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The Best Episodes of Storyville

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

The Best Episodes of Storyville

Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. Screening over 340 films, from...
  1. Background image for A Syrian Love Story
    10.0/10(1 votes)

    #1 - A Syrian Love Story

    S19:E19

    Award-winning documentary film by renowned filmmaker Sean McAllister, telling the poignant story of a family torn apart by the Assad regime. When Sean begins filming them in Syria in 2009, prior to the wave of revolutions in the Arab world, Raghda is incarcerated as a political prisoner and Amer is caring for their young boys alone. Raghda is eventually released from prison, but the family is forced to flee the country following the arrest of Sean McAllister himself. In exile, Raghda battles between being a mother or a revolutionary. Filmed over five years, this is an intimate and deeply moving portrait of a family trying to survive in exile - adapting to their new home, but missing their homeland. For Raghda and Amer, it is a journey of hope, dreams and despair: for the revolution, their homeland and each other.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  2. Background image for When We Were Kings
    8.6/10(8 votes)

    #2 - When We Were Kings

    S2:E2

    On 30 October 1974, perhaps the most famous heavyweight championship boxing match of all time took place in Kinshasa, Zaire - the "Rumble in the Jungle" between champion George Foreman and challenger Muhammad Ali. In historical footage and new interviews, this documentary explores the relationship between African-Americans and the African continent during the Black Power era in terms of both popular culture and international politics, including the brutality of then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  3. Background image for Hurt Locker Hero
    8.6/10(42 votes)

    #3 - Hurt Locker Hero

    S22:E13

    The heart-stopping story of 'Crazy Fakhir', a Kurdish colonel in the Iraqi army and legendary bomb disposal expert who single-handedly disarmed thousands of landmines across the country with just a pocket knife and a pair of wire clippers. Between the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the chaos and destruction wreaked by IS ten years later, Fahkir's unwavering bravery saved thousands of lives throughout Iraq. 'Hurt Locker Hero' tells Fakhir's story through the raw and visceral amateur footage captured by his soldiers on a camcorder intended for filming family occasions. Instead, it records Fakhir endlessly snipping wires, searching family homes and digging out roadside IEDs, insisting it's too dangerous to wait hours for the highly trained American bomb disposal teams to arrive. Whilst their father and husband becomes a hero, Fahkir's wife and eight children struggle to make ends meet and worry endlessly about his safety.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  4. Background image for Navalny
    8.3/10(9 votes)

    #4 - Navalny

    S26:E10

    In August 2020, a plane travelling from Siberia to Moscow made an emergency landing. One of its passengers, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was deathly ill. Taken to a local Siberian hospital and eventually evacuated to Berlin, doctors there confirmed that he had been poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent implicated in attacks on other opponents of the Russian government. President Vladimir Putin immediately cast doubt on the findings and denied any involvement. While recovering, Navalny and his team unravel the plot against him, finding evidence of the Kremlin’s involvement, and prepare to go public with their findings.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  5. Background image for Olympic Dreams Of Russian Gold: Over The Limit
    8.2/10(6 votes)

    #5 - Olympic Dreams Of Russian Gold: Over The Limit

    S22:E5

    'You're not a human being, you're an athlete,' 20-year-old Rita is told by one of her two merciless coaches as she prepares to represent Russia in rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics. It is the most crucial year of her career and her last chance to achieve her ultimate dream, a gold medal. However gracefully Rita catches rings or rolls a ball across her shoulders, her coaches expect more from her, time and again. Described as the 'Black Swan' of sports documentaries, Over the Limit offers unprecedented access to the hidden world of elite gymnasts and the unrelentingly brutal training demanded by the Russian system.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  6. Background image for Blackfish - The Whale that Killed
    8.1/10(14 votes)

    #6 - Blackfish - The Whale that Killed

    S17:E23

    Documentary which unravels the story of notorious performing whale Tilikum, who - unlike any orca in the wild - has taken the lives of several people while in captivity. So what exactly went wrong? Shocking, never-before-seen footage and interviews with trainers and experts manifest the orca's extraordinary nature, the species' cruel treatment in captivity over the last four decades and the growing disillusionment of workers who were misled and endangered by the highly profitable sea-park industry. This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  8. Background image for The Gene Revolution: Changing Human Nature
    8.0/10(7 votes)

    #7 - The Gene Revolution: Changing Human Nature

    S24:E3

    The biggest tech revolution of the 21st century isn't digital, it's biological. A breakthrough called CRISPR has given us unprecedented control over the basic building blocks of life. It opens the door to curing diseases, reshaping the biosphere and designing our own children. This Storyville documentary is a provocative exploration of CRISPR's far-reaching implications, through the eyes of the scientists who discovered it, the families it’s affecting and the bio-engineers who are testing its limits. How will this new power change our relationship with nature? What will it mean for human evolution? To begin to answer these questions, we must look back billions of years and peer into an uncertain future.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  9. Background image for The Hijacker Who Vanished: The Mystery of DB Cooper
    8.0/10(5 votes)

    #8 - The Hijacker Who Vanished: The Mystery of DB Cooper

    S24:E19

    A mysterious fugitive, a hijacked airplane and a daring mid-air escape. This is the extraordinary, real-life tale of one of the greatest unsolved heists in American history and a case that has taunted the FBI for decades. This documentary brings the stories of the four possible suspects to life through candid testimony, archive footage and stylised drama. Each account is gripping and highly plausible. But who is telling the truth, who is lying and, ultimately, who is DB Cooper?

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  10. Background image for Exposed: Magicians, Psychics and Frauds
    7.9/10(22 votes)

    #9 - Exposed: Magicians, Psychics and Frauds

    S18:E25

    Renowned magician James 'The Amazing' Randi has been wowing audiences with his jaw-dropping illusions, escapes and sleight of hand for over 50 years. When he began seeing his cherished art form co-opted by all manner of con artists, he made it his mission to expose the simple tricks charlatans have borrowed from magicians to swindle the masses. This entertaining film chronicles Randi's best debunkings of faith healers, fortune tellers and psychics. It documents his rivalry with famed spoon-bender Uri Geller, whom Randi eventually foiled on a high-profile television appearance. Another target was evangelist Peter Popoff, whose tent-show miracles and audience mind-reading were exposed as chicanery when Randi revealed a recording of Popoff's wife feeding him information through a radio-transmitter earpiece. In telling Randi's strange, funny and fascinating life story, the film shows how we are all vulnerable to deception - even, in a surprising twist, 'The Amazing' Randi himself.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  11. Background image for Poisoning America: The Devil We Know
    7.9/10(23 votes)

    #10 - Poisoning America: The Devil We Know

    S22:E12

    A Storyville documentary following a group of citizens in West Virginia who take on a corporation after they discover it has been dumping a toxic chemical into the water supply.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  12. Background image for The Night Notre-Dame Burned
    7.8/10(8 votes)

    #11 - The Night Notre-Dame Burned

    S24:E18

    A Storyville documentary that tells the dramatic story of the devastating fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral on 15 April 2019. Blow by blow, it follows the team of brave firefighters - from the men and women on the frontline to the brigade chief - as they face the epic responsibility of saving one of the city's most emblematic and much–loved symbols from burning to the ground. As well as on-the-ground helmet cam and drone footage of the unfolding, dramatic events, the film-makers – the Naudet Brothers – who famously recorded the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11 in New York – were themselves at the scene to record a moment in history in their own capital city.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  13. Background image for The Truffle Hunters
    7.8/10(5 votes)

    #12 - The Truffle Hunters

    S26:E9

    Deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy, a handful of elderly men hunt for the rare and expensive white Alba truffle. This award-winning film follows these truffle hunters, who live and work alongside their cherished dogs in an eccentric world, guided by a secret culture and a training passed down through the generations.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  14. Background image for The Lance Armstrong Story - Stop at Nothing
    7.7/10(10 votes)

    #13 - The Lance Armstrong Story - Stop at Nothing

    S18:E15

    Documentary telling the intimate but explosive story about the man behind the greatest fraud in recent sporting history, a portrait of a man who stopped at nothing in pursuit of money, fame and success. It reveals how Lance Armstrong duped the world with his story of a miraculous recovery from cancer to become a sporting icon and a beacon of hope for cancer sufferers around the world. The film maps how Armstrong's cheating and bullying became more extreme and how a few brave souls fought back, until eventually their voices were heard. Director Alex Holmes tracks down some of his former friends and team members who reveal how his cheating was the centre of a grand conspiracy in which Armstrong and his backers sought to steal the Tour de France. Friends and fellow riders were brought into a dirty pact that no-one could betray. But the former friends whose lives he destroyed would prove to be his nemesis, and help uncover one of the dirtiest scandals in sports history.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  15. Background image for Red Penguins: Murder, Money and Ice Hockey
    7.7/10(19 votes)

    #14 - Red Penguins: Murder, Money and Ice Hockey

    S24:E21

    A tale of capitalism and opportunism run amok - complete with gangsters, strippers and live bears serving beer on a hockey rink in Moscow. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the famed Red Army hockey team formed a joint venture that showed that anything was possible in the new Russia. Eccentric marketing whiz Steve Warshaw is sent to Russia and tasked with transforming the team into the greatest show in Moscow. He takes the viewer on a bizarre journey, highlighting a pivotal moment in US-Russia relations in a lawless era when oligarchs made their fortunes and multiple murders went unsolved.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  16. Background image for K2: The Killer Summit
    7.5/10(15 votes)

    #15 - K2: The Killer Summit

    S18:E5

    In August 2008, 25 climbers from several international expeditions converged on high camp of K2, the final stop before the summit of the most dangerous mountain on earth. Just 48 hours later, 11 had been killed or simply vanished, making it the deadliest day in mountaineering history. In a century of assaults on K2, only about 300 people have ever seen the view from the planet's second highest peak. More than a quarter of those who made it didn't live long enough to share the glory. At the heart of this documentary lies a mystery about one extraordinary Irishman, Ger McDonnell. At the very limit of his physical resources, he faced a heartbreaking dilemma. Through recreations, archive and home movie footage, and interviews with survivors and families, the film creates a forensic, vivid version of events that is emotive, engrossing and, at times, deeply shocking.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  17. Background image for Russia's Toughest Prison: The Condemned
    7.5/10(12 votes)

    #16 - Russia's Toughest Prison: The Condemned

    S18:E23

    With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  18. Background image for The Farthest: Voyager's Interstellar Journey
    7.5/10(30 votes)

    #17 - The Farthest: Voyager's Interstellar Journey

    S21:E28

    Twelve billion miles away a tiny spaceship is leaving our solar system and entering the void of deep space. It is the first human-made object ever to do so. Slowly dying within its heart is a plutonium generator that will beat for perhaps another decade before the lights on Voyager finally go out. But this little craft will travel on for millions of years, carrying a Golden Record bearing recordings and images of life on Earth. The story of Voyager is an epic of human achievement, personal drama and almost miraculous success. Launched 16 days apart in 1977, the twin Voyager space probes have defied all the odds, survived countless near misses and almost 40 years later continue to beam revolutionary information across unimaginable distances. With less computing power than a modern hearing aid, they have unlocked the stunning secrets of our solar system. This film tells the story of these magnificent machines, the men and women who built them and the vision that propelled them farther than anyone could ever have hoped.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  19. Background image for Raising a School Shooter
    7.5/10(6 votes)

    #18 - Raising a School Shooter

    S25:E8

    As the disaster of yet another school shooting hits, some parents are faced with a brutal fact: their child was the one pulling the trigger. In this powerful and sensitively told Storyville documentary, set in America, three parents share their personal stories. Jeff Williams is the father of Andy, who in 2001, at the age of 15, shot and killed two classmates and wounded 13 other students. Andy, 25 at the time of filming, is now serving life in prison. Clarence Elliot’s son Nicholas shot and killed his teacher and wounded another in 1988. He too is serving life in prison. Sue Klebold’s son Dylan was one of the two teenagers behind the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, one of the deadliest school shootings in history. Dylan ended the shooting by committing suicide.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  20. Background image for Little Dieter Needs to Fly
    7.2/10(5 votes)

    #19 - Little Dieter Needs to Fly

    S1:E1

    Three decades after German-American pilot Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, he returns to the places where he was held prisoner during the early years of the Vietnam War. Accompanied by director Werner Herzog, Dengler describes in unusually candid detail his captivity, the friendships he made and his daring escape. Not willing to stop there, Herzog even persuades his subject to re-enact certain tortures, with the help of some willing local villagers.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  21. Background image for 444 Days
    7.2/10(5 votes)

    #20 - 444 Days

    S2:E5

    444 Days offers a detailed insight into the troubled history between the USA and Iran, telling the story of the 1979 hostage crisis at the American Embassy in Tehran. On 4 November 1979, hundreds of Islamic students occupied the Embassy, taking 52 US diplomats hostage and beginning a siege that would topple a president. Featuring exclusive interviews with captors and victims, 444 Days delivers a gripping account of the crisis as it unfolded.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  22. Background image for Being Evel Knievel
    7.2/10(12 votes)

    #21 - Being Evel Knievel

    S20:E9

    An enjoyable look at the first globally-famous stunt performer, exploring the charisma and showmanship at the heart of Evel Knievel's improbable success. Knievel made a career out of ridiculous stunts and rose to fame with multiple television appearances of his daredevil stunts that captured the public's imagination throughout the late 1960s and 70s. With fantastic archive, the film takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride from his early motorcycle stunts, through to his attempt to be fired across Snake River Canyon, to his time in jail for brutally assaulting his business partner. The darker side of Knievel's larger-than-life persona also emerges, especially among those who knew him best. Friends, family and business colleagues paint a complex portrait of a man who preferred to be seen as a self-styled myth. His love of alcohol, womanising, and temper were all eclipsed by an obsession with insane stunts bordering on a death wish.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  23. Background image for Accidental Anarchist: Life Without Government
    7.2/10(13 votes)

    #22 - Accidental Anarchist: Life Without Government

    S21:E18

    Carne Ross was a career diplomat who believed western democracy could save us all. But after the Iraq war he became disillusioned and resigned. This film traces Carne's worldwide quest to find a better way of doing things - from a farming collective in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street to Rojava in war-torn Syria - as he makes the epic journey from government insider to anarchist.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  24. Background image for Whirlybird: Live above LA
    7.1/10(9 votes)

    #23 - Whirlybird: Live above LA

    S25:E1

    Flying high above Los Angeles in a whirling news helicopter, Marika Gerrard and Zoey Tur (then known as Bob) spent the 80s and 90s capturing the city’s most epic breaking news stories. Before the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, this daring husband-and-wife team invested in a helicopter and pilot’s licence, taking their cameras to the sky and changing broadcast news forever. The cameras not only captured the adrenaline of live news culture, but also the subsequent strain on their relationship and an identity struggle that eventually culminated in a major life transition for Zoey. A wholly unique take on the story of Los Angeles, told through stunning aerial footage and remarkable home videos, Whirlybird reframes many of the city’s pivotal moments of the 1990s, including the OJ Simpson pursuit and the 1992 riots.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  25. Background image for The Village that Fought Back: Five Broken Cameras
    7.0/10(5 votes)

    #24 - The Village that Fought Back: Five Broken Cameras

    S18:E8

    Oscar-nominated film compiled from the video diary of a Palestinian farmer who documents unrest in his West Bank village. Emad Burnat starts filming with his first camera following the birth of his fourth son. At the same time in his village of Bil'in, a separation barrier is being built and the villagers begin to resist this decision. Over several years Burnat films this non-violent struggle against the Israeli army - which is led by two of his best friends - literally from his own point of view. Soon, these events begin to impact his own life. Bulldozers knocking down olive trees, the loss of life and night raids scare his family. His friends, brothers and even himself are either shot or arrested. One camera after another used to document these events is shot or smashed. Burnat collaborates with Israeli director Guy Davidi to produce this powerful and moving documentary of resistance life on a frontline.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  26. Background image for Mad Dog: Gaddafi's Secret World
    6.9/10(255 votes)

    #25 - Mad Dog: Gaddafi's Secret World

    S18:E4

    Colonel Gaddafi was called 'mad dog' by Ronald Reagan. His income from oil was a billion dollars a week. He washed his hands in deer's blood. No other dictator had such sex appeal and no other so cannily combined oil and the implied threat of terror to turn western powers into cowed appeasers. Filmed in Cuba, the Pacific, Brazil, the US, South Africa, Libya and Australia, the cast of this documentary consists of palace insiders and those who gave shape to Gaddafi's dark dreams. They include a fugitive from the FBI who helped kill his enemies worldwide; the widow of the Libyan foreign minister whose body Gaddafi kept in a freezer; and a female bodyguard who adored him until she saw teenagers executed. Gaddafi was a dictator like no other; their stories are stranger than fiction.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

Best Episodes Summary

"A Syrian Love Story" is the best rated episode of "Storyville". It scored 10/10 based on 1 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 9/28/2015. This episode scored 1.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "When We Were Kings".