Facing Death (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

It’s been 15 years since the rebellion in Syria against Bashar al-Assad’s government began. “The Regime” examined how the uprising started and the brutal crackdown that followed. (Aired 2011) On March 6, 2011, young boys painted messages on the walls of a school 60 miles south of Syria’s capital, Damascus. “Freedom, freedom and freedom, only,” read one message. “Down with the corrupt Assad,” read another. Soon after, the boys were rounded up by the government’s secret police. Their fathers went to see the police chief, a cousin of Syria’s then-president, Bashar al-Assad, and begged him to release their children. Airing later that year, “The Regime” examined what happened to the boys, and how outrage over their fate helped to fuel the Syrian uprising. “That very instance of repression, of torture, seemed to galvanize the town itself,” the late reporter Anthony Shadid said in the documentary. “And almost from that moment, the uprising seemed to gain momentum.” As Syrians took to the streets to protest and to call for more freedoms, the swift and brutal response by Assad’s security forces followed

In 2004, FRONTLINE investigated the rampant abuse of tax shelters dating back to the late 1990s, finding that some of America’s most respected accounting firms were responsible and that American taxpayers were paying for it. (Aired 2004) As the documentary “Tax Me If You Can” explored, the tax shelter became one of corporate America’s biggest hidden profit centers in the 1990s and early 2000s. The General Accounting Office estimated that bogus tax shelters at the time cost the government more than $85 billion. Correspondent Hedrick Smith spoke with government officials, tax experts and industry insiders to expose these tax shelters. His reporting led him to some unexpected places — from the city of Dortmund, Germany, to the Cayman Islands. The documentary examined how difficult it was for the Internal Revenue Service to find tax shelters and how the tax shelter wave prompted a federal investigation. The ultimate victim in this scheme, experts in the documentary said, is the honest taxpayer who is left to make up what companies aren’t paying. “Tax Me If You Can” is a FRONTLINE production with

An investigation into the fight for justice after a deadly 1981 attack on the village of El Mozote and surrounding areas, and how the case against high-ranking military officials faltered. (Aired 2021) This short documentary from FRONTLINE, Retro Report and ProPublica examined the horrors of what happened when U.S.-trained and equipped Salvadoran soldiers killed some 1,000 civilians, many of them children, in an attack more than 40 years ago. In the documentary, Raymond Bonner — who was one of the first journalists to bear witness to the aftermath of the massacre — recounted the experience of reporting the story and spoke with survivors of the attack. This on-the-ground investigation detailed how, for decades following the tragedy, there was little movement towards holding anyone accountable, and how the case against high-ranking military officials faltered under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. “Massacre in El Salvador” laid bare the nation’s grisly past and the decades-long struggle for justice. “Massacre in El Salvador” is a FRONTLINE and Retro Report production with ProPublica. The producer and writer is Kit R. Roane. The senior producers are Frank

As new questions arise about Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jet, FRONTLINE and The New York Times update an award-winning investigation into the design, oversight and production of a plane that was involved in two crashes that killed 346 people. In October 2018, a Boeing 737 Max passenger jet crashed shortly after takeoff off the coast of Indonesia. Five months later, following an eerily similar flight pattern, another 737 Max 8 went down in Ethiopia. Everyone on board the flights died. "Boeing's Fatal Flaw" tells the inside story of what led up to the crashes — revealing how intense market pressure and failed oversight contributed to tragic deaths and a catastrophic crisis for one of the world’s most iconic industrial names. This updated documentary also examines what’s happened since the original film first aired in 2021, including the January 2024 Alaska Airlines incident where a panel blew off a Boeing 737 Max jet’s body midair, and how Boeing has responded. Explore additional reporting related to "Boeing’s Fatal Flaw" on our website: FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast

Decades after the Vietnam War shattered his childhood, journalist Nguyen Qui Duc traveled to his homeland and documented the changes he witnessed in the country. (Aired 2003) Decades ago, the Vietnam War shattered Nguyen Qui Duc’s childhood. Over the years, Nguyen, who came to the U.S. as a refugee, returned to his homeland as a journalist, reporting on the country’s culture and establishing connections with writers and artists living there. In 2003, he documented a journey through Vietnam for FRONTLINE/World, looking, he said, “for home, for a bit of myself, for a country that always exists in my memory.” As Nguyen traveled to different parts of the country in “Vietnam: Looking for Home,” he shared his reflections about the nation: “It’s easy to remember Vietnam has a habit of adopting and resisting changes. The culture, the people, will survive.” Several years after “Vietnam: Looking for Home” aired, Nguyen returned to Vietnam, this time for good. He filed occasional dispatches with FRONTLINE and FRONTLINE/World, and opened an influential arts and culture salon that pushed the boundaries of Vietnam’s communist government. Nguyen

A 2004 examination of India’s AIDS crisis through the eyes of girls and young women sold into sex work, originally aired as part of the FRONTLINE/World series. (Aired 2004) Starting with “India: The Sex Workers,” we are making episodes from FRONTLINE/World’s archive newly available here on the original video platform and on pbs.org as part of an effort to make our past reporting widely accessible. Originally developed by FRONTLINE producers in conjunction with public television stations KQED San Francisco and WGBH Boston, FRONTLINE/World launched in 2002 as a national public TV series that turned its lens on the global community, covering countries and cultures rarely seen on American television. The series completed its final broadcast season in 2010. At the time this FRONTLINE/World documentary was filmed, more than two million women and girls were working in India’s sex trade, and being forced to navigate their country’s AIDS crisis. With more than 4.5 million HIV infections across India at the time, often, the women and girls’ only defense against HIV was convincing men to wear condoms. But frequently, the documentary revealed