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 - Year of the Dogs
Season 1998 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/21/1998
Michael Cordell's film about an Australian-rules football team's struggle to triumph over adversity. The Footscray Bulldogs, whose ground is based in a rundown Melbourne suburb, have the odds stacked against them in several ways. Their difficulties - they last won a tournament in 1954, have injury problems and a chronic scoring record, and are facing near-bankruptcy - are compounded by the threat of a takeover which could see them merged with another team.
#2 - Into the Storm: Surfing to Survive
Season 2021 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/22/2021
After finding a broken surfboard on his local beach, Jhonny Guerrero, a teenager from one of Peru’s toughest barrios, sets his heart on becoming a professional surfer. With his father in prison for armed robbery and a mother struggling to feed and clothe his younger brother, the sea is his escape. When Jhonny is spotted by Peru’s most successful surf champion, Sofia Mulanovich, he is taken under her wing and given a chance to succeed. Yet the pressure to do so weighs hard. Without his dad around, the lure of his friends and the risks of life in the barrios threaten to jeopardise everything he has worked for. When he’s injured outside a nightclub in a drive-by shooting, Jhonny is forced to decide once and for all which path to take.
#3 - 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.
#4 - Little Dieter Needs to Fly
Season 1997 - Episode 1 - Aired 11/15/1997
The first of six documentaries from both established and lesser-known film-makers located around the world. Werner Herzog 's film recounts the extraordinary story of Dieter Dengler, a US pilot who survived capture and torture by Laotian guerillas during the Vietnam War.
#5 - Nobody's Business
Season 1997 - Episode 2 - Aired 11/22/1997
Alan Berliner 's poignant portrait of his father, Oscar - a man who neither wanted to be the focus of a film nor believed his life was important enough a subject.
#6 - Wednesday
Season 1997 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/29/1997
On Wednesday 19 July 1961, 50 boys and 51 girls were born in Leningrad. Among them was film-maker Viktor Kossakovsky. Thirty years later he began to trace the people whose birthday he shared. Some had died, others had emigrated, but 50 had remained, among them a man imprisoned for stealing from his mother and another who has made a fortune from importing food.
#7 - Naughty Boy
Season 1997 - Episode 4 - Aired 12/6/1997
When Denmark legalised pornography in 1969, Danish film-maker Ole Ege led the way pushing the boundaries of acceptability to the limit. Tonight's documentary profiles Ege's life and work, and examines how a previously prudish society reacted to the sudden advent of total freedom. This programme contains some nudity and strong language.
#8 - Paradise Lost
Season 1997 - Episode 5 - Aired 12/13/1997
Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's film probes doubts about the guilt of a trio of teenagers tried and convicted of the murder of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas, Texas, in 1994.
#9 - East Side Story
Season 1998 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/3/1998
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's favourite film, which he viewed over 100 times, was the musical comedy 'Volga Volga'—it tells the story of a group of farm workers determined to prove themselves. His devotion is at least partly explained by the film's use of his favourite slogan: "Life is better, life is happier." Dana Ranga 's film recalls the often strange and forgotten attempts by Soviet film-makers to match Hollywood's popular appeal by entertaining the socialist masses with pieces that choreographed workers' unstinting physical labours.
#10 - Kurt and Courtney
Season 1998 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/31/1998
Director Nick Broomfield investigates the circumstances in which grunge rock star Kurt Cobain died in 1994, looking at the conspiracy theories surrounding his death and delving into the drug culture of the West Coast rock scene. The film concludes with a confrontation between Broomfield and Cobain's widow, Hole singer Courtney Love.
#11 - Don't Look Back
Season 1998 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/31/1998
Donn Pennebaker's acclaimed documentary of Bob Dylan's month-long 1965 tour of Britain, during which the star was accompanied by Joan Baez. An intimate portrait of the artist, the film includes concert footage and features other celebrities of the era, such as folk star Donovan and singer/songwriter Alan Price. Songs include "The Times They Are A-changin'" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues".
#12 - 444 Days
Season 1998 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/14/1998
Leslie Woodhead's film about the Iranian hostage crisis of November 1979. Militant Islamic students - angered by US support for the Shah of Iran - invaded the American Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 diplomats hostage. For 444 days, the world watched helplessly as the United States attempted to free the diplomats in the face of Ayatollah Khomeini's fervent anti-Americanism. Only after a botched rescue attempt, and President Carter's election defeat by Ronald Reagan, were the hostages finally freed. The documentary hears from both hostages and their captors.
#13 - Whirlybird: Live above LA
Season 2021 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/15/2021
Flying high above Los Angeles in a whirling news helicopter, Marika Gerrard and Zoey Tur (then known as Bob) spent the 80s and 90s capturing the city’s most epic breaking news stories. Before the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, this daring husband-and-wife team invested in a helicopter and pilot’s licence, taking their cameras to the sky and changing broadcast news forever. The cameras not only captured the adrenaline of live news culture, but also the subsequent strain on their relationship and an identity struggle that eventually culminated in a major life transition for Zoey. A wholly unique take on the story of Los Angeles, told through stunning aerial footage and remarkable home videos, Whirlybird reframes many of the city’s pivotal moments of the 1990s, including the OJ Simpson pursuit and the 1992 riots.
#14 - 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.
#15 - 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.
#16 - 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.
#17 - 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.
#18 - 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.
#19 - 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.
#20 - 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.
#21 - 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.
#22 - 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.]
#23 - 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.
#24 - The Tour
Season 2002 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/24/2002
Documentary following a group of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip on a three-day organised tour through Israel in 1999. For many, this is a first visit to Israel, while others take the chance to see homes they lost when they went into exile.
#25 - Inside Lehman Brothers: The Whistleblowers
Season 2019 - Episode 16 - Aired 10/28/2019
How one man's refusal to overlook its financial irregularities led to the exposure of the subprime mortgage scandal that engulfed Lehman Brothers.