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The Best Episodes of Independent Lens

Every episode of Independent Lens ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Independent Lens!

The Best Episodes of Independent Lens

This acclaimed Emmy Award-winning anthology series features documentaries and a limited number of fiction films united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions...
  1. Background image for Taking the Heat: The First Women Firefighters of New York City
    9.5/10(15 votes)

    #1 - Taking the Heat: The First Women Firefighters of New York City

    S7:E18

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  2. Background image for Almost Home
    9.4/10(22 votes)

    #2 - Almost Home

    S7:E15

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  3. Background image for Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life
    9.3/10(63 votes)

    #3 - Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life

    S8:E14

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  4. Background image for Fishbowl; American Made
    9.2/10(28 votes)

    #4 - Fishbowl; American Made

    S7:E23

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  5. Background image for India's Daughter
    8.9/10(19 votes)

    #5 - India's Daughter

    S17:E2

    The story of the brutal gang rape and murder in Delhi of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh, which sparked outrage and protests in India, a country beset by extreme poverty and gender inequality.

    Director:Leslee Udwin
    Writer:Unknown
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  6. Background image for Bully
    8.8/10(9 votes)

    #6 - Bully

    S16:E1

    The story of the children bullied at school and online. The film questions assumptions about bullying behaviour beyond cliches and stereotypes of the past. It also examines changes in how schools treat the perpetrators and victims.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Independent Lens

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  8. Background image for Love in the Time of Fentanyl
    8.8/10(6 votes)

    #7 - Love in the Time of Fentanyl

    S24:E9

    As fentanyl overdose deaths in Vancouver, Canada reach an all-time high, the Overdose Prevention Society opens its doors—a renegade safe injection site that employs current or former drug users. Its staff and volunteers save lives and give hope to a marginalized community, doing whatever it takes to remain open in this intimate documentary that looks beyond the stigma of injection drug users.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  9. Background image for China Blue
    8.7/10(8 votes)

    #8 - China Blue

    S8:E20

    They live crowded together in cement factory dormitories where water has to be carried upstairs in buckets. Their meals and rent are deducted from their wages, which amount to less than a dollar a day. Most of the jeans they make in the factory are purchased by retailers in the U.S. and other countries. China Blue takes viewers inside a blue jeans factory in southern China, where teenage workers struggle to survive harsh working conditions. Providing perspectives from both the top and bottom levels of the factory’s hierarchy, the film looks at complex issues of globalization from the human level. China Blue, which was made without permission from the Chinese authorities, offers an alarming report on the economic pressures applied by Western companies and the resulting human consequences, as the real profits are made—and kept—in first-world countries. The unexpected ending makes the connection between the exploited workers and U.S. consumers even clearer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  10. Background image for July '64
    8.6/10(10 votes)

    #9 - July '64

    S7:E14

    July ’64 tells the story of a historic three-day race riot that erupted in two African American neighborhoods in the northern, mid-sized city of Rochester, New York. On the night of July 24, 1964, frustration and resentment brought on by institutional racism, overcrowding, lack of job opportunity and police dog attacks exploded in racial violence that brought Rochester to its knees. Directed by Carvin Eison and produced by Chris Christopher, JULY ’64 combines historic archival footage, news reports and interviews with witnesses and participants to dig deeply into the causes and effects of the historic disturbance.

    Director:Carvin Eison
    Writer:Unknown
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  11. Background image for Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
    8.6/10(55 votes)

    #10 - Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

    S8:E16

    Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes is a 2006 documentary film written, produced, and directed by Byron Hurt. The documentary explores the issues of masculinity, violence, homophobia and sexism in hip hop music and culture, through interviews with artists, academics and fans. Hurt's activism in gender issues and his love of hip-hop caused him to feel what he described as a sense of hypocrisy, and began working on the film.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  12. Background image for Muscle Shoals
    8.6/10(20 votes)

    #11 - Muscle Shoals

    S15:E17

    How a small town in Alabama became influential in the music of Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Aretha Franklin.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  13. Background image for Matter of Mind: My ALS
    8.6/10(8 votes)

    #12 - Matter of Mind: My ALS

    S24:E13

    Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neuromuscular disease with an average survival time of 2-5 years from diagnosis. In this intimate exploration, three people with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, bravely face different paths as they live with this progressively debilitating illness.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  14. Background image for Beyond Utopia
    8.6/10(16 votes)

    #13 - Beyond Utopia

    S25:E7

    They grew up believing their land was paradise. Now, they risk everything in escaping it. In an unforgettable documentary, follow families on a treacherous journey to defect from their homeland of North Korea, as the threat of severe punishment and possible execution looms over their passage, revealing a world many have never seen.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  15. Background image for A Touch of Greatness
    8.5/10(47 votes)

    #14 - A Touch of Greatness

    S6:E10

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  16. Background image for We Were Here
    8.5/10(7 votes)

    #15 - We Were Here

    S13:E26

    When AIDS arrived in San Francisco in 1981, it decimated a community, but also brought people together in inspiring and moving ways to support and care for one another and to fight for dignity and a cure.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  17. Background image for Twin Sisters
    8.5/10(24 votes)

    #16 - Twin Sisters

    S16:E2

    Two sisters adopted in China as infants by Californian and Norwegian parents grow up knowing they have a twin living on the other side of the world. Although language is a barrier, their bond grows deeper and they arrange to finally meet.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  18. Background image for American Denial
    8.5/10(29 votes)

    #17 - American Denial

    S16:E10

    In the wake of recent events that have sparked a national dialogue, American Denial explores the power of unconscious biases around race and class. Using Gunnar Myrdal’s 1944 investigation of Jim Crow racism as a springboard, the film shows how unrecognized, unconscious attitudes continue to dominate racial dynamics in American life.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  19. Background image for Free For All: The Public Library
    8.5/10(15 votes)

    #18 - Free For All: The Public Library

    S26:E16

    Free For All: The Public Library tells the story of the quiet revolutionaries who made a simple idea happen. From the pioneering women behind the “Free Library Movement” to today's librarians who service the public despite working in a contentious age of closures and book bans, meet those who created a civic institution where everything is free and the doors are open to all.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  20. Background image for Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
    8.4/10(54 votes)

    #19 - Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?

    S8:E17

    Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? is a 2006 documentary film written by Matt Coen, Mike Kime and Frank Popper and directed by Frank Popper.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  21. Background image for Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian
    8.4/10(24 votes)

    #20 - Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian

    S12:E3

    The portrayal of Native Americans in cinema. / Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond takes an entertaining, insightful, and often humorous look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through a century of cinema and examining the myth of "the Injun." Narrated by Diamond with infectious enthusiasm and good humor, this film is a loving look at cinema through the eyes of the people who appeared in its very first flickering images and have survived to tell their stories their own way.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  22. Background image for How to Survive a Plague
    8.4/10(8 votes)

    #21 - How to Survive a Plague

    S15:E7

    This acclaimed film tells the story of ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), two groups whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these determined activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry to help identify promising new drugs and move them from experimental trials to patients. With unfettered access to a treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage, the film reveals the controversial actions, heated meetings, heartbreaking failures and exultant breakthroughs of heroes in the making. By David France.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  23. Background image for Kumu Hina
    8.4/10(9 votes)

    #22 - Kumu Hina

    S16:E15

    A Hawaiian transgender woman finds acceptance, but still is searching for love.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  24. Background image for Hale County This Morning, This Evening
    8.4/10(9 votes)

    #23 - Hale County This Morning, This Evening

    S20:E11

    RaMell Ross's Hale County This Morning, This Evening, one of the year's most critically acclaimed films, is a dreamy and intimate journey through the world of Hale County, Alabama, a richly detailed glimpse into life in America’s Black Belt.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  25. Background image for WE WANT THE FUNK!
    8.4/10(97 votes)

    #24 - WE WANT THE FUNK!

    S26:E15

    WE WANT THE FUNK! is a syncopated voyage through the history of funk music, spanning from African, soul, and early jazz roots, to its rise into the public consciousness. Featuring James Brown's dynamism, the extraterrestrial funk of George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic, transformed girl group Labelle, and Fela Kuti's Afrobeat, the story also traces funk's influences on both new wave and hip-hop.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  26. Background image for Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream
    8.3/10(11 votes)

    #25 - Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream

    S14:E6

    No description available

    Director:Alex Gibney
    Writer:Unknown
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Best Episodes Summary

"Taking the Heat: The First Women Firefighters of New York City" is the best rated episode of "Independent Lens". It scored 9.5/10 based on 15 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 3/28/2006. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Almost Home".