt collected a treasure trove of photographs, rare books and other artifacts relating to Abraham Lincoln. Over the decades, their descendants carried on the work, helping to preserve an essential part of America’s past

#11 - Believer

Season 2018 - Episode 17 - Aired 6/25/2018

Directed by Don Argott, Believer follows Mormon Dan Reynolds, frontman for the Grammy Award-winning band Imagine Dragons, as he takes on a new mission to explore how the Mormon Church treats its LGBTQ members. With the rising suicide rate amongst teens in the state of Utah, his concern with the Church's policies sends him on an unexpected path for acceptance and change.

#12 - Mavis

Season 2016 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/29/2016

Mavis! chronicles the ascension of gospel and soul music legend and civil rights icon Mavis Staples and her family group, The Staple Singers. An intimate look at a tight-knit family, the film reveals their struggles and successes, featuring dynamic live performances and rarely-seen archival footage, as well as modern-day interviews with Bob Dylan, Prince, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Tweedy and Chuck D

#13 - Three Days of Terror: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks

Season 2016 - Episode 15 - Aired 9/26/2016

#14 - Mapplethrope: Look At The Pictures

Season 2016 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/4/2016

#15 - Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper

Season 2016 - Episode 12 - Aired 4/9/2016

#16 - David Bowie The Last Five Years

Season 2018 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/8/2018

In the last years of his life, David Bowie ended nearly a decade of silence to engage in an extraordinary burst of activity, producing two groundbreaking albums and a musical. David Bowie: The Last Five Years explores this unexpected end to a remarkable career.

#17 - Andre the Giant

Season 2018 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/10/2018

A documentary examining the life and career of one of the most beloved legends in WWE history, from Andre’s upbringing in France to his celebrated WWE career and forays into the entertainment world.

#18 - A Dangerous Son

Season 2018 - Episode 14 - Aired 5/7/2018

One in 10 American children suffers from serious emotional disturbance and more than 17 million have experienced a psychiatric disorder. A Dangerous Son focuses primarily on three families in crisis, each struggling with a child’s severe mental illness, desperately seeking treatment in the face of limited resources and support.

#19 - John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Season 2018 - Episode 15 - Aired 5/28/2018

Produced and directed by six-time Emmy winner Peter Kunhardt, along with Emmy winners George Kunhardt and Teddy Kunhardt, this documentary about Senator John McCain is an illuminating, exclusive profile of one of the most influential forces in modern American politics.

#20 - King In The Wilderness

Season 2018 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/2/2018

A documentary on the last years of Martin Luther King Jr., this doc explores the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to MLK’s assassination in 1968. It is designed to find a clear window into King’s character, showing him to be a man with an unshakable commitment to nonviolence in the face of an increasingly unstable country.

#21 - Baltimore Rising

Season 2017 - Episode 15 - Aired 11/20/2017

n the wake of the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody, Baltimore was a city on the edge. Peaceful protests and destructive riots erupted in the immediate aftermath of Gray’s death, while the city waited to hear the fate of the six police officers involved in the incident, reflecting the deep divisions between authorities and the community -- and underscoring the urgent need for reconciliation.

#22 - Abortion: Stories Women Tell

Season 2017 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/3/2017

Since 2011, over half the states in the nation have significantly restricted access to abortions. In 2016, abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in America, especially in Missouri, where only one abortion clinic remains open, patients and their doctors must navigate a 72-hour waiting period, and each year seTracy Droz Tragoses more restrictions.

#23 - Cries From Syria

Season 2017 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/13/2017

A searing account of the Syrian civil war from the inside out, the film draws on hundreds of hours of war footage from Syrian activists and citizen journalists, as well as testimony from child protesters, revolution leaders, human rights defenders, ordinary citizens and high-ranking army generals who have defected from the government.

#24 - The Tickle King

Season 2017 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/27/2017

The Tickle King features new, previously unseen footage documenting the bizarre and unsettling things that happened to filmmakers David Farrier and Dylan Reeve as Tickled premiered at film festivals and theaters in 2016. Lawsuits, private investigators, disrupted screenings and surprise appearances are just part of what they encounter along the way. Amidst new threats, the duo begins to answer questions that remained once the credits rolled on Tickled, including whether the disturbing behavior they uncovered will ever come to an end.

#25 - Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison

Season 2017 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/6/2017

An unflinching exploration of the lives of inmates and corrections officers in one of America’s most notorious “supermax” prisons, built to hold inmates in 8’x10’ cells 23 hours a day, for months, years and sometimes decades. With unprecedented access, the film paints a complex, unexpected and deeply moving portrait of life inside a world rarely seen