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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

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

    #2 - Almost Home

    S7:E15

    No description available

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

    #3 - Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life

    S8:E14

    No description available

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

    #4 - Fishbowl; American Made

    S7:E23

    No description available

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  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.

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    Director:Leslee Udwin
    Writer:Unknown
  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.

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

    #7 - 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.

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

    #8 - 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.

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

    #9 - 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.

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

    #10 - Muscle Shoals

    S15:E17

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

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

    #11 - A Touch of Greatness

    S6:E10

    No description available

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

    #12 - 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
  14. Background image for Twin Sisters
    8.5/10(24 votes)

    #13 - 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
  15. Background image for American Denial
    8.5/10(29 votes)

    #14 - 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
  16. Background image for Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
    8.4/10(54 votes)

    #15 - 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.

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

    #16 - 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.

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

    #17 - 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.

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

    #18 - Kumu Hina

    S16:E15

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

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

    #19 - 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.

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

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

    S14:E6

    No description available

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

    #21 - 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
  23. Background image for What Was Ours
    8.3/10(13 votes)

    #22 - 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
  24. Background image for Rewind
    8.3/10(9 votes)

    #23 - Rewind

    S21:E16

    Made up of home video footage that reveals a long-kept secret, Sasha Joseph Neulinger’s Rewind is a brave and wrenching look at his childhood and his journey to reconcile his past. By probing the gap between image and reality, the film depicts both how little and how much a camera can capture.

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

    #24 - 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
  26. Background image for Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew
    8.2/10(42 votes)

    #25 - 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

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".