Inspired by a book by acclaimed historian Simon Schama, Murder at Harvard uses a combination of film-noir drama and present-day documentary footage to tell the true tale of one of the most notorious American crimes of the 19th century. Grappling with frustrating gaps in the historical record, Schama assumes the role of a time-travelling detective who takes an unusual step for an historian and imagines how certain scenes and encounters might have played out. "Maybe I thought what I was after was not a literal documentary truth," Schama tells us, "but a poetic truth — an imaginative truth — and for that I was going to have to become my own Resurrection man. I was going to have to make these characters live again."
Inspired by a book by acclaimed historian Simon Schama, Murder at Harvard uses a combination of film-noir drama and present-day documentary footage to tell the true tale of one of the most notorious American crimes of the 19th century. Grappling with frustrating gaps in the historical record, Schama assumes the role of a time-travelling detective who takes an unusual step for an historian and imagines how certain scenes and encounters might have played out. "Maybe I thought what I was after was not a literal documentary truth," Schama tells us, "but a poetic truth — an imaginative truth — and for that I was going to have to become my own Resurrection man. I was going to have to make these characters live again."
2003-07-14
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6.8When a young woman's skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with the help of a Harvard professor, to determine the woman's identity, how she died, and who killed her.
6.6Reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole bravely pursue the story of the Boston Strangler at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.
7.2After a former model is drowned in her bathtub, Detective James Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon attempt to piece together her murder.
7.3The story of British serial killer John Christie, who committed most or all of his crimes in the titular terraced house, and the miscarriage of justice involving Timothy Evans.
7.3Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
6.4A private investigator helps a former flame solve the murder of her wealthy grandfather, who lived in a sprawling estate surrounded by his idiosyncratic family.
6.3Dexter Cornell, an English Professor becomes embroiled in a series of murders involving people around him. Dexter has good reason to want to find the murderer but hasn't much time. He finds help and comfort from one of his student, Sydney Fuller.
5.9Coming from a police family, Tom Hardy ends up fighting his uncle after the murder of his father. Tom believes the killer is another cop, and goes on the record with his allegations. Demoted to water-way duty Tom, along with new partner Jo Christman, navigate the three rivers looking for clues and discovering bodies. This time the victims are women Tom knows, he must find the killer to prove his innocence.
6.7Unhappily married Richard Mason concocts a meticulous scheme to kill his shrewish wife so that he'll be free to marry her sister.
6.3A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.
6.4Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.
6.0An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors only to witness a disturbing act of violence.
6.2Still recovering from a heart transplant, a retired FBI profiler returns to service when his own blood analysis offers clues to the identity of a serial killer.
6.7Set in a gritty and decadent 1970s America, American Boogeyman follows the elusive and charming killer and the manhunt that brought him to justice involving the detective and the FBI rookie who coined the phrase ‘serial killer’.
7.7After the suspicious suicide of a fellow cop, tough homicide detective Dave Bannion takes the law into his own hands when he sets out to smash a vicious crime syndicate.
6.9An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.
6.0At Oxford University, a professor and a grad student work together to try and stop a potential series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols.
6.3During a murder hunt game at a country house, to which Hercule Poirot is invited as an "expert", a real murder occurs.
6.1When his daughter is murdered, William Duncan takes the law into his own hands, setting out on a quest for retribution. After killing the street thug responsible for her death, he finds himself in the middle of a war with the thug's brother, father, and their gang, who are equally hell-bent on getting even. What ensues is a tense back-and-forth game of vengeance. By the end, William comes to find that the quest for revenge never has a winner.
4.3Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag'. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit', who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits.
6.4Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.
6.3A riveting expose about the personalities of murderers and their motives. This 72 minute film covers the McDonalds' restaurant massacre, President Reagan's assassination attempt, serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas and others.
5.6Steve McNair was an NFL legend whose life was seemingly cut short by a crime of passion. Is there more to this chilling tragedy than meets the eye?
6.8Feature length documentary examining the troubled life and tragic death of college football standout and talented NFL running back Lawrence Phillips, whose scars of childhood abuse and abandonment haunted him throughout his career.
0.0Unpacking and questioning the evidence used to convict neonatal nurse Lucy Letby.
0.0The story behind the murder of 16-year-old Becky Watts, who was killed by her stepbrother Nathan Matthews and his 21-year-old partner Shauna Hoare in Bristol in February 2015. This programme documents the huge police manhunt that unfolded in the wake of her disappearance, and the police investigation which eventually brought her murderous stepbrother to justice.
7.0This documentary about serial killers and FBI Behavioral Sciences profilers features interviews with Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy as well as crime victims and law enforcement officials. The film includes some dramatic recreations.
7.0Spain, November 5, 2021. After an emergency landing, several people traveling from Casablanca (Morocco) to Istanbul (Turkey) escape from Palma de Mallorca airport.
7.3Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.
5.8When a series of shocking, violent crimes shatters a remote native village in Northern Alaska, one man embarks on a journey to investigate a frightening paranormal connection.
6.6Shortly before dawn on August 21, 1992, six heavily armed U.S. marshals made their way up to the isolated mountaintop home of Randy and Vicki Weaver and their children on Ruby Ridge in Northern Idaho. Charged with selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent, Weaver had failed to appear in court and law enforcement was tasked with bringing him in. For months, the Weavers had been holed up on their property with a cache of firearms, including automatic weapons. When the federal agents surveilling the property crossed paths with members of the family, a firefight broke out. The standoff that mesmerized the nation would leave Weaver injured, his wife and son dead, and some convinced that the federal government was out of control. Drawing upon eyewitness accounts, including interviews with Weaver’s daughter, Sara, and federal agents involved in the confrontation, Ruby Ridge is a riveting account of the event that helped give rise to the modern American militia movement.
6.5Never-before-seen testimony is included in this documentary on Emmett Louis Till, who, in 1955, was brutally murdered after he whistled at a white woman.
6.7A father fights for decades to bring his daughter's killer to justice in France and Germany before taking extreme measures.
6.4This documentary delves into the unanswered questions surrounding the trial of Jessica Wongso — years after the death of her best friend, Mirna Salihin.
10.0Spy Capital is a documentary exploring Vienna's deep-rooted espionage history, establishing the city as a key hub for international spy operations over the past 150 years. Directed by espionage expert Boris Volodarsky and produced by Dennis Dewall, the film spans from Vienna's 1873 World Exhibition to espionage tied to the 2023 Russia-Ukraine conflict. Featuring interviews with prominent figures like Christo Grozev and Gert Polli, it also includes dramatic reenactments of historical events. Notorious cases such as Colonel Alfred Redl, a Russian double agent, are highlighted. The film delves into Vienna's pivotal role in intelligence during the World Wars and the Cold War. With striking visuals and advanced technology, Spy Capital: Vienna immerses viewers in a blend of history and drama, offering a thorough look into the covert world of spies that has shaped the city.
6.0Over the course of several months, 21-year-old Gemma Barker invented and impersonated three different boys, 'Aaron', 'Luke', and 'Connor', and under these three separate guises went on to seduce two teenage girls. Gemma was sentenced to 30 months in prison for fraud and sexual assault.
7.0ABC retells the dark, disturbing story of Manson — and his twisted cult of devoted followers he instructed to carry out a series of grisly homicides in 1969. In this two-hour documentary.
6.4Tupac: Assassination is a documentary film about the unsolved murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. The film is produced by Frank Alexander (Tupac's bodyguard who was the only guard assigned and present at the time of the shooting) and RJ Bond, who also directed the film.
6.3The end of the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71) saw the birth of the panoramas of war, huge circular paintings depicting scenes of war, cruelty and desolation that were contemplated by thousands of spectators, a kind of inmersive static newsreels, a mass media prior to the era of mass media, a virtual reality on canvas.