Bill Moyers

It’s one of the most popular and beloved songs in the English language. Transcending race, creed, geography, generation, and social station, Amazing Grace has been recorded more times than any other hymn and is widely credited with transforming lives. Bill Moyers explores the song’s origins and enduring power in conversations with Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Jean Ritchie, Jessye Norman and members of the Harlem Boys Choir.

In this documentary profile, Bill Moyers travels with Maya Angelou to Stamps, Arkansas, the segregated Southern town where she grew up. Revisiting the landscapes and memories of her youth, Angelou reflects on race, memory, and the experiences that shaped her voice as one of America’s most celebrated writers. (Note: Originally produced as an episode of the PBS series "Creativity with Bill Moyers" (1982), this program has circulated independently under the title Portrait of Maya Angelou through library and educational distribution, justifying its treatment as a standalone documentary listing.)

Bill Moyers interviews film director and actor John Huston who discusses his career and the process of filmmaking. Includes a documentary segment on Huston's life, excerpts from some of his films, and an the on-set production of his latest film. (Note: Originally produced as an episode of the PBS series "Creativity with Bill Moyers" (1982), this program has circulated independently and has been distributed and exhibited separately, supporting its treatment as a standalone documentary listing.)

Performance and conversation with husband-and-wife poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon at a New Jersey festival, in their Wilmot, NH hometown and their Eagle Pond farmhouse.

This film from Bill Moyers is the first documentary to focus exclusively on people formerly detained in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island Jail. They tell their compelling stories direct to the camera, revealing the violent arc of the Rikers experience – from the trauma of entry to extortion and control by inmates, to oppressive corrections officers, violence and solitary confinement.

Hate has many faces: racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, sectarianism, domestic violence. But do we really understand its roots, and are there practical ways to cope with it? What is hate doing to us? And what does hate do for us?

The dramatic story of two blue-collar Milwaukee families over two decades. As they struggle to find their place in the new economy, living from paycheck to paycheck through good times and bad, the Neumanns and Stanleys confront choices for themselves and their families that have far-reaching consequences for the American way of life.

Between Two Worlds is part two of BECOMING AMERICAN: The Chinese Experience. The 1882 Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country and becoming citizens. It also ushered in the most violent decade in Chinese-American history, with assault, arson, and murder becoming ever-present dangers for a people marginalized in the eyes of the law. Part Two of BECOMING AMERICAN: The Chinese Experience tells the story of these hostile years when Chinese Americans existed in a kind of limbo, denied the rights of their new country and no longer at home in their former one. They found refuge in Chinatowns.

A TV documentary following two American families from 1991 to 2013, chronicling their struggles while trying to maintain their place in the American middle class

No Turning Back is part three of BECOMING AMERICAN: The Chinese Experience. World War II ushered in the beginning of major changes for the Chinese in America. At war with Japan, China became an American ally. In an abrupt about-face, Chinese Americans found themselves suddenly embraced by America's political establishment, and the exclusion laws were quickly repealed. To fuel the war effort, Chinese men and women moved into factory jobs, military service, and other arenas formerly closed to them. With this integration into mainstream American society, barriers of racism started to dissolve. But it was in the late sixties, as Civil Rights laws and the 1965 Immigration Reform Act took effect, that Chinese Americans began their rise to the pinnacle of U.S. life.

Gold Mountain Dreams is part one of BECOMING AMERICAN: The Chinese Experience. In the 1840s, civil war and famine in southern China drove thousands of young men to seek their fortune in the California Gold Rush. This program traces the Chinese experience in America, from their welcome in San Francisco as “celestial men of commerce,” through the Gold Rush and building of the Transcontinental Railroad, to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banning their entry into this country. This program rediscovers the often-overlooked role of the Chinese and tells their stories through the lives of individuals using photos, artifacts, and interviews with descendants and historians.

In 2003, the United States pre-emptively attacked Iraq in a war that would last for eight years claiming an estimated 189,000 lives, costing over $2 trillion and causing untold economic and emotional devastation for the Iraqi people. In this 2007 documentary that originally aired on Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers investigates big media’s role as cheerleader in the clamor for war in the months preceding the March 19, 2003 invasion. How did the mainstream press get it so wrong in the run-up to the Iraq War?

A documentary part of CBS reports. The plight of mental patients fit for discharge, but who find themselves thrust into communities unprepared to treat or accept them is the focus of this documentary narrated by Bill Moyers. The dilemma of being as scared of getting well as of remaining ill and facing a world with no home or job to go to is vividly portrayed as the film follows three patients as they move into rare transition programs.

The Power of Myth is a television series originally broadcast on PBS in 1988 as Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary comprises six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell and journalist Bill Moyers.

Bill Moyers Journal is an American television current affairs program that covered an array of current affairs and human issues, including but not limited to economics, history, literature, religion, philosophy, science, and most frequently politics. Originally, Bill Moyers executive produced, wrote and hosted the Journal. WNET in New York produced it and PBS aired it from 1972 to 1976. In 1979, following a nearly three-year hiatus, many presidential members of PBS announced that Bill Moyers Journal would return for a second series. The second series covered a broader range of issues in depth. This included election coverage and documentary footage from several U.S. states, among them Florida, Texas, Illinois, D.C. and Nevada. In addition, among its pop-culture coverage, the Journal reported on the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the long-running NBC talk program The Tonight Show. Like the first installment, the second one was produced by WNET in New York City, and was aired on PBS. However, the second installment and consequently the series ended in 1981. For the third time, Bill Moyers Journal returned to television on April 25, 2007. The debut episode was "Buying The War", which demonstrated how the commercial U.S. media served as an unwitting partner to the Bush administration in convincing the American people that the Iraq War was legitimate and necessary.

Journalist Bill Moyers examines various forms of creative expression by interviewing noted artists and performers regarding their influences and inspiration, and looking at unusual outlets for the creative impulse.

Hosted by journalist Bill Moyers, this short-lived PBS public-affairs program presented documentary reports, interviews, and town-hall discussions addressing major political and cultural issues. Broadcast in the early 1990s, the series gathered independent Moyers specials under a single banner.