George O'Donnell

This documentary on the elusive director Alan Smithee was first shown on the American Movie Classics (AMC) cable channel. We learn where the name came from and why the Directors Guild of America (DGA) first allowed his name to be used on Richard Widmark's western Death of a Gunfighter. The film follows the numerous problems that director Tony Kaye had during the production and post-production of the film American History X and why the DGA refused to allow Alan Smithee to be credited for that film.

Traces the life of director Alexandra Shiva’s late mother, Susan, an actress and travel agent, and the daughter of Hollywood mogul Jules C. Stein. As the filmmaker sifts through her mom’s belongings, including a trove of 16mm footage, she pieces together the traces of a childhood shaped by privilege, loss, and longing.

The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the eugenics movement and its long history in the United States, from its beginnings in the study of heredity, to its rise as a popular movement promising to uplift the human race through state sponsored sterilization, to its influence on immigration laws designed to close our borders to groups deemed genetically inferior.

A quiet take on a very noisy subject—the rise of hate and intolerance against the LGBTQIA+ community—as two young brothers observe and absorb their first Drag Story Hour. A refrain of “It’s okay” underscores their experience, and this simple utterance takes on a multitude of meanings in its repetition, from assurance to question, hope to fear.

A documentary re-telling of the remarkable and dangerous journey taken by President Theodore Roosevelt and legendary Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon into the heart of the South American rainforest to chart an unexplored tributary of the Amazon.

550,000 Jewish American men and women fought in World War II. In their own words, veterans both famous and unknown (from Hollywood director Mel Brooks to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger) bring their war experiences to life: how they fought for for their nation and their people, struggled with anti-Semitism within their ranks, and emerged transformed, more powerfully American and more deeply Jewish.

At 22, Gail gave birth alone and left her newborn in the woods. Decades later, she's arrested for murder, despite claiming the baby was stillborn. This documentary explores the fallout when young women cannot accept the reality of an unplanned pregnancy.

A fascinating look at the myth and the man behind it, who, in just a few short years transformed himself from a skinny orphan boy to the most feared man in the West and an enduring western icon.

On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world's two largest oceans and signaling America's emergence as a global superpower.

An illiterate mountain man, Kit Carson was fluent in Spanish and five Indian languages; he twice married Native American women, yet led a brutal war against the Navajo. When the West was a mystery to most Americans, Carson mastered it, and his expertise made him not only famous, but also sought after. Eventually, by helping to spur a migration that would change the West forever, he unwittingly became an agent in the destruction of the life he loved.

Harold, on the strength of a letter telling him of a large legacy left to him, wrecks the grocery store in which he is employed, then dates up the village belle for a swell dinner. A second letter informs Harold that the money cannot be found, and that his legacy consists of one fur coat. Determined to make a splash in the village, he dons the coat and keeps his appointment with the belle, although it leaves him broke when she is done satisfying her Broadway appetite. Uncle Ben, the pawnbroker, comes in handy and after much haggling over the price, he relieves Harold of the legacy. When Harold learns that his uncle's fortune was sewed up in the lining of the coat he has some job getting the "benny" back, but he finally succeeds and recovers the cash.

In a quiet Orlando, Florida, suburb three young men struggle to escape the wreckage of their pasts and create new lives for themselves. Their new home is CollegeBoysLive.com, a voyeur web cam house rigged with 32 cameras, where their every move is watched by thousands of paying members. The site's creator claims CollegeBoysLive.com is simply about showing that "it's okay to be gay." But the neighbors insist it's a pornographic whorehouse and sue to have them evicted. This intimate and provocative documentary examines a complex subculture, but at its heart is the universal search for family and acceptance

An intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma, Jacinta follows a young woman in and out of prison as she attempts to break free from an inherited cycle of addiction, incarceration, and crime.

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

Explore the many lives of Martin Scorsese through intimate interviews with the man himself, access to his private archives, plus conversations with Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Daniel Day-Lewis, Steven Spielberg, and more.

Indie Sex is a 2007 American television documentary film directed by Lesli Klainberg.

Explores 350 years of Jewish American history, beginning with the first Jews who arrive in the 17th century, who epitomized the immigrant experience. Even as they faced rejection, Jews embraced American culture while keeping alive their own heritage. Focusing on the tension amid identity and assimilation, the series features Jewish Americans who have made major contributions to American life. (Yad Vashem)

Jack Roosevelt Robinson rose from humble origins to cross baseball’s color line and become one of the most beloved men in America. A fierce integrationist, Robinson used his immense fame to speak out against the discrimination he saw on and off the field, angering fans, the press, and even teammates who had once celebrated him for “turning the other cheek.” After baseball, he was a widely-read newspaper columnist, divisive political activist and tireless advocate for civil rights, who later struggled to remain relevant as diabetes crippled his body and a new generation of leaders set a more militant course for the civil rights movement.