Movies: American history

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida....

In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be a...

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates....

A cheap, powerful drug emerges during a recession, igniting a moral panic fueled by racism. Explore the complex history of crack in the 1980s....

The story of a family of Quakers in Indiana in 1862. Their religious sect is strongly opposed to violence and war. It's not easy for them to meet the rules of their religion in everyday life but when Southern troops pass the area they are in real tro...

Larry Flynt is the hedonistically obnoxious, but indomitable, publisher of Hustler magazine. The film recounts his struggle to make an honest living publishing his girlie magazine and how it changes into a battle to protect the freedom of speech for ...

By the end of his illustrious career, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves may well have been the preeminent lawman of the Old West. He brought upwards of 3,000 outlaws to justice and served in law enforcement for 32 years during Reconstruction after the ...

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King....

When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes...

So much more than simply the story of the Thanksgiving meal, the epic saga of the Pilgrims is one of the fundamental narratives of our nation. This ambitious documentary presents the definitive history of the Pilgrims and their journey to and coloniz...

A made-for-TV dramatization of George Washington's perilous gamble of crossing the Delaware River and attacking the British forces at Trenton....

In 30 years of a deeply committed career and 50 roles, Denzel Washington, double-Oscar winner, placed the figure of the Black man in all its complexity at the heart of the American paradoxes: from Black activist, rebel soldier to gangster torn betwee...

This is based on a true story. Solomon Northrop is a black man in the mid 19th century before slavery was abolished. He's a born free man who works as a carpenter and is also a part time musician. One day he is approached by some men who want him to ...

Comes one hundred years from the two-day Tulsa Massacre in 1921 that led to the murder of as many as 300 Black people and left as many as 10,000 homeless and displaced....

Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world....

This film tells the history of the United States from pre-Revolution through 1939....

In a year of uprisings and political unrest, Stonebreakers documents the fights around monuments in the United States and explores the shifting landscapes of the nation's historical memory....

A 40-day, 40-night road trip to the Trinity Site—where the first atomic bomb was detonated in the summer of 1945—covering many other atomic destinations and driving deep into the natural and social history of the American southwest....

The History Channel marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11 with a new groundbreaking documentary about the biggest manhunt in human history. This documentary draws on interviews and stories told in the Museum's special exhibition of the same name, and fe...

The inside story of Biden’s rise to the presidency, and the personal and political forces that shaped him and led to his dramatic decision to step aside....