It has been another tumultuous year for America and the world.
Over the past 12 months, FRONTLINE has kept pace, releasing more than 20 new documentaries probing some of the most critical issues of our times.
We’ve investigated far-right
extremist violence and threats to democracy at
home
and
abroad
, including attempts to
undermine
the American presidential election. We’ve chronicled the still-unfolding
coronavirus pandemic
, concerns about the
U.S. economy
?and the Taliban’s takeover in
Afghanistan
amid the U.S. withdrawal. We’ve told the story of a journalist fighting for press freedom in the Philippines who has since become a
Nobel Peace Prize winner
.
And that’s just to name a few.
As the year draws to a close, we’ve collected the 10 new-in-2021 FRONTLINE documentaries that, as of press time, had earned the most streams this year on all PBS platforms (browser video players and the PBS Video App) and our YouTube channel combined. Streaming numbers were combined for two-part documentaries.
Read on to discover which films made the list ? and which documentary was voted the
fan favorite of the year
by our YouTube audience. All 10 of this year’s most-streamed films are available to watch on demand below, as well as on the
PBS Video App
and on
YouTube
. And for even more journalism from FRONTLINE, explore our online collection of
more than 300 streaming documentaries
.
A dangerous ideology, resurgent. This June 2021 documentary, in collaboration with the WNET Group’s Exploring Hate initiative, investigated the rise of far-right extremism and violence in Germany, decades after the Holocaust. It traced how extremists have infiltrated security services and have carried out terror plots and attacks on Jews, migrants and politicians? ? and it explored what authorities have and
haven’t done
to confront the problem.
More to explore:
Learn about
Germany’s laws
on hate speech, Nazi propaganda and Holocaust denial. Plus, read what filmmaker
Evan Williams
found while working on the documentary.
Twenty years after the Sept. 11 attacks, an epic re-examination of the decisions that changed the world and transformed the U.S. across four presidencies. From the wars in
Afghanistan
and Iraq to the
Jan. 6 insurrection
at home, this two-hour documentary that premiered in September 2021 exposed the complex legacy of 9/11 and the ongoing challenges it poses for the U.S. president and the nation.
More to explore:
To produce the film, FRONTLINE conducted more than two dozen original?interviews?and drew on our archive of hundreds more?interviews?from 20 years of covering 9/11?and its?aftermath. Explore
35 of these?interviews
?in video or text, as a part of FRONTLINE’s ongoing Transparency Project. Plus: Listen to a conversation with filmmaker
Michael Kirk
on
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
podcast.
An in-depth look at how crisis and tragedy prepared Joe Biden to become America’s 46th president. In this January 2021 film that aired the night before the inauguration, those who know Biden best ? as well as his chroniclers and his critics ? took viewers through the moments and crises that have shaped his approach to life and to governing.
More to explore:
Listen to a conversation with filmmaker
Michael Kirk
on
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
that set the scene as the Biden administration began ? amid fallout from the Capitol insurrection, President Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and the COVID-19 death toll reaching new heights. And
explore the interviews
that went into the making of the film via our FRONTLINE Transparency Project.
How did far-right extremist groups evolve in the wake of the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally ? and what threat did they pose in 2021? In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, FRONTLINE, ProPublica and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program teamed up for this feature-length April 2021 documentary, building on years of FRONTLINE’s
reporting
with ProPublica on the rise of
violent extremism
in America.
More to explore:
Delve into a
timeline
of domestic extremism in the U.S. from Charlottesville to Jan. 6; read more reporting on the
Boogaloo Bois
and
others present
at the
Capitol riot
and in the U.S.
armed forces
; and
listen
to a conversation with ProPublica reporter and FRONTLINE correspondent A.C. Thompson about why law enforcement was so easily overpowered.
From lockdowns to funerals to protests, the epic story of how people around the world navigated the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. Filmed across the globe and using extensive
personal video
and local footage, this two-part special from April 2021 documented how people and countries responded to COVID-19 across cultures, races, faiths and privilege.
More to explore:
See how COVID-19 has impacted people around the world in their
own words
in a mini interactive and read a conversation with an
immunologist
whose team was the first to sequence the COVID-19 genome in Brazil.
How Donald Trump stoked division, violence and insurrection, from his first days as president to his last. This January 2021 film, which aired just three weeks after the Capitol insurrection, investigated Trump’s siege on his enemies, the media and even the leaders of his own party, who for years ignored the
warning signs
of what was to come.
More to explore:
Production of
Trump’s American Carnage
began after a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. To help tell the story of the politics that led up to that moment, FRONTLINE conducted 12 original interviews and drew on scores of archival interviews from the last five years. From FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, explore expanded versions of the
interviews
that appear in the film.
Before she was named a recipient of the
2021 Nobel Peace Prize
, journalist Maria Ressa was the subject of this feature-length film examining Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s escalating crackdown on the press. The documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020 and had its U.S. broadcast premiere with FRONTLINE in January 2021, provided a powerful look at the implications for democracy when press freedom is threatened and disinformation flourishes on social media, with a focus on Ressa’s efforts to “hold the line.”
More to explore:
Listen
to a conversation on
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
with Ressa and filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz, recorded days before the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.
What did the airplane maker Boeing know about the potential for disaster with its 737 Max passenger jet, and when did the company know it??This September 2021 documentary from FRONTLINE and
The New York Times
investigated the lead-up to the two 737 Max plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people ? detailing commercial pressures, flawed design, failed oversight and the
human toll
.
More to explore:
Hear
filmmaker Tom Jennings and
New York Times
reporter David Gelles discuss how the flawed 737 Max made it into the air in
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
. Plus, read about
what has happened to Boeing
since the crashes, as well as developments
in court
and
in the Senate
.
When COVID-19 struck, the U.S. Federal Reserve stepped in to avert economic crisis, deploying a strategy it debuted after the 2008 crash and pumping billions of dollars into the financial system daily. Amid
concerns
about inflation and economic inequality, this July 2021 documentary in collaboration with The WNET Group’s Chasing the Dream initiative investigated who has benefited from the actions of the country’s central bank and at what cost.
More to explore:
Listen to filmmaker James Jacoby and financial journalist Dion Rabouin, who was featured in the documentary,
discuss
the Federal Reserve’s big experiment in
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
. Plus, read five things you might not know about Fed chair
Jerome Powell
and an explainer on the
Federal Reserve Board
, as well as continued reporting on the Fed’s
monetary
and
ethics
policy changes and what its
latest moves
could mean for inflation.
*This documentary was voted
fan favorite of the year
by FRONTLINE’s YouTube audience*
The untold story of the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and how China responded. In this feature-length documentary from February 2021, Chinese scientists, doctors
and health workers
? as well as international disease experts and health officials ? revealed
missed opportunities
to suppress the outbreak and lessons for the world.
More to explore:
Peruse a
timeline
of China’s response in the first days of COVID-19 and read about a Chinese disinformation campaign to
discredit U.S. vaccine efforts
.
Stream hundreds more FRONTLINE documentaries
online
?and on the
PBS Video App
. Explore past years’ most-streamed films of
2020
,
2019
,
2018
and
2017
. And watch your way through our all-time most-streamed
documentaries
on YouTube.
Patrice Taddonio
,
Senior Digital Writer
,
FRONTLINE