Finding the Achilles Heel
This episode starts at a moment of optimism: Scientists believe they have cracked the mystery of the malignant cell, and the first targeted therapies have been developed. But very quickly cancer reveals new layers of complexity and a formidable arra...
Magic Bullets
The search for a cure is the greatest epic in the history of science, spanning centuries and continents. This film centers on the story of Sidney Farber, who defied conventional wisdom in the late 1940s to introduce the modern era of chemotherapy. H...
Risk: Ken Burns’ Jazz, Part 8
The social tensions underlying America’s postwar prosperity were reflected in the broken rhythms and dissonant melodies of bebop-and in the troubled life of Charlie Parker. Nicknamed “Bird,” Parker demonstrated ideas and techniques as overwhel...
Frank Lloyd Wright: The Fellowship
The second installment in Ken Burns’ powerful documentary on architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his milieu, this program depicts the middle to final years of Wright’s life and career. With the help of rarely seen archival materials and voice-over ...
Frank Lloyd Wright: Truth Against the World
The first installment in Ken Burns’s compelling documentary on modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright, this program depicts the early to middle years of Wright’s life and career. With the help of rarely seen archival materials and voice-over por...
The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.Anthony: Failure is Impossible
The second installment in Ken Burns eye-opening profile of the women's suffrage movement, this program depicts the later years of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. With the help of rarely seen archival materials and voice-over portrayals ...
The Blind Men and the Elephant
This episode picks up the story in the wake of the declaration of a “war on cancer” by Richard Nixon in 1971 and the search for a cure. Three causation theories emerge linking cancer to viruses, chemicals, and genes that divide the scientific co...
The Civil War: Episode 1—The Cause (1861)
Beginning with a searing indictment of slavery, this program dramatically evokes the causes of the war. Here are the burning questions of union and states’ rights, John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, the election of Abraham Lincoln, the firing on Fort...