First Aired: January 17th, 1983
Status: Continuing
Network: PBS
Summary: Since it began in 1983, Frontline has been airing public-affairs documentaries that explore a wide scope of the complex human experience. Frontline's goal is to extend the impact of the documentary beyond its initial broadcast by serving as a catalyst for change.
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Season 2020
Episode 1: Targeting El Paso
Air Date: January 7th, 2020
Summary: FRONTLINE investigates how El Paso, Texas became the Trump administration’s immigration policy testing ground, and then the target of a white supremacist. Interviews with current and former officials, Border Patrol agents, advocates and migrants tell the inside story from the epicenter of the border crisis.
Episode 2: America's Great Divide - Obama to Trump (1)
Air Date: January 13rd, 2020
Summary: FRONTLINE begins its 2020 election year coverage with a two-part, four-hour documentary series investigating America’s increasingly bitter, divided and toxic politics.
From veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, America’s Great Divide - From Obama to Trump draws on revelatory new interviews with key political and cultural figures, as well as an unparalleled archive of in-depth broadcast reporting across two presidential administrations, to offer crucial context for the current moment.
Part One traces how Barack Obama’s promise of unity collapsed as increasing racial, cultural and political divisions laid the groundwork for the rise of Donald Trump.
Episode 3: America's Great Divide - Obama to Trump (2)
Air Date: January 14th, 2020
Summary: FRONTLINE begins its 2020 election year coverage with a two-part, four-hour documentary series investigating America’s increasingly bitter, divided and toxic politics.
From veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, America’s Great Divide - From Obama to Trump draws on revelatory new interviews with key political and cultural figures, as well as an unparalleled archive of in-depth broadcast reporting across two presidential administrations, to offer crucial context for the current moment.
Part Two examines how Trump’s campaign exploited the country’s divisions, how his presidency has unleashed anger on both sides of the divide, and what America’s polarization could mean for the country’s future.
Episode 4: Taliban Country / The Luanda Leaks
Air Date: January 21st, 2020
Summary: Taliban Country - Nearly 20 years after the U.S. drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the group claims it holds more territory that any time since the war began in 2001. As President Trump says he wants to end the war, FRONTLINE reporter Najibullah Quraishi goes on a dangerous journey inside both Taliban- and ISIS-held territory and exposes the harsh reality that not only is the Taliban once again wielding power, but the threat from ISIS looms large.
The Luanda Leaks - As part of a worldwide investigation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that draws on a trove of more than 700,000 leaked documents, FRONTLINE examines how Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, built a business empire with access to state funds from one of the poorest countries on earth — and the role U.S. companies have played in helping her amass her fortune.
Episode 5: Battle for Hong Kong
Air Date: February 11st, 2020
Summary: With unique access inside the battle for Hong Kong, FRONTLINE follows five protesters through the most intense clashes over several months of pro-democracy protests. The film examines their struggle against what they say is growing influence from the communist government of mainland China.
Episode 7: NRA Under Fire
Air Date: March 24th, 2020
Summary: Once an unrivaled political power, the NRA is facing challenges from all sides. FRONTLINE investigates the organization’s history and evolution, how it aligned with President Donald Trump and his base, and why it is under attack ahead of the 2020 election.
Episode 9: China Undercover
Air Date: April 7th, 2020
Summary: With undercover footage and firsthand accounts from survivors of China's detention camps, FRONTLINE investigates the Communist regime’s mass imprisonment of Muslims, and its use of sophisticated surveillance technology against the Uyghur community.
Episode 10: Coronavirus Pandemic
Air Date: April 21st, 2020
Summary: How did the U.S. become the country with the worst known coronavirus outbreak in the world? FRONTLINE investigates the American response to COVID-19 — from Washington State to Washington, D.C. — and examines what happens when politics and science collide.
Episode 11: Inside Italy's COVID War
Air Date: May 19th, 2020
Summary: FRONTLINE goes inside a hospital battling the coronavirus crisis in northern Italy, as doctors are forced to make life and death decisions. An intimate, exclusive story that follows one besieged ER doctor, her staff and the patients suffering from COVID-19, from the darkest days to the signs of hope.
Episode 12: The Virus - What Went Wrong?
Air Date: June 16th, 2020
Summary: As COVID-19 spread from Asia to the Middle East to Europe, why was the U.S. caught so unprepared? Despite repeated warnings of a potent contagion headed our way, America’s leaders failed to prepare and protect us. Why and who is accountable?
Episode 13: Opioids, Inc.
Air Date: June 23rd, 2020
Summary: The story of a drug company that pushed opioids by bribing doctors and committing insurance fraud. With the Financial Times, FRONTLINE investigates how Insys Therapeutics profited from a fentanyl-based painkiller 50 times stronger than heroin.
Episode 14: Once Upon a Time in Iraq
Air Date: July 14th, 2020
Summary: This is the story of the Iraq war, told by Iraqis who lived through it. They share their personal accounts and lasting memories of life under Saddam Hussein, the U.S.-led invasion of their country and the 17 years of chaos that followed — from the sectarian violence to the rise and brutal reign of ISIS.
Episode 15: COVID's Hidden Toll
Air Date: July 21st, 2020
Summary: FRONTLINE examines how the COVID crisis has hit vulnerable immigrants and undocumented workers. The documentary follows the coronavirus pandemic’s invisible victims, including crucial farm and meat-packing workers who lack protections and have been getting sick.
Episode 16: United States of Conspiracy
Air Date: July 28th, 2020
Summary: How trafficking in conspiracy theories went from the fringes of U.S. politics into the White House. FRONTLINE examines the alliance of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Trump advisor Roger Stone, and the president, and their role in the battle over truth and lies.
Episode 17: Love, Life & the Virus / Undocumented in the Pandemic
Air Date: August 11st, 2020
Summary: Two intimate stories of immigrant families whose lives were upended by the coronavirus. "Love, Life and the Virus" follows Zully, a 30-year-old mother, who is diagnosed with COVID-19 — and gives birth while on a ventilator. “Undocumented in the Pandemic” tells the story of an family’s struggle to stay together, as a father is detained by ICE in a facility where COVID-19 is spreading.
Episode 18: Growing Up Poor in America
Air Date: September 8th, 2020
Summary: Their families were already struggling to make ends meet. Then came the coronavirus.
Director Jezza Neumann, who made 2012’s Poor Kids, once again delves into how poverty impacts children. With the 2020 election approaching, Growing Up Poor in America follows three children and their families in the battleground state of Ohio as the COVID-19 pandemic amplifies their struggle to stay afloat. As the country also reckons with issues of race and racism, the children share their worries and hopes about their futures.
Episode 19: Policing the Police 2020
Air Date: September 15th, 2020
Summary: George Floyd's killing triggered mass demonstrations nationwide calling for racial justice and police accountability in the United States. In the wake of those protests, New Yorker writer and historian Jelani Cobb returns to a troubled police department he first visited four years ago to examine whether reform can work, and how police departments can be held accountable.
Episode 20: The Choice 2020 - Trump vs. Biden
Air Date: September 22nd, 2020
Summary: In the midst of the historic coronavirus pandemic, economic hardship and a reckoning over racism, this November Americans will decide who leads the nation for the next four years - President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden. Ahead of the 2020 election, FRONTLINE’s critically acclaimed series “The Choice” returns with interwoven investigative biographies of both men, focusing on how they have responded in moments of crisis.
In this 2-hour special from veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, hear from friends, family, colleagues and adversaries about the challenges that shaped Trump and Biden’s lives and could inform how they confront the crises facing the nation at this pivotal juncture.
Episode 21: America's Medical Supply Crisis
Air Date: October 6th, 2020
Summary: Why was the United States left scrambling for critical medical equipment as the coronavirus swept the country? With the Associated Press, FRONTLINE investigates the fragmented global medical supply chain and its deadly consequences.
Aired 2020-10-06.
Episode 22: Whose Vote Counts
Air Date: October 20th, 2020
Summary: As America chooses its next president in the midst of a historic pandemic, FRONTLINE investigates whose vote counts — and whose might not. With Columbia Journalism Investigations and USA Today, New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb reports on allegations of voter disenfranchisement, rhetoric and realities around mail-in ballots, and how the pandemic could impact turnout.
Episode 23: American Voices - A Nation in Turmoil
Air Date: November 17th, 2020
Summary: From the pandemic to the polls, 2020 has been a time of tumult across a deeply divided America. FRONTLINE presents a post-election special on the lives, fears and hopes of Americans in the chaotic months leading up to the historic presidential contest. This documentary was filmed around the U.S. for much of the year, following Americans as they dealt with COVID-19 in their communities this spring, responded to George Floyd’s killing this summer, and then experienced the polarizing election and its aftermath this fall.
Episode 24: Return From ISIS
Air Date: December 15th, 2020
Summary: Return From ISIS follows an American mom and her kids from Indiana to the heart of the self-declared ISIS caliphate and back. In this special report three years in the making, producer Josh Baker (Battle for Iraq) investigates how the family ended up in Syria and what happened when they came home to the United States.
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