1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year

"Elemental" is the groundbreaking television event from Academy Award-winning executive producer Robert Zemeckis that reveals how the elements of the periodic table have controlled the outcome of human history. This one-hour drama tells the harrowing story of the Hindenburg disaster. Sophisticated cinematography, animation and spectacular visual effects bring this fiery saga to life in a way no audience has seen before.

From an ominous Lecturer, a small 1930s middle American community learns of the Harper Affair, in which young Jimmy Harper finds his life of promise turn into a life of debauchery and murder thanks to the new drug menace marijuana. Along the way, he receives help from his girlfriend Mary and Jesus Himself, but always finds himself in the arms of the Reefer Man and the rest of the denizens of the Reefer Den.

A dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

In 1928, Amelia Earhart gains fame by undertaking a transatlantic flight as a passenger. In 1937, she and her navigator Fred Noonan undertake her longest flight: a round-the-world attempt. However, the plane disappears in the process.

Fact-based story of the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr., son and namesake of the famed pilot, and ensuing trial of accused and convicted killer, Bruno Hauptmann.

North Sudan, summer 1923. King Alfonso XIII of Spain captures an enormous African elephant, an apparently irrelevant act that, however, will be paramount to understand the Spain of 20th century; an animal from far lands that will become a symbol of the Second Spanish Republic, the communist movement and many other things; a royal hunting that marks the beginning of a bizarre story of jealousy, passion, political intrigues and taxidermy.

By combining actual footage with reenactments, this film offers both a documentary and fictional account of the life of Adolf Hitler, from his childhood in Vienna, through the rise of the Third Reich, to his final act of suicide in the waning days of WWII. The film also provides considerable, and often shocking, detail of the atrocities enacted by the Nazi regime under Hitler's command.

A Hollywood writer becomes embroiled while investigating into the lives of five fictitious actresses all nominated for the Academy Award for best actress.

September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany invades Poland. The campaign is fast, cruel and ruthless. In these circumstances, how is it that ordinary German soldiers suddenly became vicious killers, terrorizing the local population? Did everyone turn into something worse than wild animals? The true story of the first World War II offensive that marks in the history of infamy the beginning of a carnage and a historical tragedy.

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Summer 1936 - The Berlin Olympics, organized by the Nazi regime on the eve of World War II, acted as a grand showcase for a Germany that was athletic, peaceful and rejuvenated. The violence and hate that until then had reigned in the streets of Berlin suddenly vanished. Adolf Hitler became the triumphant host of European countries he would soon try to invade or face in a deadly global conflict.

The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.

The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults is a two-hour live American television special that was broadcast in syndication on April 21, 1986, and hosted by Geraldo Rivera. It centered on the live opening of a secret vault in the Lexington Hotel in Chicago once owned by noted crime lord Al Capone.

In the waning days of summer 1931, Honolulu's tropical tranquility was shattered when a young Navy wife made a drastic allegation of rape against five nonwhite islanders. What unfolded in the following days and weeks was a racially-charged murder case that would make headlines across the nation, enrage Hawai'i's native population, and galvanize the island's law enforcers and the nation's social elite.

A chronicle of alleged ghosts, haunted landmarks and the otherworldly doings of Tinseltown, including a cursed script and haunted homes of the stars. A range of celebrities and parapsychologists provide interviews related to the history of Hollywood hauntings and their own experiences hosted by William Shatner.

During the worst days of World War II, the British government asks the mathematician Alan Turing to unravel the mysteries of the German Enigma encryption machine, an impossible task to accomplish without the invaluable information that Hans-Thilo Schmidt, a disenchanted but greedy German citizen, had been handing over to the French secret services since 1931.

A true story. In 1937, a routine passenger and mail flight crashes during bad weather on a flight between Brisbane and Sydney. A local bushman begins his own search, and finds the wreckage and two survivors ten days after the crash.

Comprised of video shot during the Nazi regime, including propaganda, newsreels, broadcasts and even some of Eva Braun's colorized personal home movies, we explore the way in which the Third Reich infiltrated the lives of the German population, from 1933 to 1945.

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1919, when the Republic of Weimar is born, to 1933, when the Nazis come into power. (Followed by Hitler's Hollywood, 2017.)