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Frontline

PBS Documentary 5.0/5 · 6 votes

What it is

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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The Crown Prince & the President

s2026e10 · 2026-07-01

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Episode guide

24 this season · 1634 total
s20e01 An Ordinary Crime 2002-01-11 03:00

An Ordinary Crime

s20e01 · 2002-01-11 · 03:00

Filmmaker Ofra Bikel examines how a 1997 North Carolina robbery and shooting turned into an extraordinary case because one of the perpetrators knew only the first name of another. The result, Bikel contends, is that Terence Garner is serving 32 to 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, while Terrance Deloach wasn't prosecuted---even though he confessed at one point. The shooting victim swears that Garner did it, but most of the evidence Bikel points to contradicts her. Says Garner's lawyer: “If his mother had named him John he wouldn't be in prison.”

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s20e02 Inside the Terror Network 2002-01-18 03:00

Inside the Terror Network

s20e02 · 2002-01-18 · 03:00

Hedrick Smith explores the “motivation, psychology and evolution” of three men who engineered the Sept. 11 attacks. Smith follows Mohamed Atta, Marwin al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah from their middle-class childhoods in the Middle East to the cockpits of the two planes that hit the World Trade Center and the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. Smith also examines how they managed to remain undetected. “There were a half-dozen times agencies could have spotted them,” he says. “Al Qaeda was thinking bigger than American intelligence.”

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s20e03 Dot Con 2002-01-25 03:00

Dot Con

s20e03 · 2002-01-25 · 03:00

A look at the tech-stock boom and bust, and the role that the initial-public-offering process (“the big bang,” says producer Martin Smith) might have played in both. The hour follows three dot-coms through the financial “food chain” that culminated with their IPOs and examines why things went wrong (two are no longer in business). Says Smith: “They got out into the public marketplace well before they were ready.”

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s20e04 Inside the Teenage Brain 2002-02-01 03:00

Inside the Teenage Brain

s20e04 · 2002-02-01 · 03:00

A look at neurological reasons teenagers act the way they do, including examples of the moody and risky behavior caused by the neurological changes of adolescence. “In many ways,” says Jay Giedd of the National Institute of Mental Health, “it's the most tumultuous time of brain development since coming out of the womb.” Augmenting interviews with neuroscientists, educators, parents and teens is a running commentary by cartoonist Jim Borgman, who charts teen life in his comic strip “Zits.”

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s20e05 American Porn 2002-02-08 03:00

American Porn

s20e05 · 2002-02-08 · 03:00

An examination of the adult-film industry. The hour visits porn sets and contains nudity and frank language, but it's basically a business story. Thanks to the Internet, porn is a burgeoning enterprise. “It's the high-tech boom that didn't go bust,” correspondent Peter Boyer says. “New technology allowed pornography to break through into the mainstream.” That's seen here in a look at how porn is distributed. Also: interviews with pornographers; and with prosecutors who insist, says Boyer, that if pornography “is actually put before the community, the old standards will apply.”

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s20e06 Roll Over: the Hidden History of the SUV 2002-02-22 03:00

Roll Over: the Hidden History of the SUV

s20e06 · 2002-02-22 · 03:00

Tracing the 20-year-history of SUVs to explore why they roll over and what Detroit and Washington have done about it. The answer: not much, according to the journalists, lawyers and technical experts advocating SUV-design modifications who are interviewed. The hour also chronicles the 2000 Ford-Firestone rollover battle; and focuses on former Ford CEO Jacques Nasser, who notes that Ford did make some of the called-for changes for its 2002 model---but not for safety reasons. Will Lyman narrates.

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s20e07 Testing Our Schools 2002-03-29 03:00

Testing Our Schools

s20e07 · 2002-03-29 · 03:00

Correspondent John Merrow explores mandatory standardized multiple-choice tests, a major part of President Bush's education initiative. “On the surface it's apple pie and motherhood,” according to Merrow. “Doing it turns out to be messy and fascinating.” Merrow assesses the pros and cons of “standards and accountability” in visits to schools in Massachusetts, Virginia and California; and in interviews with state education officials and Secretary of Education Rod Paige.

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s20e08 Battle for the Holy Land 2002-04-05 03:00

Battle for the Holy Land

s20e08 · 2002-04-05 · 03:00

Fighters on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict describe what they're doing and why they're doing it in this examination of the military side of the hostilities. The “through-the-gunsights view” (as “Frontline” producer Michael Kirk puts it) includes footage of operations (taped in December 2001) and comments from a Palestinian man identified as a “living martyr” (a suicide-bomber-in-training). “You get an idea,” says Kirk, “that they're on some collision course that's bigger and more profound than it has been in some time.”

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s20e09 Requiem for Frank Lee Smith 2002-04-12 02:00

Requiem for Frank Lee Smith

s20e09 · 2002-04-12 · 02:00

“Requiem for Frank Lee Smith” traces the case of a Florida man who was exonerated of a crime he didn't commit---10 months after he died in prison. Smith was convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl largely on the testimony of one witness, who later changed her story and became an ardent Smith defender. As filmmaker Ofra Bikel shows, this didn't sway prosecutors, who also fought DNA testing. When they relented, in 2000, Smith was cleared. But it was too late.

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s20e10 Modern Meat 2002-04-19 02:00

Modern Meat

s20e10 · 2002-04-19 · 02:00

Safety issues in the beef industry are explored. “Producing meat today is more like manufacturing a car than farming,” says narrator Will Lyman. But cars don't attract bacteria, and this report surveys how modern meat-preparation methods have “opened up new ecological homes” for microbes, as Dr. Donald Tauxe of the Centers for Disease Control puts it. The hour also assesses USDA oversight of the industry and looks at how the industry has responded to that oversight.

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s20e11 Did Daddy Do It? 2002-04-26 02:00

Did Daddy Do It?

s20e11 · 2002-04-26 · 02:00

The case of Frank Fuster, who was convicted in 1985 of sexually abusing some 50 children at the baby-sitting service his teenage wife operated out of their Miami home. The sensational case was one of a number at the time that hinged in part on testimony “teased” from alleged victims, and the State's Attorney at the time, Janet Reno, took an active role in its prosecution. Reno stands by it here, but two of her most important witnesses---Fuster's ex-wife and son---now say that he didn't do it. Correspondent: Peter Boyer.

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s20e12 Terror and Tehran 2002-05-03 02:00

Terror and Tehran

s20e12 · 2002-05-03 · 02:00

Exploring the complexities of the American-Iranian relationship in the wake of Sept. 11 and President Bush's inclusion of Iran in what he called an “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address. Iran, governed jointly by conservative mullahs and reformist politicians, is a “schizophrenic state,” says producer Neil Docherty, who interviews representatives from both camps. “It's way too big to ignore and way too difficult to really deal with.” Also interviewed: Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; former CIA chief James Woolsey; and journalist Elaine Sciolino.

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s20e13 Muslims 2002-05-10 02:00

Muslims

s20e13 · 2002-05-10 · 02:00

A survey of Islam around the world, exploring the depth of its gulf with the West. Included: visits with religious scholars in Cairo and the Iranian holy city Qom; a Shariah (Islamic law) judge in Nigeria; and a Malaysian woman who has been seeking a civil divorce for six years. Also: the repercussions of Islam's growth in the U.S. are explored in profiles of Muslims in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, where DePaul University religion professor Aminah McCloud assesses “the Islamization of America and the Americanization of Islam.”

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s20e14 The Siege of Bethlehem 2002-06-14 02:00

The Siege of Bethlehem

s20e14 · 2002-06-14 · 02:00

“The Siege of Bethlehem” chronicles the April-May 2002 standoff between Palestinians holed up in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity and Israeli forces outside. Filmed by the British producers of the April 2002 “Frontline” report “The Battle for the Holy Land,” the hour charts firsthand the “dynamic between using force and negotiation” on the Israeli side, as series executive editor Louis Wiley puts it. And it observes Palestinians as they negotiate. Also: an interview with the father of a Palestinian killed during the standoff.

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s20e15 Bigger Than Enron 2002-06-21 02:00

Bigger Than Enron

s20e15 · 2002-06-21 · 02:00

A look at lapses in the U.S. financial-oversight system, which were highlighted by the role of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm in the collapse of Enron. “Why didn't the watchdogs bark?” asks reporter Hedrick Smith, who traces a decade of increasingly “fuzzy” regulation practices in a white-hot economy and political climate increasingly friendly to deregulation. Smith examines Andersen's role with Enron and two other companies it audited; and looks at political “battles” over executive stock options, tort-law reform and consulting by auditors. Interviewees include Andersen CEO Joseph Berardino.

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s20e16 Shattered Dreams 2002-06-28 02:00

Shattered Dreams

s20e16 · 2002-06-28 · 02:00

Reviewing the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” from the 1993 Oslo accords to 2002. Interviewed: Yasir Arafat and former Israeli prime ministers Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. There are also comments by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former U.S. special envoy Dennis Ross. Then there are the Israeli and Palestinian officials who did the bulk of the negotiating. To one, Palestinian Saeb Erekat, the conflict is “a Greek tragedy.”

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s20e24 Shattered Dreams 2002-06-28 02:00

Shattered Dreams

s20e24 · 2002-06-28 · 02:00

Reviewing the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” from the 1993 Oslo accords to 2002. Interviewed: Yasir Arafat and former Israeli prime ministers Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. There are also comments by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former U.S. special envoy Dennis Ross. Then there are the Israeli and Palestinian officials who did the bulk of the negotiating. To one, Palestinian Saeb Erekat, the conflict is “a Greek tragedy.”

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s20e17 Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero 2002-09-04 02:00

Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero

s20e17 · 2002-09-04 · 02:00

“Where was God on Sept. 11?” This two-hour report explores that question, as well as the nature of evil and of religion in comments by some 30 observers. Speakers range from clergy and academics to survivors of the World Trade Center attacks and relatives of victims. Many found their faith to be a comfort following the attacks, but others feel otherwise. There are few pat answers. After all, as Rabbi Brad Hirschfield puts it, “religion drove those planes into those buildings.”

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s20e18 Campaign Against Terror 2002-09-09 02:00

Campaign Against Terror

s20e18 · 2002-09-09 · 02:00

“The Campaign Against Terror” chronicles the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Included: comments by Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, as well as foreign leaders Tony Blair (Britain), Pervez Musharraf (Pakistan), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Gerhard Schroder (Germany) and Hamid Karzai, the Afghani leader installed after theTaliban fell. And there are U.S. special-forces personnel, who recall some “wild, wild West events” (as one puts it) on the ground.

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s20e19 The Man Who Knew 2002-10-04 02:00

The Man Who Knew

s20e19 · 2002-10-04 · 02:00

As an FBI agent who specialized in counter-terrorism, John P. O'Neill investigated the bombing of the American embassies in Africa, the USS Cole in Yemen, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the first attack on the World Trade Center. O'Neill came to believe America should kill Osama bin Laden before Al Qaeda launched a devastating attack, but his was often a lonely voice. A controversial figure inside the buttoned-down world of the FBI, he was forced out of the job he loved and entered the private sector – as director of security for the World Trade Center.

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s20e20 Missile Wars 2002-10-11 02:00

Missile Wars

s20e20 · 2002-10-11 · 02:00

A report that traces the recent history of antimissile defense, assesses its technological prospects and explores what producer Sherry Jones calls the “politics of the threat” of an ICBM attack against the U.S. An Alaska-based system is currently under construction, but the U.S. Missile Defense Agency concedes it's not yet foolproof, says Jones. The hour also features interviews with missile-defense supporters (former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz among them), and looks at the role of missile defense in the Bush Administration's security strategy. “It's as much an offense as a defense,” says Jones.

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s20e21 A Crime of Insanity 2002-10-18 02:00

A Crime of Insanity

s20e21 · 2002-10-18 · 02:00

The case of a disturbed gunman who held a class hostage at SUNY-Albany in 1994 is examined. The report explores “questions that arise when the legal and psychiatric worlds collide,” says Will Lyman. The defendant: Ralph Tortorici, a 26-year-old psychology student, who pleaded insanity. The hour includes testimony from Tortorici's trial, and features interviews with his lawyer, prosecutors, the judge, psychiatrists and Tortorici's father and brother. Sums up lead prosecutor Cheryl Coleman: “What's right as opposed to what's legal plays so little a role in the system.”

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s20e22 Let's Get Married 2002-11-15 03:00

Let's Get Married

s20e22 · 2002-11-15 · 03:00

Author Alex Kotlowitz looks at how the decline of marriage and the rise of divorce is affecting American families socially and economically. Kotlowitz visits Oklahoma (which has one of the highest divorce rates), where he says too many people marry capriciously; and inner-city Chicago, where he says too many people are too cautious about marriage. He also interviews social scientists, “marriage movement” activists, Oklahoma governor Frank Keating and Bush-administration official Wade Horn. “Marriage,” Kotlowitz concludes, “is both society's bedrock and its faultline.”

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s20e23 In Search of Al Qaeda 2002-11-22 03:00

In Search of Al Qaeda

s20e23 · 2002-11-22 · 03:00

Correspondent Martin Smith visits Pakistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia to assess U.S. efforts to track down terrorists, and to evaluate Al Qaeda's appeal among the general populations in those countries. In Pakistan, a Pashtun journalist working with Smith tours tribal areas inaccessible to Western reporters, while Smith interviews President Pervez Musharraf. And in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Smith meets with government officials (including Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah) and ordinary citizens. Among the latter he finds “a sea of resentment.” And, he adds, “the harder we push, the more resentment we create.”

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