The Auschwitz Trial

J. Robert Oppenheimer and other key figures involved in the decision to drop the first atomic bomb discuss their motivations in this NBC News documentary. Originally produced and televised in 1965, two decades after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was re-released in 2023 with an epilogue by Michael Beschloss, NBC News Presidential Historian.

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

Lost Heroes is the story of Canada's forgotten comic book superheroes and their legendary creators. A ninety-minute journey to recover a forgotten part of Canada's pop culture and a national treasure few have ever heard about. This is the tale of a small country striving to create its own heroes, but finding itself constantly out muscled by better-funded and better-marketed superheroes from the media empire next door.

A Place of Our Own

Nazi propaganda film contrasting Germany in the days before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor with the Germany of "today" and how much better it is.

On the eve of Memorial Day, a star-studded lineup will grace the stage for one of PBS' highest-rated programs. This multi-award-winning television event has become an American tradition, honoring the military service and sacrifice of all our men and women in uniform, their families at home and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

Made famous by the 1957 Hollywood movie, the bridges of the River Kwai emblematize one of the most misunderstood events in history. Contrary to the romanticized film version, the structures represent a period of terror, desperation, and death for over 16,000 POWs and 100,00 local slaves. The Thailand - Burma Railway was the vision of the Japanese Imperial Army: a 250-mile track cut through dense jungle that would connect Bangkok and Rangoon. To accomplish this nearly impossible feat, the fanatical and ruthless Japanese engineers used POWs and local slaves as manpower. Candid interviews with men who lived through the atrocity - including Dutch, Australian, British, and American POWs - illuminate the violence and horror of their three-and-a-half-year internment. From Britain's surrender of Singapore the enduring force of friendship, The True Story Of The Bridge On The River Kwai narrates a moving and unforgettable account of a period in history that must be remembered.

Doomed attempt to get to California in 1846. More than just a riveting tale of death, endurance and survival. The Donner Party's nightmarish journey penetrated to the very heart of the American Dream at a crucial phase of the nation's "manifest destiny." Touching some of the most powerful social, economic and political currents of the time, this extraordinary narrative remains one of the most compelling and enduring episodes to come out of the West.

The greatest taboo of the Battle of Okinawa were Guerrilla units composed of boy soldiers. Until now, not even the Japanese people knew the full scope of these secret troops, and survivors have been afraid to share their tragic details. Okinawa became the bulwark to protect the Japanese mainland toward the end of World War II. After the Americans landed, a violent battle ensued resulting in the loss of over 200,000 lives – many of them civilian. This documentary uncovers Japan’s deepest secrets concerning the Battle of Okinawa, and also sounds alarms about modern Japan’s recent steps toward remilitarization.

An intimate portrait of Alabama public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, who for more than three decades has advocated on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned, seeking to eradicate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

In March 1943, twenty-year-old Ovadia Baruch was deported together with his family from Greece to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival, his extended family was sent to the gas chambers. Ovadia struggled to survive until his liberation from the Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945. While in Auschwitz, Ovadia met Aliza Tzarfati, a young Jewish woman from his hometown, and the two developed a loving relationship despite inhuman conditions. This film depicts their remarkable, touching story of love and survival in Auschwitz, a miraculous meeting after the Holocaust and the home they built together in Israel. This film is part of the "Witnesses and Education" project, a joint production of the International School for Holocaust Studies and the Multimedia Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this series, survivors recount their life stores - before, during and after the Holocaust. Each title is filmed on location, where the events originally transpired.

On Dec. 5, 1944, American soldiers, led by Harry Stuts, put their guns down for one day and organized a party celebrating the town's centuries-old Saint Nick tradition. Soldiers made hot chocolate from their D-rations, company cooks made donuts and cookies for the children, and 22-year-old corporal Richard Brookins from Rochester, NY played the role of Saint Nick. An emotional and heartfelt story, THE AMERICAN SAINT NICK illustrates how American soldiers and residents of the hamlet were able to bond over a moment in time, creating a tradition that continues to this day.

Yugoslav Partisan propaganda film about the liberation of Istria at the end of the World War II.

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Nazi troops massacre 30,000 Jews over a three-day period in September 1941. Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Das radikal Böse is a German-Austrian documentary that attempted to explore psychological processes and individual decision latitude "normal young men" in the German Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD, which in 1941 during the Second World War as part of the Holocaust two million Jewish civilians shot dead in Eastern Europe.

Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station’s opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.