Errol Morris

Academy Award winner Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré.

In August 1969, Charles Manson's followers killed seven people on his orders. Why? Explore a conspiracy of mind control, CIA experiments, and murder.

After befriending documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various American film genres. As they recreate their past atrocities, the line between reality and performance blurs, exposing the lingering impact of Indonesia's 1965-66 anti-communist purge and the unsettling psychology of its perpetrators.

Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of the Vietnam War. Augmented by archival footage and cabinet conversation recordings, Errol Morris gives the conflicted McNamara a platform on which he attempts to confront his and the U.S. government's actions in Southeast Asia in light of the horrors of modern warfare, the end of ideology and the punitive judgment of history.

One night in November 1976, after his car breaks down on a road outside Dallas, Randall Dale Adams accepts a ride from teenager David Harris. Harris is driving a stolen vehicle and, later that night, when Dallas police officer Robert Wood pulls the car over to check its headlights, he is shot and killed. A jury believes Adams is the killer, but stylized reenactments and interviews with key figures, conflicting testimonies and evidence are presented to argue that Adams was framed by a corrupt justice system, ultimately leading to his exoneration.

Partly adapted from cosmologist Stephen Hawking's popular book about his theories of the universe, this in-depth documentary also presents Hawking's daily life as he deals with the ALS that renders him virtually immobile and unable to speak without the use of a computer. Hawking's friends, family, former classmates and peers are interviewed about not only his theories but the man himself.

After the death of his mother, a lonely farmer in rural Switzerland considers finally starting a family of his own. Eventually he pays for a bride from Thailand. The couple don't share a language, but being to know each other. However the village neighbors are suspicious of foreigners.

Trailblazing double bassist Orin O'Brien never wanted the spotlight, but when Leonard Bernstein hired her in 1966 as the first female musician in the New York Philarmonic, it was inevitable that she would become the focus of much interest and fascination. Now 87 years old and recently retired, Orin looks back on her remarkable life and career, insisting that a fuss should not be made, much preferring to play a supporting role to the family, students, friends, and colleagues that surround her.

An Indonesian man with a communist background named Ramli was brutally murdered when the "Communist" purge occurred in 1965. His remaining family members lived in fear and silence until the making of this documentary. Adi, a brother of his, decided to revisit the horrific incident and visited the men who were responsible for the killings and one survivor of the purge. These meetings uncovered sadistic details of the murders and exposed raw emotions and reactions of the killers' family members about what happened in the past - much to Adi's disappointment.

Sonia Kennebeck takes on the controversial tactic of drone warfare, and demands accountability through the personal accounts—recollections, traumas, and responses—of three American military veterans whose lives have been shaken by the roles they played in this controversial method of attack.

Early Errol Morris documentary intersplices random chatter he captured on film of the genuinely eccentric residents of Vernon, Florida. A few examples? The preacher giving a sermon on the definition of the word "Therefore," and the obsessive turkey hunter who speaks reverentially of the "gobblers" he likes to track down and kill.

Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next 35 years, she captures the 'surfaces' of those who visit her studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables. As pictures begin to fade and her retirement looms, Dorfman gives Errol Morris an inside tour of her backyard archive.

Investigating the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal, Errol Morris interviews American guards and Iraqi prisoners who were at the military jail before images of prisoner torture emerged in 2004. One female guard, who posed alongside fallen Iraqis in notorious images, tells Morris that her crimes were inspired by her love for another soldier, and another explains why she took photographs of her fellow troops. In the process, Morris suggests that the scandal resulted from systemic flaws in the military.

One of America's top documentary filmmakers turns his attention to the outrageous and nearly unbelievable story of Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming beauty queen who gained a great deal of notoriety after being accused of kidnapping a young Mormon missionary, restraining him in chains and raping him in 1977 England. The unbalanced McKinney is extensively interviewed, particularly about her ambition to write a memoir telling her side of the tale.

An examination of the notorious high priest of LSD Timothy Leary through the eyes of his famed lover Joanna Harcourt-Smith.

What begins as a Navajo officer's investigation into a prop plane crash on his Southwest reservation gives way to a drug smuggling ring and murder.

Errol Morris interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals: a lion tamer shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener devotes a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.

An eccentric millionaire hides $3 million of gold somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, luring thousands out on a wild treasure hunt in search of riches and redemption.

In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.

Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris investigates the case of a man who became an authority on capital punishment, but was discredited when he got involved on the wrong side of a court case. Leuchter, a meek man whose appearance belies his grim expertise, develops what he says is a more effective electric chair. Before long, he's in demand from officials who want his opinions on other execution methods. But when called to aid the case of an accused Holocaust denier, Leuchter's problems begin.

From the outside, the DeHart’s were an All-American family. Parents Paul and Leann were U.S. Military members, and son Matt was obsessed with computers from an early age. As a military family, they moved around during Matt’s adolescence, and Matt really grew up online. When Matt’s work with the hacker collective Anonymous rouses the suspicions of the U.S. government, the family is drawn into a bizarre web of secrets and espionage.

Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A showcase of workers in the animal burial industry while dealing with heavier existential questions regarding mortality and the afterlife. Floyd 'Mac' McClure believes that a graceful burial is as important for pets as it is for people; he chronicles his struggles to keep his niche business afloat, and interviews several of his associates and one of his competitors, the manager of a rendering plant.

On the verge of her 90th birthday, a grandmother reveals to her grandson the painful story of her sister's disappearance during the Holocaust and the survivor's guilt she carries.

American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.

The home for the world's boldest contemporary filmmakers, celebrating intriguing personal stories that spark conversation and inspire action.

In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.

When Army surgeon Jeffrey MacDonald is sent to prison for killing his family, a storm of swirling narratives challenges our very ability to find the truth all the while overshadowing a chilling possibility: MacDonald may be an innocent man. Based on the best-selling book by Errol Morris.

First Person was an American TV series produced and directed by Errol Morris. The show engaged a varied group of individuals from civil advocates to criminals. Interviews were conducted with "The Interrotron", a device similar to a teleprompter: Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera. The image of each person's face is then projected onto a two-way mirror positioned in front of the lens of the other's camera. Instead of looking at a blank lens, then, both Morris and his subject are looking directly at a human face. Morris believes that the machine encourages monologue in the interview process, while also encouraging the interviewees to "express themselves to camera".