Bill Moyers

From the earliest versions of the script to the blockbuster debuts, explore the creation of the Star Wars Trilogy.

A Biography of George Lucas.

A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.

Arguably the most influential creator, writer, and producer in the history of television, Norman Lear brought primetime into step with the times. Using comedy and indelible characters, his legendary 1970s shows such as All In the Family, Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons, boldly cracked open dialogue and shifted the national consciousness, injecting enlightened humanism into sociopolitical debates on race, class, creed, and feminism.

This artful and intimate meditation on the legendary storyteller examines her life, her works, and the powerful themes she has confronted throughout her literary career. Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics, and colleagues on an exploration of race, history, the United States, and the human condition.

From the success of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, through the founding of A&M Records, to giving away more than $150 million to arts and education programs across the country, we’ll witness the humanity and the humility inherent in everything he does, as well as come to understand the power of creativity to entertain, inspire, heal and transform.

Performance and conversation with husband-and-wife poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon at a New Jersey festival, in their Wilmot, NH hometown and their Eagle Pond farmhouse.

Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with white people, confusion over his sexuality, his partner Arnie Zane’s untimely death from AIDS, and Jones’s own HIV-positive status.

George Lucas discusses how Joseph Campbell and his concept of the Monomyth (aka the Hero's Journey) and other concepts from mythology and religion shaped the Star Wars saga.

In this documentary profile, Bill Moyers travels with Maya Angelou to Stamps, Arkansas, the segregated Southern town where she grew up. Revisiting the landscapes and memories of her youth, Angelou reflects on race, memory, and the experiences that shaped her voice as one of America’s most celebrated writers. (Note: Originally produced as an episode of the PBS series "Creativity with Bill Moyers" (1982), this program has circulated independently under the title Portrait of Maya Angelou through library and educational distribution, justifying its treatment as a standalone documentary listing.)

Biography of Norman Corwin, the great writer, producer and director of the Golden Age of Radio. Actors in his radio plays included Orson Welles, Jimmy Stewart, Charles Laughton, Danny Kaye, Paul Robeson and Judy Garland.

In September 1986, "48 Hours on Crack Street" provided a glimpse into America's drug crisis. Executive producer Lane Venardos and head of special unit Joan Richman dispatched eighteen camera crews and twenty-five producers to follow ten correspondent around, including Bernard Goldberg in Greenwich Village, Diane Sawyer in Livingston, N.J, Dan Rather in Brooklyn, and Bob Schieffer in New Jersey, as well as Ed Bradley, David Martin, Bill Moyers, and Richard Roth. They filmed and interviewed pushers, buyers, and victims, ranging from high school girls to Wall Street brokers.

A group of black, male addicts in recovery meet and reflect on their experiences with life, alcohol and drugs.

Hate has many faces: racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, sectarianism, domestic violence. But do we really understand its roots, and are there practical ways to cope with it? What is hate doing to us? And what does hate do for us?

It’s a central premise of the American dream: If you’re willing to work hard, you’ll be able to make a living and build a better life for your children. But what if working hard isn’t enough to get ahead — or even to ensure your family’s basic financial stability? Two American Families: 1991-2024, a special, two-hour documentary filmed over more than 30 years, is a portrait of perseverance from FRONTLINE, Bill Moyers, and filmmakers Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes that raises unsettling questions about the changing nature of the American economy and the impact on people struggling to make a living. This is the saga of two families in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — one Black, the Stanleys, and one white, the Neumanns — who have spent the past 34 years battling to keep from sliding into poverty, and who refuse to give up despite the economic challenges that their stories reveal.

An interview with playwright and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. First aired on PBS's "Creativity with Bill Moyers".

This film from Bill Moyers is the first documentary to focus exclusively on people formerly detained in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island Jail. They tell their compelling stories direct to the camera, revealing the violent arc of the Rikers experience – from the trauma of entry to extortion and control by inmates, to oppressive corrections officers, violence and solitary confinement.

The dramatic story of two blue-collar Milwaukee families over two decades. As they struggle to find their place in the new economy, living from paycheck to paycheck through good times and bad, the Neumanns and Stanleys confront choices for themselves and their families that have far-reaching consequences for the American way of life.

Bill Moyers takes a piercing look at how global economic changes are destroying the lives and livelihoods of hardworking Americans. The documentary follows several individuals and their families in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as they fight to make ends meet in the “new economy.” In sheer numbers, more jobs were created than lost in America during the last decade, but a look behind those numbers reveals a shortage of jobs that pay enough to support a family. The program intimately portrays the lives of workers and their families as they struggle to make it in today’s job market.

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night. For its first ten years, Carson's Tonight Show was based in New York City with occasional trips to Burbank, California; in May 1972, the show moved permanently to Burbank, California. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked #12 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.

The World's Fakest News Team tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and pop culture.

The Colbert Report is an American satirical late night television program. It stars political humorist Stephen Colbert, a former correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The Colbert Report is a spin-off from and counterpart to The Daily Show that comments on politics and the media in a similar way. The show focuses on a fictional anchorman character named Stephen Colbert, played by his real-life namesake. The character, described by Colbert as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot", is a caricature of televised political pundits.

Each week Bill Maher surrounds himself with a panel of guests which include politicians, actors, comedians, musicians and the like to discuss what's going on in the world.

A six-year project from conception to completion, "Vietnam: A Television History" carefully analyzes the costs and consequences of a controversial but intriguing war. From the first hour through the last, the series provides a detailed visual and oral account of the war that changed a generation and continues to color American thinking on many military and foreign policy issues.

The Power of Myth is a television series originally broadcast on PBS in 1988 as Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary comprises six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell and journalist Bill Moyers.

Now on PBS was a Public Broadcasting Service newsmagazine that focused on social and political issues.

Ancient medical science told us our minds and bodies are one; so did philosophers of old. Now, modern science and new research are helping us to understand these connections. In Healing and the Mind, Bill Moyers talks with physicians, scientists, therapists and patients—people who are taking a new look at the meaning of sickness and health. In a five-part series of provocative interviews, he discusses their search for answers to perplexing questions: How do emotions translate into chemicals in our bodies? How do thoughts and feelings influence health? How can we collaborate with our bodies to encourage healing?

Bill Moyers Journal is an American television current affairs program that covered an array of current affairs and human issues, including but not limited to economics, history, literature, religion, philosophy, science, and most frequently politics. Originally, Bill Moyers executive produced, wrote and hosted the Journal. WNET in New York produced it and PBS aired it from 1972 to 1976. In 1979, following a nearly three-year hiatus, many presidential members of PBS announced that Bill Moyers Journal would return for a second series. The second series covered a broader range of issues in depth. This included election coverage and documentary footage from several U.S. states, among them Florida, Texas, Illinois, D.C. and Nevada. In addition, among its pop-culture coverage, the Journal reported on the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the long-running NBC talk program The Tonight Show. Like the first installment, the second one was produced by WNET in New York City, and was aired on PBS. However, the second installment and consequently the series ended in 1981. For the third time, Bill Moyers Journal returned to television on April 25, 2007. The debut episode was "Buying The War", which demonstrated how the commercial U.S. media served as an unwitting partner to the Bush administration in convincing the American people that the Iraq War was legitimate and necessary.

Journalist Bill Moyers examines various forms of creative expression by interviewing noted artists and performers regarding their influences and inspiration, and looking at unusual outlets for the creative impulse.