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The Best Episodes of Independent Lens Season 15

Every episode of Independent Lens Season 15 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Independent Lens Season 15!

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 of their independent producers and featuring unforgettable stories about a

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  1. #1 Fan Favorite
    Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 1 - The Graduates - The Girls
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #1 - The Graduates - The Girls

    S15:E1

    Part 1 of 2. The Latino dropout crisis is examined through the eyes of six students from across the U.S., beginning with three young women. One left school after becoming pregnant, but has since enrolled in a Tulsa program for at-risk students; another has enjoyed better grades and become more active in school activities since joining the innovative Voices of Youth in Chicago Education program; and the third was helped by the staff at her South Bronx high school after her family became homeless.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 2 - The Graduates - The Boys
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    #2 - The Graduates - The Boys

    S15:E2

    Conclusion. The Latino dropout crisis is seen through the eyes of three young men. One, whose parents moved from Mexico to San Diego so that he and his siblings could have a better education, fell into gang life before turning his life around, due in large part to the Reality Changers organization; another, the son of undocumented workers, overcame barriers in order to attend college; and the third may well have quit school except for the performing arts, which helped boost his confidence.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 3 - Indian Relay
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    #3 - Indian Relay

    S15:E3

    Episode Synopsis: "Indian Relay" chronicles a season of Indian relay-horse races, which are popular within Native American communities across the Rocky Mountain West. Teams from the Shoshone-Bannock, Crow and Blackfeet nations in Idaho and Montana are featured. The races feature riders leaping from horse to horse after the first two laps of a three-lap race around a track, with each team's handlers catching the dismounted horse or risk being disqualified.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 4 - Young Lakota
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    #4 - Young Lakota

    S15:E4

    Three young people living in the Pine Ridge Reservation try to forge a better future. When the first female president of Oglala Lakota defies a South Dakota law criminalizing abortion by vowing to build a women’s clinic in their sovereign territory, the three young tribe members are faced with difficult choices.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 5 - Playwright: From Page to Stage
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    #5 - Playwright: From Page to Stage

    S15:E5

    The lives of two outstanding young playwrights — an African American from Miami’s inner city and an Indian American from Cleveland — are brought together inextricably in the process of creating a new language for the stage. By Robert Levi.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 6 - Jiro Dreams of Sushi
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    #6 - Jiro Dreams of Sushi

    S15:E6

    Eighty-five-year-old Jiro Ono, considered the world’s greatest sushi chef, is the proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Despite its humble appearance, it is the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded a three-star Michelin Guide rating, and sushi lovers from around the globe make pilgrimages. “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” is a thoughtful and elegant meditation on work, family and the art of perfection. By David Gelb.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  7. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 7 - How to Survive a Plague
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    #7 - 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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  8. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 8 - At Berkeley
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    #8 - At Berkeley

    S15:E8

    Legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman goes back to school for this intimate yet sprawling film about the University of California at Berkeley, the oldest and most prestigious member of a ten campus public education system.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 9 - Blood Brother
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    #9 - Blood Brother

    S15:E9

    An intimate portrait of Rocky Braat, who travels to India as a disillusioned tourist. When he meets a group of HIV-positive children living at an AIDS hostel, a place of unspeakable hardship, he decides to stay and devote his life to them.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 10 - The State of Arizona
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    #10 - The State of Arizona

    S15:E10

    The turbulent battle over illegal immigration in Arizona that came to a head with Senate Bill 1070 frames this riveting documentary that tracks multiple perspectives as America eyes the results.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 11 - Spies of Mississippi
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #11 - Spies of Mississippi

    S15:E11

    The story of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a secret agency created by the state during the 1950s to spy on its citizens and maintain segregation. Included: remarks from author Rick Bowers ("Spies of Mississippi"); civil rights activists Margaret Block, Lawrence Guyot, Bob Moses and Hollis Watkins; Rev. Ed King, author Neil R. McMillen ("Dark Journey"); journalist Jerry Mitchell; Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.); and former Mississippi governor William Winter.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 12 - Las Marthas
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    #12 - Las Marthas

    S15:E12

    Dating from the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, the annual debutante ball in Laredo, Texas is unlike any other. Las Marthas follows two Mexican American girls carrying this gilded tradition on their shoulders during a time of economic uncertainty and tension over immigration.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 13 - All of Me: A Story of Love, Loss, and Last Resorts
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    #13 - All of Me: A Story of Love, Loss, and Last Resorts

    S15:E13

    A group of women friends who met via the Austin chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and have tried every diet and diet pill, go through weight-loss surgery in an effort to lose hundreds of pounds. The experience presents a host of issues and consequences, some they never could have imagined.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 14 - Medora
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #14 - Medora

    S15:E14

    The story of a high school basketball team suffering from a long losing streak in a small town.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 15 - Brother's Hypnotic
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    #15 - Brother's Hypnotic

    S15:E15

    Eight brothers who were forged into a band as children by their father, Chicago jazz maverick Phil Cohran, now try to march to their own beat on the streets of New York and in the music business as the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 16 - The Trials of Muhammad Ali
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    #16 - The Trials of Muhammad Ali

    S15:E16

    The story of the explosive crossroads of Muhammad Ali’s life, after the famed boxer’s conversion to Islam and refusal to serve in the Vietnam War left him banned from boxing and facing a five-year prison sentence.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 17 - Muscle Shoals
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #17 - 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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  18. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 18 - A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at The New York Times
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    #18 - A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at The New York Times

    S15:E18

    A Fragile Trust tells the shocking story of Jayson Blair, the most infamous serial plagiarist of our time, and how he unleashed the massive scandal that rocked The New York Times and the entire world of journalism.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 19 - Let the Fire Burn
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #19 - Let the Fire Burn

    S15:E19

    This documentary brings to life one of the most tumultuous clashes between government and citizens in modern U.S. history, as a longtime feud between Philadelphia police and radical urban group MOVE came to a tragic climax in 1985.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 20 - God Loves Uganda
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #20 - God Loves Uganda

    S15:E20

    Inspired by his own African American Baptist roots, director Roger Ross Williams explores a place where religion and African culture intersect, as Ugandan and American pastors spread evangelical values to millions desperate for a better life.

    Director:Roger Ross Williams
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Independent Lens Season 15 Episode 21 - The New Black
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #21 - The New Black

    S15:E21

    How African-American churches and gays deal with the rise of the gay-rights movement.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Season 15 Ratings Summary

"The Graduates - The Girls" is the best rated episode of "Independent Lens" season 15. It scored /10 based on 0 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 10/28/2013. This episode is rated 0.0 points higher than the second-best, "The Graduates - The Boys".