The Worst Episodes of American Experience

#1 Worst Episode
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1.0/10(4 votes)
#1 - Bombshell
S37:E81/6/2026
The efforts of a group of intrepid reporters to let the world know the truth about the bombings of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
5.8/10(37 votes)
#2 - Murder at Harvard
S15:E137/14/2003
Historian Simon Schama ("A History of Britain") plays sleuth -- searching, he says, "not for literal truth, but for poetic truth" -- as he speculates about whether an innocent man was executed for a 154-year-old "Murder at Harvard." The victim was prominent Boston physician-turned-businessman George Parkman, who disappeared on Nov. 23, 1849. Remains thought to be his were found a week later in the Harvard Medical College's basement, and chemistry professor John Webster, who owed Parkman money, was convicted of the crime on the basis of circumstantial evidence.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Simon Schama
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Simon Schama
4.8/10(12 votes)
#3 - Coney Island
S3:E112/4/1991
Before there was Disneyland, there was Coney Island. By the turn of the century, this tiny spit of New York real estate was internationally famous as the world's most remarkable carnival of delights, offering everything from the bawdy to the surreal. The hot dog was invented here; so was the roller coaster.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
2.8/10(5 votes)
#4 - The Eugenics Crusade
S30:E910/16/2018
The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the unlikely –– and largely unknown –– campaign to breed a “better” American race, tracing the rise of the movement that turned the fledgling science of heredity into a powerful instrument of social control.
Director:Michelle Ferrari
Writer:Michelle Ferrari
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Director:Michelle Ferrari
Writer:Michelle Ferrari
5.9/10(34 votes)
#5 - Lindbergh
S3:E18/27/1990
At 25, Charles A. Lindbergh arrived in Paris, the first man to fly across the Atlantic -- handsome, talented, and brave -- a hero. But the struggle to wear the mantle of legend would be a consuming one. Crowds pursued him, reporters invaded his private life. His marriage, travels with his wife and the kidnapping and murder of their first child were all fodder for the front page.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.3/10(89 votes)
#6 - Billy Graham
S33:E55/17/2021
Explore the life of one of the best-known and most influential religious leaders of the 20th century. An international celebrity by age 30, he built a media empire, preached to millions worldwide, and had the ear of tycoons, presidents and royalty.
Directors:Sarah Colt, Keven McAlester
Writer:Unknown
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Directors:Sarah Colt, Keven McAlester
Writer:Unknown

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5.5/10(16 votes)
#7 - Eudora Welty: One Writer's Beginnings
S1:E141/3/1989
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Eudora Welty narrates the story of her own Southern childhood and early artistic development in Jackson, Mississippi. Based on her best-selling book of the same title.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.5/10(203 votes)
#8 - Freedom Summer
S26:E66/24/2014
Recalling the summer of 1964 in Mississippi, when student volunteers from around the country joined local activists in an effort to register to vote as many African-Americans as possible. (Due to intimidation and arcane tests, less than seven percent of the state's African-Americans were registered.) Activists also set up schools to teach children about African-American history; and created a rival Democratic Party to challenge the all-white delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
5.8/10(18 votes)
#9 - Hearts and Hands
S1:E1212/20/1988
The design and art of quilting yields intimate clues about the lives of 19th century women, who stitched their personal and political stories into these artifacts of history.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
3.2/10(4 votes)
#10 - The Island Murder
S30:E54/17/2018
In the 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.
Director:Mark Zwonitzer
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Mark Zwonitzer
Writer:Unknown
5.6/10(13 votes)
#11 - Wildcatter: A Story of Texas Oil
S2:E510/31/1989
The tale of mavericks whose risk-taking, sweat and dreams changed an American industry. Starting with Spindletop, the first Texas gusher in 1902, rare archival film and interviews with pioneering oilmen are set against a contemporary story of a modern "wildcatter," gambling to find his fortune in yet another narrow hole in the Texas earth.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.5/10(86 votes)
#12 - The Mormons (1): History
S19:E134/30/2007
Historian Sarah Barringer Gordon says of the LDS Church "that from the moment of its birth, Mormons were under a kleig light." This insightful documentary explores the religion's roots, from prophet Joseph Smith's 1827 discovery of the golden plates that formed the Book of Mormon to the cycle of persecution and exodus that followed the religion's adherents for much of the 19th century. Included: a look at the practice of plural marriage; comments from church elders and scholars.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.6/10(166 votes)
#13 - Riveted: The History of Jeans
S34:E12/7/2022
The fascinating and surprising story of the iconic American garment. They’re more than just a pair of pants — America’s tangled past is woven deeply into the indigo fabric. From its roots in slavery to the Wild West, youth culture, hippies, high fashion and hip-hop, jeans are the fabric on which the history of American ideology and politics are writ large.
Directors:Anna Lee Strachan, Michael Bicks
Writers:Michael Bicks, Anna Lee Strachan
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Directors:Anna Lee Strachan, Michael Bicks
Writers:Michael Bicks, Anna Lee Strachan
6.5/10(71 votes)
#14 - The Mormons (2): Church and State
S19:E145/1/2007
An examination of the modern-day LDS Church, including its missionary program; how its followers have entered into the American mainstream; Mormon theology and rituals; and how members who either challenge church doctrine or don't follow it may be excommunicated. Included: the church's views on homosexuality; and its stance against the Equal Rights Amendment.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.6/10(149 votes)
#15 - The War on Disco
S35:E910/30/2023
The War on Disco explores the culture war that erupted over the rise of Disco music. The hostility came to a head on July 12, 1979, when a riot led by rock fans broke out at “Disco Demolition Night” during a baseball game in Chicago
Director:Unknown
Writer:Rushmore DeNooyer
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Rushmore DeNooyer
5.7/10(13 votes)
#16 - Scandalous Mayor
S4:E410/28/1991
James Michael Curley dominated Boston's politics for almost half a century, building a sophisticated political machine based on rhetoric, old-fashioned patronage and sheer personal will. In 1903, he ran a campaign from jail and won; he overpowered opponents with charisma and intelligence, and if that didn't work, he smeared them. Curley's colorful, combative style seized the imagination of the community because he thumbed his nose at the Yankee establishment.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.4/10(42 votes)
#17 - New Orleans (1 & 2)
S19:E92/12/2007
A history of New Orleans, from its origins as a French settlement to its post-Katrina present. Included: archival photos and film footage; and comments from New Orleans historians, residents and scholars on subjects like the birth of jazz, the city's struggles with integration and segregation, the white flight to the suburbs in the 1950s and the return of Katrina survivors.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.5/10(55 votes)
#18 - Fidel Castro
S17:E31/31/2005
Fidel Castro's march through Cuba and the second half of the 20th century is chronicled by filmmaker Adriana Bosch. Here, Cuban exiles and former Castro confreres, foreign-policy experts, a former Castro brother-in-law and his daughter Alina Fernandez paint a portrait of a dictator, a social reformer -- and a survivor.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.3/10(25 votes)
#19 - Minik: The Lost Eskimo
S20:E103/31/2009
In 1897, renowned Arctic explorer Robert Peary returned to New York from his latest Greenland expedition. At the request of anthropologist Franz Boas, he brought with him five polar Inuits for study at the American Museum of Natural History. Within months, four of them had fallen sick and died, leaving a seven-year-old boy named Minik to fend for himself in a foreign land.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.6/10(58 votes)
#20 - George Washington: The Man Who Wouldn't Be King
S5:E511/18/1992
He was bumbling, yet ambitious. He volunteered to serve his country, but insisted on being reimbursed for expenses. He was the most famous general of the Revolution but a dismal tactician on the battlefield. Greedy and selfish, service to the colonies would profoundly change him. The man who came to symbolize the American Revolution could also be incredibly brave, generous and an inspirational leader who scorned attempts to participate in any system but a democratic one.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.6/10(58 votes)
#21 - Kissinger (2): The Opportunist
S37:E710/28/2025
Discover how Henry Kissinger's anti-Communist zeal would shape U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam, China, Chile, and the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century, through the voices of historians and colleagues.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.6/10(56 votes)
#22 - The Vote (Part 1)
S32:E77/6/2020
One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, The Vote tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.4/10(27 votes)
#23 - Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?
S1:E611/8/1988
A year in the life of Wyoming cowboys and the ranching families who have lived in Big Piney for six generations. Although very much the same as it was one hundred years ago -- tough, lonely, but still romantic -- ranching is now a threatened way of life.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.3/10(21 votes)
#24 - Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild A Dream
S1:E410/25/1988
A touching memoir beginning with life in a small Minnesota town and taking us through a young man's early days as pacifist. Reporting on the rise of fascism in Europe, Sevareid, as a young CBS reporter, would change his belief. Based on Sevareid's best-selling book of the same title.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.1/10(15 votes)
#25 - Sit Down And Fight
S5:E102/1/1993
In 1936, Walter Reuther led one of the bitterest, bloodiest battles ever fought in the history of the American labor movement. By sitting down and stopping the machinery of factory production, auto workers forced the Big Three to recognize their union. GM tried turning off the heat and blocking food deliveries and Ford sent members of their private security force to beat up UAW officials, but workers stood their ground.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown