The Featherweight(2023)
The true life story of world champion Willie Pep, the fighter with the most wins in professional boxing and his long-shot journey out of retirement and back into the ring.
The true life story of world champion Willie Pep, the fighter with the most wins in professional boxing and his long-shot journey out of retirement and back into the ring.
Recruited in 1944 as an 18-year-old Harvard undergraduate to be the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project, to create a bomb before the Germans did, Ted Hall didn’t share his colleagues’ elation after the successful detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. Increasingly concerned during 1944—with Germany clearly losing the war—that a U.S. post-war monopoly on such a powerful weapon after the war could lead to nuclear catastrophe, he decided beginning that October to start passing key information about the bomb’s construction to the Soviet Union. After the war, at the University of Chicago, he met and married Joan, a fellow student with whom he shared a passion for classical music and socialist causes — and the explosive secret of his espionage. Living under a cloud of suspicion and years of FBI surveillance and intimidation, the pair raised a family while Ted refocused his scientific brilliance on groundbreaking bio-physics research.
When a thriving, top-ranked African American elementary school is threatened to be replaced by a new high school favoring the community’s wealthier residents, parents, students and educators fight for the elementary school’s survival.
Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.
Two boys escape from slavery, spend a year in a rehabilitation shelter, and eventually reunite with their families. Meanwhile, the man who rescued them launches another mission to liberate more children.
Edith and Eddie, ages 96 and 95, are America's oldest interracial newlyweds. Their unusual and idyllic love story is threatened by a family feud that triggers a devastating abuse of the legal guardianship system.
The incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The indictment and subsequent trial forces the Sung family to defend themselves – and their bank’s legacy in the Chinatown community – over the course of a five-year legal battle.
This forty-minute program was produced by the Criterion Collection in 2014.
Everyone’s talking about it, but who can explain it? Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Productions and Morgan Spurlock’s Cinelan have partnered to produce WE THE ECONOMY 20 Short Films You Can’t Afford to Miss. Each film is helmed by an acclaimed filmmaker, each with their own creative vision. The series aims to drive awareness and establish a better understanding of the U.S. economy. Told through animation, comedy, musical, non-fiction, and scripted films, WE THE ECONOMY seeks to demystify a complicated topic while empowering the public to take control of their own economic futures.
The surprising and entertaining life of renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942-2013): his early days as a freewheeling bachelor and Pulitzer Prize winner, his famously contentious partnership with Gene Siskel, his life-altering marriage, and his brave and transcendent battle with cancer.
Former football player and wrestler Chris Nowinski's quest to publicize recent findings about the often dire consequences of head concussions sustained by athletes in contact sports — injuries that have previously been considered momentary setbacks and ignored in the name of toughness and dedication to the team.
The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters — former gang members who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once caused.
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Director Steve James returns to his home town of Hampton, Virginia to tell the story of how the trial of a young basketball star left a city divided.
At 31, filmmaker Joanna Rudnick faces an impossible decision: remove her breasts and ovaries or risk incredible odds of developing cancer. Armed with a genetic test result that leaves her vulnerable and confused, she balances dreams of having her own children with the unnerving reality that she is risking her life by holding on to her fertility.
An investigation of the wrongful death of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in Texas on December 7, 1989, after prosecutors ignored evidence inculpating a man, who bragged to friends about committing the crimes of which DeLuna was convicted.
Former indie film "guru" John Pierson takes his family to Fiji for one year to run the world's most remote movie theater.
The New Americans follows a diverse group of immigrants and refugees as they leave their home and families behind and learn what it means to be new Americans in the 21st century.
In 1995 Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) returned to rural Southern Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, a troubled young boy he had been an 'Advocate Big Brother' to ten years earlier.
True story of boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling and their enduring friendship.
A true story of a priest (Andre Braugher) in New Orleans who formed a group of black players and challenged an all-white prep school basketball team in the 1960's. Eventually events like these signaled the pivotal turn in the games' history leading to the integration in today's sport. Directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams), these basketball players didn't just make shots, they made history.
It's the true-life story of legendary track star Steve Prefontaine, the exciting and sometimes controversial "James Dean of Track," whose spirit captured the heart of the nation! Cocky, charismatic, and tough, "Pre" was a running rebel who defied rules, pushed limits ... and smashed records ...
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.
A documentary about neighborhood people creating change. Produced for the MacArthur Foundation by Kartemquin Films, this piece features six vignettes on community organizing in different Chicago neighborhoods: LeClaire Courts, Marquette Park, Roseland, Pilsen, Uptown, Rogers Park and Garfield Park.