American Studies

Returning to the historic era of his greatest success, Griffith paid homage to the sixteenth President in this moving drama starring Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre).  More

Filmed in the days after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people, this intimate chronicle weaves together interviews, vérité footage, and personal...  More

THE AMERICAN NURSE is a heart-warming film that explores some of the biggest issues facing America - aging, war, poverty, prisons - through the work and lives of nurses.   More

This darkly funny and eerily relevant 1982 cult classic about how to stop worrying and love the bomb is pieced together from government-produced educational and training films, newsreels and...  More

Noted film historian Charles Musser co-wrote and directed this definitive tribute to Edwin S. Porter, the mechanic and cameraman for Thomas Edison, now recognized as a major contributor to the...  More

Not your TV version of Orange County. Born out of the deaths of two Orange County teens, this close-to-the-bone documentary explores how young people of relative affluence in this part of the country...  More

Almost a century after its release, The Birth of a Nation remains one of the most controversial films ever made... a landmark achievement of filmmaking that undeniably demonstrates the deep roots of...  More

Acclaimed three-part documentary tells the proud, sad story of D.W. Griffith: the man who first brought artistry and ambition to the movies, and then, having dragged a reluctant American film...  More

Two conventional Harvard professors began probing the edges of consciousness in the '60s. Timothy Leary ended up in jail, while Richard Alpert became Ram Dass, a spiritual teacher.  More

An unprecedented collaboration of Kino International and the Museum of Modern Art, together with the Library of Congress. EDISON: THE INVENTION OF THE MOVIES is a four-disc box set featuring 140...  More

Pulitzer prize winner Archibald MacLeish scripted this touching portrait of the woman who emerged from a privileged but painful childhood to become a powerful humanitarian. Academy Award winner for...  More

Elvis Presley may have been born with the rock 'n roll in his blood but without poverty, southern culture and a mother whom he adored, Elvis Aaron Presley might have been just another poor white guy...  More

Over 40 years ago, on October 9, 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army, aided by the CIA. Guevara's diary, a detailed, personal account of his futile 11-month attempt to foment...  More

A Good Day to Die chronicles the American Indian Movement (AIM) by recounting the life story of Dennis Banks, co-founder and leader of AIM. By investigating the issues and major flash points connecte...  More

Narrated by Studs Terkel, The Good Fight explores a significant gap in our history through its use of newsreels, photographs, interviews with Lincoln veterans and Depression-era music.  More

This survey of the cinema's earliest landmarks and rarities features the 1877 motion studies of Edward Muybridge, the early productions of Thomas Edison's Black Maria, the actualites of Louis Lumiere...  More

An incredible true story that unfolds like "a ripping good yarn... with an uproarious, impossible Hollywood ending" (Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com), HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29 is filmmaker Kevin Rafferty's...  More

Featuring the pioneers of LSD, this documentary chronicles its discovery by Alfred Hofmann to its prohibition in 1973. Contains interviews with groundbreaking researchers including Hofmann, Ram Dass,...  More

The profoundly moving story of native New Yorker, Jack Beers. He cuts down trees and rips telephone books into pieces at 94, but it is his long and diverse list of lifetime achievements that makes hi...  More

In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone, and their protest captures the world's imagination. Using never before seen archive that brings their extraordinary world to life, How To...  More

Since the 1940’s, classroom films have aimed at tutoring young adolescents on subjects such as sexual development, the importance of fitting in, and juvenile delinquency, all in tidy,...  More

As the daughters of the baby-boom reached adolescence, American schools struggled to educate them on matters of sexual and social development. This fascinating collection contains films on...  More

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is an examination of racism in America through the lens of James Baldwin’s unfinished book, REMEMBER THIS HOUSE. Intended as an account of the lives of Medgar Evers, Malcolm...  More

D.W. Griffith had a vision of the movies as the greatest spiritual force the world had ever known. Just one year after the huge success of THE BIRTH OF A NATION, he was emboldened to prove his faith...  More

King: A Filmed Record...from Montgomery to Memphis is the landmark 3-hr documentary that chronicles the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement...  More

Legacy of a Dream is a 24 minute film that uses selected footage from the 180 minute Academy Award nominated documentary King: A Filmed Record; Montgomery to Memphis to present a shorter account of...  More

LIBERTY KID captures with compassion and street-smart humor the spirit and pain of America transformed by 9-11. Two young friends struggle to survive after losing their jobs at the Statue of Liberty...  More

The first documentary about Maya Angelou celebrates her life and reveals new insight into the life of this legendary performer, writer, poet and activist.   More

NIGHTMARES IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE is a comprehensive history of the American horror film. Starting with Thomas Edison’s version of Frankenstein and slashing its way through to Saw and beyond,...  More

From the farms and fields of Arkansas to the deadly streets of Baghdad, OFF TO WAR tracks the citizen soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard as they come face to face with the horrors of war.  More