Documentary overview

About Return From ISIS (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

How an American mom and her kids ended up in the heart of ISIS’ self-declared caliphate in Syria — and what happened when they came back. In November 2020, Sam Sally, also known as Sam Elhassani, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for financing terrorism — making her the first American woman brought back from Syria or Iraq and convicted on ISIS-related terrorism charges. How did this American mother go from a comfortable life in Indiana to the heart of ISIS’s self-declared caliphate in Syria, with her husband a sniper for the terror group and her 10-year-old son forced to threaten President Donald Trump in an ISIS propaganda video shown around the world? FRONTLINE tells the inside story in “Return From ISIS,” a documentary in association with the BBC that has been nearly four years in the making. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided

Return From ISIS (full documentary) | FRONTLINE is presented by FRONTLINE PBS | Official. Its listed runtime is 53 minutes. The source link and publisher attribution are provided with the embedded film.

As a society documentary, Return From ISIS (full documentary) | FRONTLINE uses return, frontline as its central frame. Social documentaries work best as invitations to examine systems through lived experience. Distinguish individual testimony from wider claims, and consider which institutions, incentives and inequalities shape the choices shown.

Viewing context

What to consider before watching

  1. What evidence, testimony or observation does the film use to explain return, frontline?
  2. Which people, institutions or historical conditions most influence the story told in Return From ISIS (full documentary) | FRONTLINE?
  3. How does FRONTLINE PBS | Official's framing affect the documentary's emphasis, and which perspectives may deserve further research?
Subjects

Topics covered in this documentary

Societyreturnfrontline
Film information

Documentary details and original source

Title
Return From ISIS (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
Category
Society
Runtime
53 minutes
Language
English

Free Documentary Vault provides independent discovery, organization and editorial context. The film remains hosted by its original publisher, who controls availability and playback.

Continue exploring
Trump's American Carnage (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN53 min
Trump's American Carnage (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

From his first days as president to his last, how Trump stoked division, violence and insurrection. In the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, FRONTLINE investigates how Donald Trump’s presidency laid the groundwork for bitter divisions, violence and ultimately insurrection. “Trump’s American Carnage” investigates 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. The documentary is from veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk, who with his team has made five installments of FRONTLINE’s election-year series The Choice and nearly 20 documentaries about the Trump and Obama eras. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation; and Koo

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Trump's American Carnage (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

53 minSociety
(UPDATE) United States of Conspiracy (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN53 min
(UPDATE) United States of Conspiracy (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

How trafficking in conspiracy theories went from the fringes of U.S. politics into the White House. This is an update of the 2020 FRONTLINE documentary, “United States of Conspiracy.” An investigation of the alliance among conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, longtime Trump associate Roger Stone and the president — and their role in the battle over truth and lies. As the coronavirus pandemic continues, America reckons with racism and the 2020 election looms, “United States of Conspiracy” investigates how Jones and InfoWars, Stone, and Trump helped to lay the foundation for conspiracy theories to take center stage in America’s national conversation, how the idea of truth itself became part of America’s divide, and what it means for the future of our democracy. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

(UPDATE) United States of Conspiracy (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

53 minSociety
How Assad Moved to Crush Syria’s Uprising | The Regime (full documentary) | FRONTLINE (PBS) documentary thumbnailEN22 min
How Assad Moved to Crush Syria’s Uprising | The Regime (full documentary) | FRONTLINE (PBS)

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

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

How Assad Moved to Crush Syria’s Uprising | The Regime (full documentary) | FRONTLINE (PBS)

22 minSociety
From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians, Part One (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN110 min
From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians, Part One (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

Part one of FRONTLINE’s four-hour series on the rise of Christianity examines how Judaism and the Roman empire shaped Jesus’ life and traces the beginnings of the “Jesus Movement” in those early years before it was called Christianity. First broadcast in 1998, “From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians” is an exploration into the life and death of Jesus, and the men and women whose belief, conviction, and martyrdom created the religion we now know as Christianity. Drawing upon historical evidence, the series challenges familiar assumptions and conventional notions about Christian origins. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation, the Park Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians, Part One (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

110 minSociety
Growing Up Trans (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN83 min
Growing Up Trans (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

Inside the struggles and choices facing transgender kids and their families, in an era where they have more medical options than ever before. Just a generation ago, it was adults, not kids, who changed genders. But today, many children are transitioning, too — at younger and younger ages. Told from the perspective of parents, doctors and, most revealing of all, the kids themselves, FRONTLINE’s “Growing Up Trans” takes a look at how a new generation is navigating the changing and complicated world of gender and identity. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation, the Park Foundation, The John and Helen Glessner Family Trust, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Growing Up Trans (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

83 minSociety
Trafficked in America (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN53 min
Trafficked in America (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

An investigation into how teenagers from Central America were smuggled into the U.S. by traffickers who promised them jobs and a better life — only to force them to live and work in virtual slavery to pay off their debt. “Trafficked in America,” produced by Daffodil Altan and Andrés Cediel, with Altan as correspondent, shines light on a major labor trafficking case in which Guatemalan teens were forced by a third party contractor to work against their will at a farm in Ohio. Through the lens of this case, the documentary presents a look inside the reality of labor trafficking in America. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation; and Koo and Patricia Yuen.

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Trafficked in America (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

53 minSociety