9.2/1018 votesLoading...#1 - The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Season 22 Episode 5 - Aired 7/21/2009
Filmed over 23 years, The Betrayal is the Academy Award-nominated directorial debut of renowned cinematographer Ellen Kuras in a unique collaboration with the film's subject and co-director, Thavisouk ("Thavi") Phrasavath. After the U.S. government waged a secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War, Thavi's father and thousands of other Laotians who had fought alongside American forces were abandoned and left to face imprisonment or execution. Hoping to find safety, Thavi's family made a harrowing escape to America, where they discovered a different kind of war. Weaving ancient prophecy with personal testimony and stunning imagery, The Betrayal is a story of survival and the resilient bonds of family.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.8/1017 votesLoading...#2 - The Act of Killing
Season 27 Episode 13 - Aired 10/7/2014
Joshua Oppenheimer visits men accused of playing a key role in the killing of over one-million Indonesians in 1965. Initially, the men explain their actions as patriotic and necessary. But over time, some question their actions. 2013 Oscar nominee. 2014 BAFTA Best Documentary.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.7/1019 votesLoading...#3 - The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Season 23 Episode 14 - Aired 10/5/2010
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is a 2009 documentary film directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith. The film follows Daniel Ellsberg and explores the events leading up to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the top-secret military history of the United States involvement in Vietnam.
Director: Rick Goldsmith, Judith Ehrlich
Writer: Rick Goldsmith, Judith Ehrlich
8.7/1012 votesLoading...#4 - The Look of Silence
Season 29 Episode 3 - Aired 6/27/2016
An optometrist identifies the men who killed his brother in the horrific 1965 Indonesian genocide. He confronts them while testing their eyesight and demands they accept responsibility.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.5/1016 votesLoading...#5 - The Beaches of Agnès
Season 23 Episode 3 - Aired 6/29/2010
The Beaches of Agnès is a 2008 French documentary film directed by Agnès Varda. The film is an autobiographical essay where Varda revisits places from her past, reminisces about life and celebrates her 80th birthday on camera. She has said that it will most likely be her last film.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.3/107 votesLoading...#6 - Survivors
Season 31 Episode 13 - Aired 9/24/2018
Two health care workers in Sierra Leone face the Ebola epidemic in their country.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.3/108 votesLoading...
#7 - Accepted
Season 35 Episode 10 - Aired 10/10/2022
An article exposes the controversial methods of the founder of a prestigious prep school in Louisian
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.2/109 votesLoading...#8 - This Way Up
Season 22 Episode 8 - Aired 8/25/2009
This is a story about a wall - the separations it's meant to enforce, and the unintended ones it creates. The security wall being constructed by Israel on the West Bank has divided Palestinian families and communities. It has also isolated the Catholic-run Our Lady of Sorrows nursing home, leaving its feisty residents to face old age in the throes of one of the world's most bitter conflicts.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.2/1011 votesLoading...#9 - If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Season 24 Episode 11 - Aired 9/13/2011
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front explores two of America’s most pressing issues — environmentalism and terrorism — by lifting the veil on a radical environmental group the FBI calls America’s “number one domestic terrorism threat.” Former Earth Liberation Front member Daniel McGowan faces life in prison for two multimillion-dollar arsons against Oregon timber companies. What turned this working-class kid from Queens into an eco-warrior? Marshall Curry (Oscar®-nominated Street Fight, POV 2005) provides a nuanced and provocative account that is part coming-of-age story, part cautionary tale and part cops-and-robbers thriller.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/109 votesLoading...#10 - Last Train Home
Season 24 Episode 13 - Aired 9/27/2011
Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year in the world’s largest human migration. Last Train Home takes viewers on a heart-stopping journey with the Zhangs, a couple who left infant children behind for factory jobs 16 years ago, hoping their wages would lift their children to a better life. They return to a family growing distant and a daughter longing to leave school for unskilled work. As the Zhangs navigate their new world, Last Train Home paints a rich, human portrait of China’s rush to economic development. An EyeSteelFilm production in association with ITVS International. An Official Selection of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Winner of Best Feature-Length Documentary Award, 2009 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. (90:00)
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/107 votesLoading...#11 - Advocate
Season 33 Episode 4 - Aired 7/27/2020
Meet Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel, a political firebrand who is known by her opponents as "the devil's advocate" for her decades-long defense of Palestinians who have been accused of resisting the occupation, both violently and non-violently.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/101 votesLoading...
#12 - Episode 15
Season 17 Episode 15 - Aired 6/29/2004
No description available
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/108 votesLoading...#13 - The Fall of Fujimori
Season 19 Episode 4 - Aired 7/18/2006
In 1990, an unknown candidate named Alberto Fujimori rode a wave of popular support to become the president of Peru. He fought an allout war on terror against the guerilla organization Shining Path, and won. Ten years later, accused of kidnapping, murder and corruption, he fled Peru to his native Japan, where he was in exile for four years. Fujimori has remained virtually silent about the abrupt end of his controversial presidency, until now. He granted an unprecedented, in-depth interview to filmmaker Ellen Perry, who presents an intimate, chilling portrait of this enigmatic leader's rise and fall, interweaving neverbefore-seen footage from his regime with Fujimori's own words. As events unfold in his quest to return to Peruvian politics, The Fall of Fujimori offers a cautionary tale about power and corruption in an age of terrorism.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/108 votesLoading...
#14 - Made in L.A.
Season 20 Episode 10 - Aired 9/4/2007
Los Angeles is now the country’s center for apparel manufacturing, but many of its factories bear an eerie resemblance to New York’s early 20th century sweatshops. Made in L.A. follows the remarkable journey of three Latina immigrants working in L.A.’s garment factories and their struggle for self-empowerment as they wage a three-year battle to bring a major clothing retailer to the negotiating table. This intimate film offers a rare and poignant glimpse into this “other” California, where immigrants in many industries toil long hours for sub-minimum wages, fighting for an opportunity in a new country. A co-production with the Independent Television Service (ITVS). A Diverse Voices Project co-production. A co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting. (packaged to 86:46)
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/107 votesLoading...#15 - Life.Support.Music
Season 22 Episode 3 - Aired 7/7/2009
In 2004, Jason Crigler's life was taking off. He was one of New York's hottest young guitarists, his new CD was due for release and his wife, Monica, was pregnant with their first child. Then, at a gig in Manhattan, Jason suffered a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. His doctors doubted he would ever emerge from his near-vegetative state. The astonishing journey that followed, documented by friend and filmmaker Eric Daniel Metzgar (The Chances of the World Changing, POV 2007), is a stirring family saga and a portrait of creative struggle in the face of overwhelming tragedy.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/106 votesLoading...#16 - Enemies of the People
Season 24 Episode 4 - Aired 7/12/2011
The Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people in the late 1970s. Yet the “killing fields” of Cambodia have remained largely unexplained. Until now, in Enemies of the People. Enter Thet Sambath, an unassuming, yet cunning, investigative journalist who lost his family in the conflict and spends a decade gaining the trust of the men and women who perpetrated the massacres. Sambath and co-director Rob Lemkin record shocking testimony, never before seen or heard, from the foot soldiers who slit throats and from Pol Pot’s right-hand man, the notorious Brother Number Two. Winner of the 2010 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize. (90:00)
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.7/1010 votesLoading...#17 - Granito: How to Nail a Dictator
Season 25 Episode 2 - Aired 6/28/2012
In a stunning milestone for justice in Central America, a Guatemalan court recently charged former dictator Efraín Rios Montt with genocide for his brutal war in the 1980s — and Pamela Yates’ 1983 documentary, When the Mountains Tremble, provided key evidence for bringing the indictment. Granito: How to Nail a Dictator tells the extraordinary story of how a film helped tip the scales of justice.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.7/106 votesLoading...#18 - While We Watched
Season 36 Episode 7 - Aired 9/4/2023
A timely depiction of a newsroom in crisis, While We Watched follows tormented journalist Ravish Kumar for two years as he battles a barrage of fake news, falling ratings and the resulting cutbacks. Are there viewers for fact-based analyses anymore? Will his show survive or become a swan song of reason – drowning out in sensationalism, misinformation, and ratings-driven editorial decisions?
Director: Vinay Shukla
Writer: Amaan Shaikh, Abhinav Tyagi, Vinay Shukla
7.6/108 votesLoading...#19 - Listening Is an Act of Love: A StoryCorps Special
Season 26 Episode 15 - Aired 11/28/2013
Celebrate the transformative power of listening with this animated special from the oral history project StoryCorps, which captures intimate conversations among everyday people.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.5/1010 votesLoading...#20 - Nostalgia for the Light
Season 25 Episode 12 - Aired 10/25/2012
Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light is a remarkable meditation on memory, history and eternity. Chile’s remote Atacama Desert, 10,000 feet above sea level, provides stunningly clear views of the heavens for astronomers. But it also holds secrets from the past: human remains, from pre-Columbian mummies to the bones of political prisoners "disappeared" during the Pinochet dictatorship.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.5/1014 votesLoading...#21 - The Law in These Parts
Season 26 Episode 8 - Aired 8/19/2013
For the first time, Israeli military and legal professionals who devised the legal framework behind the occupation are interviewed about this system, which mirrors the country’s toughest moral quandaries.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/105 votesLoading...
#22 - Big Enough
Season 17 Episode 12 - Aired 6/28/2005
Physical and emotional challenges faced by the dwarfs profiled in the 1982 film "Little People."
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/105 votesLoading...#23 - Web Junkie
Season 28 Episode 4 - Aired 7/13/2015
A look at Internet addiction in China via the experiences of teens at Daxing Boot Camp in Beijing, one of some 400 rehabilitation centers created by the government to treat the disorder. Patients, who are kept under constant surveillance, take part in rigorous exercise, group therapy, brain scans and classroom instruction. "It is an abyss swallowing my son," says one mother of why she sought help for her son. It's also not cheap. Parents, many at their wits' end, often borrow money to pay.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/108 votesLoading...- 7.3/1019 votesLoading...
#25 - Last Man Standing: Politics---Texas Style
Season 17 Episode 4 - Aired 7/20/2004
What is old is often new again. Most funerals today are part of a multimillion-dollar industry run by professionals. This increased reliance on mortuaries has alienated Americans from life's only inevitability — death. A Family Undertaking explores the growing home funeral movement by following several families in their most intimate moments as they reclaim the end of life, forgoing a typical mortuary funeral to care for their loved ones at home. Far from being a radical innovation, keeping funeral rites in the family or among friends is exactly how death was handled for most of pre-20th century America. Prior to the Civil War, caring for and preparing the dead for burial on family farms or in local cemeteries was both a domestic skill and a family responsibility.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of POV
Every episode of POV ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of POV!
Since its 1988 premiere, this critically acclaimed documentary series has presented hundreds of films that put a human face on contemporary social issues by relating...
Genre:Documentary
Network:PBS
Best Episodes Summary
"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)" is the best rated episode of "POV". It scored 9.2/10 based on 18 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 7/21/2009. This episode scored 0.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Act of Killing".