The WORST episodes of HBO Documentary Film Series

#1 - 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.

#2 - 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.

#3 - 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.

#4 - 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.

#5 - 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.

#6 - 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

#7 - 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.

#8 - 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.

#9 - 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.

#10 - 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.

#11 - 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

#12 - Living With Lincoln

Season 2015 - Episode 6 - 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

#13 - 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.

#14 - 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.

#15 - 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.

#16 - Atomic Homefront

Season 2018 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/12/2018

In 1942, the U.S. government chose downtown St. Louis as a processing center of uranium for the first atomic bombs. Over the next 25 years, the radioactive waste from this processing center was moved to sites throughout the city’s northern and western suburbs and eventually dumped into the West Lake Landfill in North St. Louis County. But until recently, many residents living near the landfill were unaware the waste had become a ticking time bomb.

#17 - May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers

Season 2018 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/29/2018

Founded by Scott and Seth Avett and Bob Crawford in 2001, The Avett Brothers have gone from obscurity to critical acclaim and sold-out tours, experiencing profound heartbreak and exceptional joy along the way. Filmed with extensive access over the course of more than two years, May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers is an inside look at the North Carolina band, from their origins to a recent collaboration with legendary record producer Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash, Jay Z, Beastie Boys, Dixie Chicks, etc.) on the Grammy-nominated album True Sadness.

#18 - The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm

Season 2018 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/27/2018

When ten-year-old Elliott asks his 90-year-old great-grandfather, Jack, about the number tattooed on his arm, he sparks an intimate conversation about Jack’s life that spans happy memories of childhood in Poland, the loss of his family, surviving Auschwitz and finding a new life in America. Directed and produced by Emmy winner Amy Schatz, the short film The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm interweaves haunting historical footage and hand-painted animation to tell a heartbreaking story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, sharing memories and lessons of the Holocaust with a new generation.

#19 - Warning: This Drug May Kill You

Season 2017 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/1/2017

Warning: This Drug May Kill You takes an unflinching look at the devastating effects of opioid addiction in the U.S., profiling four families whose lives have been decimated by addictions that all began with legitimate prescriptions to dangerous painkillers. Through the personal and emotional stories of people on the front lines of this epidemic, the film sheds light on the struggles of ordinary people who were prescribed highly addictive opioid pain medications, which are often the gateway to a very similar opioid, heroin.

#20 - Beware The Slenderman

Season 2017 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/23/2017

The true story of 12-year-olds Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, who lured their best friend into the woods, stabbed her 19 times and confessed they did it to appease a tall and faceless man known online as Slenderman. Featuring heart-wrenching access to the girls’ families, the haunting documentary plunges deep down the rabbit hole of their actions, exploring how the dark corners of the Internet can influence society’s most impressionable young consumers of media.

#21 - Studs Terkel: Listening to America

Season 2009 - Episode 7 - Aired 7/25/2009

Documentary about the life and career of the author and pioneer of radio & television, Studs Terkel.

#22 - It Will Be Chaos

Season 2018 - Episode 16 - Aired 6/18/2018

An epic, yet intimate portrait of lives in transit and the human consequences of the refugee crisis spanning the Mediterranean. It Will Be Chaos unfolds between Italy and the Balkan corridor, focusing on two unforgettable refugee stories of human strength and resilience in search of a better and safer future. The film is directed by Lorena Luciano and Filippo Piscopo and debuts in conjunction with World Refugee Day, June 20.

#23 - Foster

Season 2019 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/7/2019

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

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

#25 - The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley

Season 2019 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/18/2019

Academy Award winner Alex Gibney directs a documentary investigating the rise and fall of Theranos, the one-time multibillion-dollar healthcare company founded by Elizabeth Holmes. In 2004, Holmes dropped out of Stanford to start a company that was going to revolutionize healthcare. In 2014, Theranos was valued at $9 billion, making Holmes the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world. But just two years later, Theranos was cited as a “massive fraud” by the SEC, and its value was less than zero.