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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 India's Daughter
    8.9/10(19 votes)

    #1 - 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.

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

    #2 - 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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  3. Background image for Love in the Time of Fentanyl
    8.8/10(6 votes)

    #3 - 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.

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

    #4 - 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.

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

    #5 - 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.

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

    #6 - 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.

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

    #7 - 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.

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

    #8 - Kumu Hina

    S16:E15

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

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

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

    S14:E6

    No description available

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    Director:Alex Gibney
    Writer:Unknown
  11. Background image for The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
    8.3/10(19 votes)

    #10 - The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

    S17:E10

    Weaving together a treasure trove of rare footage with the voices of a diverse group of people who were there, Stanley Nelson tells the vibrant story of a pivotal movement as urgent today as it was then.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  12. Background image for What Was Ours
    8.3/10(13 votes)

    #11 - What Was Ours

    S18:E5

    Residents of Wyoming's isolated Wind River Indian Reservation, a young Arapaho journalist, and a teenage powwow princess travel with a Shoshone elder to search for missing artifacts in the vast archives of Chicago's Field Museum. There they discover a treasure trove of ancestral objects, setting them on a journey to recover what has been lost, and build hope for the future.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  13. Background image for 9to5: The Story of a Movement
    8.3/10(11 votes)

    #12 - 9to5: The Story of a Movement

    S22:E7

    When Dolly Parton sang “9 to 5,” she was singing about a real movement that started with a group of secretaries in the early 1970s. Their goals were simple—better pay, more advancement opportunities and an end to sexual harassment—but as seen in 9to5: The Story of a Movement, their fight that inspired a hit would change the American workplace forever.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  14. Background image for Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew
    8.2/10(42 votes)

    #13 - Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew

    S5:E16

    Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew is a film portrait of the now famous jazz vocalist who was "rediscovered" decades after he disappeared from the public eye. The documentary blends concert footage, rare photos and candid interviews with Jimmy Scott, his family and his colleagues.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  15. Background image for These Amazing Shadows
    8.2/10(12 votes)

    #14 - These Amazing Shadows

    S13:E7

    "These Amazing Shadows" focuses on the National Film Registry, an eclectic collection of movies considered to be "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the National Film Preservation Board. Included: clips from many of the films; remarks from Librarian of Congress James Billington; such directors as Barbara Kopple, Christopher Nolan, Rob Reiner, John Singleton and John Waters; such actors as Tim Roth, Debbie Reynolds and Zooey Deschanel; and film critics and historians.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  16. Background image for Love Free or Die
    8.1/10(41 votes)

    #15 - Love Free or Die

    S14:E4

    No description available

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  17. Background image for Limited Partnership
    8.1/10(15 votes)

    #16 - Limited Partnership

    S16:E18

    Married in 1975, Richard and Tony lead a 40-year fight for legal immigration status for same sex spouses.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  18. Background image for Autism in Love
    8.1/10(9 votes)

    #17 - Autism in Love

    S17:E6

    Finding love can be hard enough for anyone, but for those on the autism spectrum, the challenges may seem overwhelming. The disorder can jeopardize the core characteristics of a successful relationship — communication and social interaction. Autism in Love offers a warm and stereotype-shattering look at four people with autism as they pursue and manage romantic relationships.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  19. Background image for T-Shirt Travels
    8.0/10(6 votes)

    #18 - T-Shirt Travels

    S5:E18

    No description available

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  20. Background image for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
    8.0/10(1 votes)

    #19 - Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

    S8:E22

    Enron dives from the seventh largest US company to bankruptcy in less than a year in this tale told chronologically. The emphasis is on human drama, from suicide to 20,000 people sacked: the personalities of Ken Lay (with Falwellesque rectitude), Jeff Skilling (he of big ideas), Lou Pai (gone with $250 M), and Andy Fastow (the dark prince) dominate. Along the way, we watch Enron game California's deregulated electricity market, get a free pass from Arthur Andersen (which okays the dubious mark-to-market accounting), use greed to manipulate banks and brokerages (Merrill Lynch fires the analyst who questions Enron's rise), and hear from both Presidents Bush what great guys these are.

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    Director:Alex Gibney
  21. Background image for Revenge of the Electric Car
    8.0/10(7 votes)

    #20 - Revenge of the Electric Car

    S13:E19

    Revenge follows four entrepreneurs from 2007 through the end of 2010 as they fight to bring the electric car back to the world market in the midst of a global recession. The protagonists are Bob Lutz from General Motors, Elon Musk from the American start-up Tesla Motors, Carlos Ghosn from Nissan, and Greg Abbott, an independent electric car converter from California. Whereas the 2006 film Who Killed the Electric Car? ended with the destruction of nearly 5,000 electric cars from California's clean air program, notably the GM EV1, the new film features the birth of a new generation of electric cars including the Chevrolet Volt, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Roadster.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  22. Background image for Happiness
    8.0/10(7 votes)

    #21 - Happiness

    S16:E5

    A nine-year-old child in Burma is spurred to leave his village for the first time in his life when his village gets electricity. He walks for over three days to in search of a seeing his first television.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  23. Background image for Little Hope Was Arson / A City in Flames
    8.0/10(8 votes)

    #22 - Little Hope Was Arson / A City in Flames

    S16:E12

    The investigation into a spate of church burnings that occured in East Texas during January and February 2010 is chronicled.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  24. Background image for Peace Officer
    8.0/10(12 votes)

    #23 - Peace Officer

    S17:E17

    Meet Dub Lawrence, a crusading former sheriff whose investigations highlight increasingly militarized state of American police. Dub established Utah’s first SWAT team, only to see that same unit kill his son-in-law in a controversial standoff.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  25. Background image for Belly of the Beast
    8.0/10(6 votes)

    #24 - Belly of the Beast

    S22:E4

    An unlikely duo discovers a pattern of illegal sterilizations in women’s prisons, shielded by prison officials and doctors, and wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. Belly of the Beast exposes modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California prisons, through intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  26. Background image for Owned: A Tale of Two Americas
    8.0/10(5 votes)

    #25 - Owned: A Tale of Two Americas

    S23:E8

    Is the "American Dream" of home ownership a false promise? While the government’s postwar housing policy created the world’s largest middle class, it also set America on two divergent paths – one of perceived wealth and the other of systematically defunded, segregated communities.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

Best Episodes Summary

"India's Daughter" is the best rated episode of "Independent Lens". It scored 8.9/10 based on 19 votes. Directed by Leslee Udwin and written by Unknown, it aired on 11/16/2015. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Bully".