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Frontline Season 38 Episodes
Season 38 Episode Guide
25 Episodes 2020 - 2020
Episode 1
Targeting El Paso
Tue, Jan 7, 202053 mins
FRONTLINE investigates how El Paso, Texas became the Trump administration's immigration testing ground, and the target of a white supremacist. Interviews tell the inside story from the epicenter of the border crisis.
Episode 2
America's Great Divide: From Obama to Trump - Part 1
Mon, Jan 13, 2020114 mins
Barack Obama's promise of unity collapsed as increasing racial, cultural and political divisions laid the groundwork for the rise of Donald Trump.
Episode 3
America's Great Divide: From Obama to Trump - Part 2
Tue, Jan 14, 2020114 mins
Part Two examines how Trump's campaign exploited the country's divisions, how his presidency has unleashed anger on both sides of the divide, and what America's polarization could mean for the country's future.
Episode 4
Taliban Country
Tue, Jan 21, 2020
Nearly 20 years after the U.S. drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the group claims it holds more territory that any time since the war began in 2001. As President Trump says he wants to end the war, FRONTLINE reporter Najibullah Quraishi goes on a dangerous journey inside both Taliban- and ISIS-held territory and exposes the harsh reality that not only is the Taliban once again wielding power, but the threat from ISIS looms large.
Episode 5
The Luanda Leaks
Tue, Jan 21, 2020
Leaked documents reveal how an impoverished country was corruptly exploited by its former ruling family.
Episode 6
Battle for Hong Kong
Tue, Feb 11, 202053 mins
With unique access inside the battle for Hong Kong, FRONTLINE follows five protesters through the most intense clashes over several months of pro-democracy protests. The film examines their struggle against growing influence from the communist government of China.
Episode 7
Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos
Tue, Feb 18, 2020115 mins
Examine Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' ascent to power and the global impact of the empire he built. The film also investigates the darker side of the company's rapid growth, and the challenge of trying to rein in the power of the richest man in the world.
Episode 8
NRA Under Fire
Tue, Mar 24, 202053 mins
As the 2020 election approaches, the once-unrivaled National Rifle Association is facing both internal strife and a rising external threat: a movement led by student survivors of the Parkland mass shooting. FRONTLINE investigates the status of America's gun debate - and why the organization that has dominated it for so long is now under attack on all sides.
Episode 9
Plastic Wars
Tue, Mar 31, 202054 mins
Plastic Wars With the plastic industry expanding like never before, and the crisis of ocean pollution growing, FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the fight over the future of plastics.
Episode 10
China Undercover
Tue, Apr 7, 202053 mins
An investigation from China's Xinjiang region on the Communist regime's mass imprisonment of Muslims and its testing of surveillance technology against the population.
Episode 11
Coronavirus Pandemic
Tue, Apr 21, 202053 mins
An investigation into the government response to the coronavirus outbreak, COVID-19, and how the outbreak impacts poor children in the Midwest.
Episode 12
Inside Italy's COVID War
Tue, May 19, 202053 mins
Doctors in Northern Italy are forced to make life and death decisions regarding patients infected with COVID-19; how the coronavirus outbreak impacts families in the U.S. who are already facing poverty.
Episode 13
Flint's Deadly Water
Tue, Sep 10, 201953 mins
FRONTLINE's two-year investigation traces how a public health disaster that's become known for the lead poisoning of thousands of children also spawned one of the largest outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in U.S. history.
Episode 13
The Virus: What Went Wrong?
Tue, Jun 16, 202085 mins
A look at why the U.S. was caught unprepared by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, and who is accountable for the lack of preparation and protection.
Episode 14
The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
Tue, Oct 1, 2019120 mins
One year after the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a two-hour FRONTLINE documentary investigates the rise and rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia (MBS). Correspondent Martin Smith, who has covered the Middle East for FRONTLINE for 20 years, examines the crown prince's vision for the future, his handling of dissent, his relationship with the United States -- and his ties to Khashoggi's killing.
Episode 14
Opioids, Inc.
Tue, Jun 23, 2020
The story of a drug company that pushed opioids by bribing doctors & committing insurance fraud. With the Financial Times, an investigation of how Insys Therapeutics profited from a fentanyl-based painkiller 50 times stronger than heroin.
Episode 15
On the President's Orders
Tue, Oct 8, 201955 mins
Military police and an ordinary family from the slums provide views of President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines.
Episode 15
Once Upon A Time In Iraq
Tue, Jul 14, 2020
Civilians, journalists and soldiers from both sides of the conflict explain their experience during the Iraq War, from the 2003 invasion through the 17 years that followed.
Episode 16
Zero Tolerance
Tue, Oct 22, 201955 mins
Frontline investigates how President Trump turned immigration into a powerful political weapon that fueled division and violence.
Episode 16
COVID's Hidden Toll
Tue, Jul 21, 202053 mins
While millions of Americans have been sheltering in place, FRONTLINE has been investigating the hidden toll of the pandemic of those who cannot stay home: Agricultural workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, who have been deemed essential to the nation's food supply. In COVID's Hidden Toll, numerous farmworkers speak out about their experiences of having to choose between their health and their jobs - and what they say is a lack of protection from their companies. With Latino people nationwide dying from the coronavirus at a disproportionate rate, the film examines outbreaks at several growers and meat packing plants over the past several months, and how new evidence indicates that agricultural workers have faced a heightened risk of contracting the coronavirus.
Episode 17
Fire in Paradise
Tue, Oct 29, 201953 mins
Survivors and first responders provide insight into the 2018 Camp Fire in California, the most destructive wildfire in the state's history.
Episode 17
United States of Conspiracy
Tue, Jul 28, 202053 mins
The trip down the conspiracies that made Donald Trump president of the USA.
Episode 18
In the Age of AI
Tue, Nov 5, 2019113 mins
FRONTLINE explores the promise and perils of AI. The documentary traces a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our lives, our jobs and our world, and allow the emergence of the surveillance society.
Episode 18
Love, Life & the Virus
Tue, Aug 11, 202025 mins
A mother's fight to survive COVID-19 and see her newborn baby; how the novel corona-virus hit one immigrant family, their struggle to be reunited and the community that rallied around them.
Episode 19
Kids Caught in the Crackdown/Iraq's Secret Sex Trade
Tue, Nov 12, 2019
An investigation into the widespread consequences and business of the mass confinement of migrant children detained under President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
Episode 19
Growing Up Poor in America
Tue, Sep 8, 2020
Children and their families navigate poverty, homelessness, race, and new challenges brought on by COVID-19 in Ohio.
Episode 20
For Sama
Tue, Nov 19, 201995 mins
A young mother, Waad al-Kateab in Aleppo, Syria, kept her camera rolling - while falling in love, getting married, having a baby and saying goodbye as her city crumbled. A love letter from a filmmaker to her daughter - Sama.
Episode 20
Policing the Police 2020
Tue, Sep 15, 2020
Writer Jelani Cobb looks at race, policing and the prospects for reform in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.
Episode 21
The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden
Tue, Sep 22, 2020114 mins
In the midst of the historic coronavirus pandemic, economic hardship, rising unemployment, race riots and growing insecurity, U.S. citizens were called upon to choose between incumbent President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in November 2020. After four years in office, the Americans had again a choice of who should lead the nation in the future. But who are the two candidates? How was their life proceeding? How were they influenced and what distinguishes them? In this 2-hour TV special, veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team use interwoven investigative biographies of both men to answer these questions with knowledge from friends, family, colleagues and adversaries about the challenges that affected Trump and Biden's lives and how it qualifies them to face up the crisis of the nation.
Episode 22
America's Medical Supply Crisis
Tue, Oct 6, 202053 mins
The U.S. was left scrambling for critical medical equipment as COVID-19 swept the country. FRONTLINE investigates the fragmented global medical supply chain and its deadly consequences during a crisis.
Episode 23
Whose Vote Counts
Tue, Oct 20, 202053 mins
In this documentary with Columbia Journalism Investigations and USA Today, New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb reports on allegations of voter disenfranchisement, how unfounded claims of extensive voter fraud entered the political mainstream, rhetoric and realities around mail-in ballots, and how the pandemic could impact turnout. With director June Cross, the Fred W. Friendly Professor of Media and Society at Columbia, and producer Thomas Jennings, Cobb scrutinizes one of the first elections held during the pandemic - Wisconsin's April 2020 primary, which saw long lines, claims of disenfranchisement, an unprecedented number of absentee ballots and dueling legal battles between Republicans and Democrats. The film places the election within the context of America's history around voting rights and suppression, and discovers lessons for the country as a whole as the November presidential contest approaches.
Episode 24
American Voices: A Nation in Turmoil
Tue, Nov 17, 202053 mins
Filmed across the country this past year by a production team headed by Mike Shum and Blair Woodbury, "American Voices: A Nation in Turmoil" captures the diverse perspectives of a number of people - a pastor, a barber, a doctor, an activist and more - as they deal with COVID-19 in their communities, respond to George Floyd's killing, and experience the 2020 election and its aftermath as COVID cases and deaths mount once again.
Episode 25
Return from ISIS
Tue, Dec 15, 2020
This is the story of an American mother and her kids which follows them from Indiana to Raqqa, the heart of the self-declared ISIS caliphate and back. A special report three years in the making, producer Josh Baker investigates how the family ended up in Syria and what happened when they came home to the United States of America.
