The WORST episodes of HBO Documentary Film Series

#1 - 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.

#2 - 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.

#3 - 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.

#4 - 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.

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

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

#6 - Mapplethrope: Look At The Pictures

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

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

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

#8 - 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

#9 - 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

#10 - 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.

#11 - 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.

#12 - 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.

#13 - 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.

#14 - 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

#15 - Unlocking The Cage

Season 2017 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/20/2017

Unloclking The Cage explores animal rights lawyer Steven Wise’s unprecedented challenge to break down the legal wall that separates animals from humans. After 30 years of struggling with ineffective animal welfare laws, Wise and his legal team, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), are making history by filing the first lawsuits that seek to transform an animal from a “thing” with no rights to a “person” with legal protections.

#16 - Elvis Presley: The Searcher, Part 2

Season 2018 - Episode 12 - Aired 4/15/2018

Elvis Presley: The Searcher includes stunning atmospheric shots taken inside Graceland, Elvis’ iconic home, and features more than 20 new, primary source interviews with session players, producers, engineers, directors and other artists who knew him or who were profoundly influenced by him Part 2 begins with his return home after his Army discharge and facing a rapidly changing pop-music scene.

#17 - Elvis Presley: The Searcher, Part 1

Season 2018 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/14/2018

He was a boy from Tupelo who grew up to become the biggest star in music. Along the way, he absorbed a staggering range of influences, creating a revolutionary sound in his lifelong search for self-expression. Part 1 details Elvis’ early life in Tupelo, Mississippi and his unprecendented rise to fame over a single year.

#18 - Arthur Miller: Writer

Season 2018 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/19/2018

An intimate portrait of one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, told from the unique perspective of his daughter, who filmed interviews with her father over decades. The doc features a host of personal archival material and provides new insights into Miller’s life as an artist and explores his character in all its complexity.

#19 - I Am Evidence

Season 2018 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/16/2018

“I Am Evidence,” produced by Law & Order:SVU actress Mariska Hargitay, is about the untested rape kit backlog in the U.S. The doc tells stories of survivors who have waited years for their kits to be tested, as well as the law enforcement officials who are leading the charge to work through the backlog and pursue long-awaited justice

#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 - The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, Part 2

Season 2018 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/27/2018

Part Two of The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling offers an extensive examination of The Larry Sanders Show, his landmark HBO comedy series. Colleagues remember the demands of producing material that met Shandling’s high standards, while his diaries reveal an ongoing struggle with complacency and search for authenticity.

#22 - The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, Part 1

Season 2018 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/26/2018

When Garry Shandling passed away in 2016, he was widely remembered as a top stand-up comic and the star of two of the most innovative sitcoms in TV history. But to those who knew him, the “real” Garry Shandling was a far more complex person.

#23 - Traffic Stop

Season 2018 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/12/2018

In 2015, African-American schoolteacher Breaion King was stopped for a minor traffic violation in Austin, Texas — and what should have been a routine encounter quickly escalated into a harrowing arrest that was captured in detail by police dash cams.

#24 - At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal

Season 2019 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/3/2019

This hard-hitting documentary chronicles the lives affected by the Larry Nassar sexual-abuse criminal case that shook the sports world.

#25 - One Year in a Life of Crime

Season 1989 - Episode 2 - Aired 12/15/1989

One Year in a Life of Crime follows Robert, Mike, and Freddy--three professional criminals from Newark, New Jersey. Every day they get in their cars, drive to the suburbs, and steal $500 to $1,000 worth of merchandise. For 12 months we documented their lives. With hidden cameras we recorded a number of crimes as they were actually happening. The ease with which Robert and Freddy cleaned out the silverware in a department store is astounding. How did these three young men break away from the rules of society and wind up outside the law? We went into their homes to try to find out.