Ken Burns

The Mayo Clinic tells the story of a unique medical institution that has been called a "Medical Mecca," the "Supreme Court of Medicine," and the "place for hope where there is no hope." The Mayo Clinic began in 1883 as an unlikely partnership between the Sisters of Saint Francis and a country doctor named William Worrall Mayo after a devastating tornado in rural Minnesota. Since then, it has grown into an organization that treats more than a million patients a year from all 50 states and 150 countries. Dr. Mayo had a simple philosophy he imparted to his sons Will and Charlie: "the needs of the patient come first." They wouldn't treat diseases...they would treat people. In a world where healthcare delivery is typically fragmented among individual specialties, the Mayo Clinic practices a multi-specialty, team-based approach that has, from its beginnings, created a culture that thrives on collaboration.

Join an American couple’s courageous mission in 1939 to help refugees escape Nazi-occupied Europe. Over the course of two years, the pair will risk their lives so that hundreds can live in freedom.

The Gettysburg Address is the subject of a new documentary by Ken Burns. The documentary tells the story of students at the Greenwood School whose study of the Gettysburg Address brings new understanding to the speech.

Burns’ Yosemite: A Gathering of Spirit, a documentary film produced to honor the 150th anniversary of the landmark act signed by Abraham Lincoln. This act preserved Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.

The Central Park Five talk about what the film means to them, how they met Sarah Burns, and what the screenings have been like.

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, this is the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.

In an age of globalization and deregulation, a cataclysmic strike over money and power brings baseball to the brink; dazzlingly talented Latin players transform the sport; Cal Ripken becomes baseball's new Iron Man; and Ken Griffey, Jr. and Barry Bonds are simply dazzling. The Braves dominate the National League while the Yankees build a new dynasty. As home run totals soar, sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa smash one of the game's most hallowed records. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, players on every team must make life altering decisions about how far they are willing to go to succeed.

Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns directs this engrossing documentary trilogy about the life and work of writer, philosopher, painter and publisher William Segal, a lifelong student of Eastern thought and Western spiritual traditions. The first film in the series shadows Segal in his home art studio; the second follows him to the Vézelay basilica in France; the third accompanies him on the streets of Paris as he prepares for a gallery exhibition.

The story of Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight boxing champion.

In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled "horseless carriage." Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson's trip would prove them wrong.

Largely considered to be the greatest American author, Mark Twain is celebrated in this exhaustive documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns.

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

Thomas Hart Benton's paintings were energetic and uncompromising. Today his works are in museums, but Benton hung them in saloons for ordinary people to appreciate.

For 200 years, the United States Congress has been one of the country's most important and least understood institutions. In this elegant, thoughtful and often touching portrait, Ken Burns explores the history and promise of this unique American institution. Using historical photographs and newsreels, evocative live footage and interviews with David Broder, Alistair Cooke, Cokie Roberts, Charles McDowell and others, the award-winning film chronicles the personalities, events and issues that have animated the first 200 years of Congress and, in turn, our country.

For more than 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In this lyrical, compelling and provocative portrait of the statue, Ken Burns explores both the history of America’s premier symbol and the meaning of liberty itself. Featuring rare archival photographs, paintings and drawings, readings from actual diaries, letters and newspapers of the day, the fascinating story of this universally admired monument is told. In interviews with Americans from all walks of life, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the late writers James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, The Statue of Liberty examines the nature of liberty and the significance of the statue to American life. Nominated for both the Academy Award ® and the Emmy Award ®, The Statue of Liberty received the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle, the Christopher Award and the Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival.

Ken Burns' portrait of Louisiana governor and U.S. senator Huey Long.

They called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, but because of their ecstatic dancing, the world called them Shakers. Ken Burns creates a moving portrait of this particularly American movement, and in the process, offers us a new and unusually moving way to understand the Shakers.

Today it's a symbol of strength and vitality. 135 years ago, it was a source of controversy. This documentary examines the great problems and ingenious solutions that marked the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. From conception to construction, it traces the bridge's transformation from a spectacular feat of heroic engineering to an honored symbol in American culture.