Films
Read about our films and watch the trailers here. Each documentary we've made for FRONTLINE also has its own website. Link to these sites below where you can watch the films, read interview transcripts, join in the discussion and much more.
The Medicated Child
Over the last fifteen years, there's been a 4000% increase in the number of kids diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Four-year-old DJ was diagnosed six months ago and is now on four psychiatric medications. But the drugs he takes are largely untested in children and can cause serious side effects. Is this good medicine? Or is it an uncontrolled experiment? FRONTLINE investigates.
PBS airdate: January 8, 2008
Indonesia: After the Wave
On December 26, 2004, the Indonesian province of Aceh was hit by the massive Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 170,000 people and devastated villages and towns. In the wake of the catastrophe, the Indonesian army and local separatist rebels, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) ended their decades-long war, which took 15,000 lives. In After the Wave, FRONTLINE/World correspondent Orlando de Guzman returns to Aceh, where he had first covered the war, to explore the prospects for continued peace.
PBS airdate: June 26, 2007
Gangs of Iraq
Day after day scores of bodies litter the streets of Baghdad. To staunch the violence, the US has poured billions into standing up Iraq's security forces. FRONTLINE takes a hard look at how the four-year training effort has fared and how these forces have themselves been infiltrated by various sectarian militias. It remains to be seen if America can build a truly national Iraqi army and police in the midst of a civil war.
PBS airdate: April 17, 2007
Requiem
At a time when fair and accurate news coverage is more essential than ever, 2006 marked one of the deadliest years on record for journalists. In Requiem, FRONTLINE/World essayist Sheila Coronel looks at the dangers journalists confront as they try to tell their stories and pays special tribute to reporters working in the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, China and Iraq who have been killed, jailed, or exiled for daring to speak truth to power.
The airdate is March 27, 2007
Telling the Truth (2007)
Telling the Truth: The Best in Broadcast Journalism, a one-hour documentary hosted by CNN's chief international correspondent, .duPont-Columbia University Awards, including Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill for Baghdad ER, Brian Williams for NBC's Hurricane Katrina coverage, Renata Simone for FRONTLINE's The Age of AIDS.
PBS airdate: January 24, 2007
Return of the Taliban (2006)
Long suspected of harboring bin Laden, the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan are now under the control of a resurgent Taliban. FRONTLINE investigates a secret front in America's war on terror.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: October 3, 2006
- Watch the film online on the FRONTLINE website
- View the postcard: front | back
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on DVD or VHS
State of the Union (2006)
This is a story about Americans growing fiercer in their political views and less tolerant of dissent – an examination of the red/blue or democratic/republican political divide that goes way beneath the recent flurry of news reports on a polarized America. We reveal new information about the changing demographics in the country. And we examine how special interest groups and extreme activists as well as the media and advertising worlds take advantage of the divided electorate to drive us even farther apart. It’s the “perfect storm” of circumstances; one that has made it impossible to compromise or to lead from the center.
ABC airdate: June 30, 2006
Inside Hamas (2006)
They have pledged to raise the banner of Islam over every inch of Palestine. They reject Israel's right to exist. And now the Palestinians have voted them into power. FRONTLINE/World reporter Kate Seelye travels across the occupied Palestinian territories talking with jailed leaders, party strategists, and militant hard liners to uncover how this Islamist party rose to power and whether it will restrain its militant wing.
PBS airdate: May 9 2006
- Watch the film online on the FRONTLINE/World website
- View the postcard: front | back
Telling The Truth (2006)
Telling the Truth: The Best in Broadcast Journalism, a one-hour documentary hosted by Michel Martin, tracks the winners of this year's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards as they continue to work on stories around the world from Sri Lanka to Toronto and San Francisco to Paris. Weaving together candid interviews with award-winning footage, Telling the Truth examines six duPont Award-winning news programs.
PBS airdate: January 26, 2006
The Storm (2005)
Why did federal and local officials fail to protect thousands of Americans from a widely predicted natural disaster? FRONTLINE reporter Martin Smith finds out what happened to FEMA and asks who should be held accountable for the 900 mostly elderly people who lost their lives in New Orleans.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: November 22, 2005
- Watch the film online on the FRONTLINE website
- View the postcard: front | back
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on DVD or VHS
Private Warriors (2005)
Over the last two years America has poured billions of dollars into Iraq. Much of it goes to private contractors. And business is booming. FRONTLINE reporter Martin Smith travels to Iraq to see the private side of the war.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: June 21, 2005
- Watch the film online on the FRONTLINE website
- Watch the QuickTime trailer (1.8 MB)
- View the postcard: front | back
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on DVD or VHS
House of Saud (2005)
A hundred years ago, the Arabian peninsula was a place of warring tribes. Nomads, sheikhs, emirs. Among them was the family of Al Saud. Today they are the guarantors of world oil and stewards of fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam. Can their power hold in the 21st century? A history of modern Saudi Arabia.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: February 8, 2005
- Watch an excerpt from the film online on the FRONTLINE website
- View the postcard: front | back
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on DVD or VHS
IRAQ: Reporting the War (2005)
Nick Hughes visits the chaotic streets of Baghdad for FRONTLINE/World to find out how journalists survive in a war in which they have become targets. He travels with men and women whose quest for the story not only requires body armor as a tool of the trade, but also can lead to sudden death.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: January 11, 2005
- Watch an excerpt from the film online on the FRONTLINE website
- View the postcard: front | back
The Choice (2004)
In 2004, America faced its first wartime election since Vietnam. Like Vietnam, the war in Iraq has exposed deep divisions in how Americans see this country and its place in the world and defines the differences between the candidates. In The Choice, FRONTLINE takes a hard look at the character, experience, and worldviews of incumbent George W. Bush and challenger John F. Kerry.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: October 12, 2004
- Watch the film online on the FRONTLINE website
- View the postcard: front | back
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on DVD or VHS
Beyond Baghdad (2004)
FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith travels through a fractured land to reveal just what it will take to stabilize the volatile nation and accelerate the transfer of power to Iraqis.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: February 12, 2004
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Beyond Baghdad
- Watch the QuickTime trailer (1.8 MB)
- View the postcard: front | back
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on DVD or VHS
Truth, War and Consequences (2003)
FRONTLINE examines why the US went to war in Iraq, what went wrong in the planning for the postwar occupation, and what is at stake for both the US and for Iraqis.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: October 9, 2003
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Truth, War and Consequences
- Watch the QuickTime trailer (1.8 MB)
- View the postcard
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on DVD or VHS
Islands Under Siege (2003)
FRONTLINE/World sent PRI World, correspondent Orlando de Guzman, a Filipino reporter, on a journey to Mindanao, where Muslim rebels are fighting a guerrilla war against the Philippine government -- a war in which the United States may soon be embroiled.
PBS airdate: June 5, 2003
Kim’s Nuclear Gamble (2003)
This film traces the delicate maneuvers and clumsy turns that have brought the world to the brink of a nuclear showdown in Asia.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: April 10, 2003
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Kim’s Nuclear Gamble
- Watch the QuickTime trailer (2.4 MB)
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on VHS
In Search of Al Qaeda (2002)
"In Search of Al Qaeda" follows the trail of the terrorist organization from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Pakistan's cities into Saudi Arabia and Yemen to find out what has happened to Osama bin Laden's network since September 11. Traveling through the tribal areas of Pakistan and Yemen, places rarely and, in some cases, never captured on film, reporter Martin Smith unravels what happened to Al Qaeda foot soldiers and leaders who were harbored there.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: November 21, 2002
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for In Search of Al Qaeda
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on VHS
The Great Divide (2002)
This hour long documentary for Peter Jennings Reporting follows the rise and fall of the first major American city to elect an African American mayor. The film is part of an ABC News/Peter Jennings Reporting series and accompanying book project titled In Search of America.
ABC airdate: September 6, 2002
Dot Con (2002)
For a few heady years, it seemed that just about anyone -- from institutional investors to the average person following CNBC -- could make quick and easy money by putting their cash into the dreams of the Internet. What spurred the incredible dot-com bull run on Wall Street? Was the public blinded by dreams of small fortunes and easy living or did the nation's investment banks manipulate the IPO market and exploit public trust? In "Dot Con," FRONTLINE investigates the financial forces behind the unprecedented rise and seemingly overnight fall of the Internet economy.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: January 24, 2002
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Dot Con
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on VHS
Saudi Time Bomb? (2001)
An in depth look at U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. Through interviews with U.S. and Saudi officials, political analysts, religious experts, and observers, this report outlines internal problems and contradictions within Saudi society, the growing Islamic fundamentalist movement that threatens Saudi Arabia's stability, and the troubling connections between Saudi Arabia and some Islamic religious schools, or "madrassas," which propagate an extreme form of Islam, known as Wahhabism, throughout the Muslim world. A FRONTLINE co-production with The New York Times.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: November 15, 2001
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Saudi Time Bomb
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on VHS
Looking for Answers (2001)
Looking for Answers examines the U.S. failure to understand fully the hatred for America among Muslim fundamentalists, and its roots in the U.S. government's support for Israel and for authoritarian regimes in the oil-rich Middle East. A FRONTLINE co-production with The New York Times.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: Airdate: October 11, 2001
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Looking for Answers
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on VHS
Hunting Bin Laden (2001)
The world's eyes are on Osama bin Laden. He is charged with masterminding 1998s bombing of two US embassies in Africa, the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and is the prime suspect in the September 11, 2001, assaults on America. Hunting Bin Laden traces the evidence linking bin Laden to terrorism and explores the challenges in trying to crack bin Laden's network.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: September 13, 2001
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Hunting Bin Laden
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on VHS
Medicating Kids (2001)
Following four families with children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, this documentary investigates the rise in the use of medications to treat children with behavioral problems.
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: April 10, 2001
- Visit the FRONTLINE website for Medicatng Kids
- Read this film’s reviews
- Buy the film from ShopPBS on VHS
The Terrorist and the Superpower (1999)
On Friday August 7, 1998 two car bombs exploded simultaneously at US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 268 people. Was this the work of an individual terrorist or the symptom of more deeply rooted vendettas against the US?
PBS FRONTLINE airdate: April 13, 1999
