Two North Korean defectors are smuggled across borders by a human smuggler who promises them a safe escape. Will they survive the perilous 5,000 km journey to freedom?

Escaping North Korea

Kerry O'Brien

Fashion Victims

The Hunting Party

He's a drug cheat, a bully and a liar who abused his best friends to keep a terrible secret, but has Lance Armstrong finally told the truth? The answer - almost certainly - is no.

Lance and the Truth

It may be the wealthiest country in the world but as documentary maker Philippe Levasseur shows in America's Broken Dreams, when you lose your job in the US there is very little to protect you. In 2008 the global financial crisis hit the poor first, but now America's middle class is being devastated.

America's Broken Dreams

It's been called the smartest fighter plane on the planet but it is way over budget and still not delivered. Can the F.35 live up to the hype, or is the project set ot crash and burn?

Reach For The Sky

Australians love a drink, and some see no problem at all with drinking to excess. But now doctors, police and paramedics have called 'time', warning that alcohol-fuelled violence has reached crisis levels.

Punch Drunk

With Australia's population ageing, governments have made it very clear, you had better save and plan for your own retirement. But how can you be sure your money is in safe hands...

A Betrayal of Trust

How did a Lebanese immigrant move from owning an ethnic newspaper business to become the most influential politician in the State...

The Enemy Within

This PBS-Frontline investigation asks why the US Department of Justice has failed to act on credible evidence that Wall Street deliberately packaged toxic loans and sold them to investors.

The Untouchables

The plan for Afghanistan was a robust democracy overseen by a well-trained army and police. But do the new security forces really have their hearts in the job?

Mission Accomplished?

The coal seam gas industry promotes itself as a cleaner carbon-fuel alternative; but how do we know this is true? Until now much of the information used to back this claim has come from the industry itself. Four Corners reveals what really happened when two major companies applied to develop thousands of square kilometres of southern Queensland for coal seam gas.

Gas Leak!

This is a story Australians think they know: the gift of a donated organ that transforms the life of someone with a devastating illness. What we see here for the first time is the extraordinary journey families undergo whose loved ones are dying in hospital from a sudden, unexpected event.

A Gracious Gift

How the West was duped by informants who claimed Saddam Hussein had WMD and how this phony intelligence was used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The Spies Who Fooled the World

Australians like to think their sports stars play fair but now it's alleged there's widespread drug taking and links with organised crime.

Who's Cheating Whom?

We go inside Australia's offshore refugee processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island. What you see will shock you. Protests, evidence of self-harm and testimony of suicide attempts.

No Advantage

The surf life saving movement is Australia's biggest volunteer organisation and it saves thousands of lives each year. But right now Surf Life Saving Australia is at a crossroads... Wendy Carlisle investigates.

The Surf Club

An unflinching profile of the young man responsible for one of America's worst school massacres. Who was Adam Lanza - and what led him to kill 27 people at Sandy Hook Elementary school last year?

Raising Adam Lanza

We take a revealing look at the world of sports betting and the man who's made himself the face of the industry - Tom Waterhouse.

The Big Gamble

Andrew Fowler reveals that hackers, working from locations overseas, have targeted key Federal Government departments and major corporations in Australia.

Hacked!

It was the police investigation that stunned Britain. Young men of Pakistani heritage grooming young girls with the intention of abusing them, gang raping them and then trading them with other groups of men. How could it happen in modern Britain?

The Hunt For Britain's Sex Gangs

Hunting wild animals is a growth industry and now the pressure is on to get access to national parks. Who really benefits and who is at risk?

Australians love a bargain, but what's the real cost of cheap clothes from the sweat shops in Bangladesh? On 24th April this year more than a thousand people were killed when an eight storey building collapsed in the heart of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.

Could you live on 35 dollars a day and pay for food, clothing, transport and other bills? That's what single unemployed people are entitled to on the Newstart allowance.

On the Brink

Reporter Marian Wilkinson tells the turbulent story of Labor's bitter leadership struggle, the dramatic day that ended the term of Australia's first female Prime Minister and Labor's renewed ambition to win the next election.

To the Bitter End

Next on Four Corners, PBS' NOVA documentary producer, Miles O'Brien, looks at how the events unfolded on the day of the bombing and he tracks how a team of investigators used modern technology, combined with good old fashioned detective work, to break the case.

Manhunt: The Boston Bombers

In the 1980s and 1990s governments across Australia outlawed the use of the herbicide 245T. The ban was introduced for one very good reason - 245T contains dioxin, a chemical impurity with the potential to seriously harm people who are exposed to it. But has the dioxin menace been tamed? Four Corners reveals evidence that this potentially deadly chemical compound may still be present in weed control products and that authorities do not routinely test for it.

Chemical Time Bomb

The rise and fall of Australia's youngest billionaire, Nathan Tinkler. How did he make so much money and where did it go?

In Search of Nathan Tinkler

War photographer Giles Dooley lost both legs and an arm while on assignment in Afghanistan and returns to record the plight of Afghan civilians who've lost even more.

Walking Wounded

Nelson Mandela promised a South Africa based on freedom and equality. But as the country's former leader lies in hospital critically ill, the nation he fought to create is slowly disintegrating. Violence is commonplace, unemployment is out of control and the ruling ANC Government is accused of rampant corruption.

Cry Freedom: Mandela's Legacy

What do you do when your best friend is lost to you in a tide of violence and cruelty? Do you search across continents to find her? That is the story of filmmaker Robyn Paterson and her friend Mercy.

Finding Mercy

There is not a person in the community that is not affected by cancer in some way. We go inside the hospitals and consulting rooms with Australians who are confronting the reality that the advanced cancer they have could kill them.

Buying Time

Four Corners goes on the campaign trail, taking a fly-on-the-wall look at two seats that will be crucial in deciding who wins Government this time around.

No Margin For Error

Australians are among the most technically connected in the world - but do we know where our data goes and how it's being used?

In Google We Trust

The story of a young man with a serious debilitating illness trying to find a way to legally end his own life.

My Own Choice

A look at the renewed fight against corruption in Papua New Guinea. Will Australia help or hinder the battle? Marian Wilkinson reports.

Preying on Paradise

Two insiders blow the lid on a financial scandal that goes to the heart of one of Australia's most important and trusted institutions.

Cover Up

The harrowing story of an al Qaeda raid on a remote North African gas plant, told by the people who survived it.

Terror in the Desert

The Jawoyn people were held up as the model Indigenous community. What went wrong? Matthew Carney reports.

No Accounting

It was an Australia Day paddock party for a group of 19-year-old school friends. But something went very wrong. By sunrise, two young people were dying. So why has no one been held to account?

While They Were Sleeping

We're told many bushfires are deliberately lit but close analysis suggests powerlines are the main culprits. What if many of our worst fires are in fact very much like industrial accidents which could have been prevented?

Fire In The Wire

A large part of India is in danger of eating itself into an early grave. BBC This World discovers Indian families, obsessed with the glitter of the West, are indulging their children with fast, fatty foods.

Supersizing India's Kids

Was John F. Kennedy the victim of conspiracy or a lone gunman? Can the third bullet fired at him that day in Dallas help answer that question?

JFK - The Lost Bullet

In September a boat carrying 72 asylum seekers sank in stormy waters off the coast of Indonesia. Most of those onboard drowned, many of them children. Sarah Ferguson goes on the trail of the people smugglers who organised the vessel.

Trading Misery

Clive Palmer says he's bankrolled the Palmer United Party to give voice to millions of Australians who can't afford a lobbyist, but can we take him at his word?

Palmer Drama

Four Corners is Australia's longest-running investigative journalism/current affairs television program. Broadcast on ABC1 in Australia, it premiered on 19 August 1961 and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021. Founding producer Robert Raymond and his successor Allan Ashbolt did much to set the ongoing tone of the program.

Based on the Panorama concept, the program addresses a single issue in depth each week, showing either a locally produced program or a relevant documentary from overseas. The program has won many awards for investigative journalism, and broken many high-profile stories. A notable early example of this was the show's epoch-making 1962 exposé on the appalling living conditions endured by many Aboriginal Australians living in rural New South Wales.

Escaping North Korea

Seasons22

Season 53 Episodes43

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