The WORST episodes of Storyville
Every episode of Storyville ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Storyville!
Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since it was launched by the BBC in 1997 as a showcase for the best in international documentaries. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering array of awards: five Oscars, 15 Griersons, three Peabodys and two International Emmys.
#1 - An American Love Story (Part 5): True Love
Season 1999 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/3/1999
The family faces a crisis when Karen is admitted into hospital for a hysterectomy.
#2 - Gigi, Monica and Bianca
Season 1998 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/5/1998
This poignant film follows the fortunes of Gigi and his pregnant girlfriend Monica in post-communist Romania. The couple are first seen as teenagers living rough in a Bucharest railway station. Monica wants to keep her baby but the Romanian authorities insist she is too young. The film follows the pair over two years as they struggle to survive and adapt to life as new parents.
#3 - Moon Over Broadway
Season 1998 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/21/1998
An account of American comedy actress Carol Burnett's turbulent return to the Broadway stage. It covers the uncertainties felt by the cast and production team as they prepare for their New York opening, including whether the audience will respond to the jokes and if the scenery will stay upright.
#4 - A Small Town in Poland
Season 1999 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/21/1999
The small town of Bransk used to boast a large Jewish population before the Holocaust. As Bransk prepares to celebrate its 500th anniversary, the authorities debate whether to acknowledge the town's Jewish past.
#5 - Resurrection
Season 1999 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/4/1999
Cuba's cemeteries are too small to hold all of the country's dead. This film chronicles the emotional scenes at the exhumation of bodies after they have been buried for three years, and the subsequent storing of their bones in a crypt - a process that is watched by the dead's relatives.
#6 - Fragments: Jerusalem
Season 1999 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/4/1999
Director Ron Havilio intertwines a highly personal view of Jerusalem - where he has lived for nearly 50 years - with an overview of the Holy City's fascinating and litigious history. He also looks at life in the city as it approaches the new millennium.
#7 - Photographer
Season 1999 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/4/1999
In 1987, 600 colour slides depicting scenes in a wartime Jewish ghetto in Poland were found in a Vienna bookshop. Polish director Dariusz Jabłoński's film uses these photographs - which were taken by the Nazi's chief accountant at the Lodz ghetto, a large and notorious work camp - to provide a chilling testimonial to one of the Second World War's darkest chapters.
#8 - I Was a Slave Labourer
Season 1999 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/16/1999
For over five decades, German government and industry have resisted demands to pay compensation to the millions who worked as slave labourers under the Third Reich. This film follows retired businessman Rudy Kennedy - who survived slave labour as a teenager - as he tries to force German firms to acknowledge their links with Nazi atrocities.
#9 - An American Love Story (Part 1): Welcome to America
Season 1999 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/30/1999
Seven-part documentary from director Jennifer Fox shedding light on the state of race relations in the US by following two years in the lives of a mixed-race married couple and their two children in New York. In the first part, which acts as an introduction to the family, Cicily leaves home to go to college. [Note: This Storyville series is a condensed, 310-minute version of the PBS original, which was formed of ten 60-minute episodes.]
#10 - An American Love Story (Part 2): I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up
Season 1999 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/31/1999
Daughter Cicily travels to Nigeria to spend a term with a group of students.
#11 - An American Love Story (Part 3): It's Another New Year and I Ain't Gone
Season 1999 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/1/1999
The family celebrate Christmas, but Cicily contracts malaria.
#12 - An American Love Story (Part 4): Chaney and the Boy
Season 1999 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/2/1999
Chaney introduces her first boyfriend to Bill and Karen. Is she too young for romantic matters?
#13 - Waco: The Rules of Engagement
Season 1998 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/28/1998
Director William Gazecki's Oscar-nominated investigation into the 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The media reported that 76 members of David Koresh's sect committed mass suicide at Waco. Gazecki's film - which includes images that some might find disturbing - alleges they were murdered when FBI agents gassed and burned down the compound. It also challenges the widespread portrayal of the Davidians as promiscuous social outcasts.
#14 - An American Love Story (Part 6): It's My Job
Season 1999 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/4/1999
Bill struggles to overcome his drink problem, while daughter Cicily - now a graduate - begins her search for a job.
#15 - An American Love Story (Part 7): We Were Never Ozzie and Harriet
Season 1999 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/5/1999
In the conclusion to the series, Bill and Karen reflect on their courtship period during the 1960s.
#16 - Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows
Season 1999 - Episode 13 - Aired 11/6/1999
Canadian grappler Bret "the Hitman" Hart became a huge attraction on US cable TV, his "tough but nice" persona securing him a $9m deal. But, when he refused to compromise his image for the sake of commercial interests, he faced the end of his career. Paul Jay's acclaimed film follows Hart for a year and explores the reality behind the theatre of wrestling.
#17 - A Cry from the Grave
Season 1999 - Episode 14 - Aired 11/27/1999
Under the eyes of the United Nations, troops of the Bosnian Serb army massacred over 7,000 men from the town of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Leslie Woodhead 's film is the result of a year-long investigation into the killing and the aftermath of Europe's worst massacre since the Second World War.
#18 - Grey Gardens
Season 1999 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/11/1999
Despite their aristocratic background - and the fact that they were aunt and cousin to Jackie Onassis - Edith Bouvier Beale and daughter Edie lived in anonymity in a decaying mansion on New York's Long Island. But, in 1976, when Albert and David Maysies's film appeared in US cinemas, it gave the pair the fame they longed for - and the public a glimpse into the interdependency and private language of their eccentric lives.
#19 - Out of Phoenix Bridge
Season 1999 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/21/1999
For Ah Feng, Jialing, Xiazi and Ziao, their years working as maids while sharing a room in a Beijing slum may be the freest of their lives. In their rural home of Phoenix Bridge, the young Chinese women were under their parents' control; on their return, they will belong to new husbands. Struggling against harassment, they remain intent on achieving their dream: a metropolitan life.
#20 - The Last Cigarette
Season 2000 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/26/2000
A look at America's love-hate relationship with cigarettes over the course of the century.
#21 - My Best Fiend
Season 2000 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/18/2000
Biographical documentary directed by Werner Herzog, about his turbulent relationship with long-time collaborator Klaus Kinski. Herzog recalls the actor's brilliant yet troubled personality, and revisits Peru, where the pair first worked together on "Aguirre, Wrath of God".
#22 - Genocide, the Judgement
Season 2000 - Episode 3 - Aired 7/2/2000
Jean Paul Akayesu , once the respected mayor of his village in Rwanda, is brought in front of the UN International Criminal Tribunal. He faces a charge of genocide, perpetrated against his neighbours, and is convicted. This film tells the painful story that leads to his conviction, the first in an international court for genocide and crimes against humanity. Contains video footage that viewers may find upsetting.
#23 - One Day in September
Season 2000 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/5/2000
Oscar-winning documentary recounting the events of the Munich Olympics hostage crisis. On 5 September 1972, 12 Israeli athletes are taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists in Munich's Olympic village. As attempts at negotiation flounder, the authorities prepare to launch a rescue bid. But their efforts will lead to tragedy. Narrated by Michael Douglas.
#24 - Norman Mailer - Oh My America (Part 1): Farewell to the Fifties
Season 2000 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/11/2000
The first of a two-part programme in which writer Norman Mailer profiles life in America since the Second World War. Mailer fought for his country in the Second World War - an experience that inspired his novel "The Naked and the Dead" - but, disappointed by post-war America, he grew to despise the 1950s.
#25 - The Hunt for Gaddafi's Billions
Season 2021 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/1/2021
This investigative Storyville documentary takes us inside the dark and mysterious world of spies, special forces and political insiders as they race to find Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s billions in a dangerous treasure hunt. In life, the Libyan leader ruled with an iron fist for 42 years and treated Libya’s wealth as his own. He died the richest man on the planet with a fortune of $150 billion. A dictatorial leader in life, the spell of Gaddafi’s money remained in place after his death, triggering a ruthless race to find his missing billions. Two journalists pick up the trail of a mysterious $12.5 billion in cash, flown out of Libya in the dead of night just months before Gaddafi’s demise. In South Africa, they discover an eyewitness who seems to know all about the money. His testimony changes everything, but before he can provide them with proof the story takes a sinister twist, the first of many.