The Great American Hobo (1980)

The American Hobo: History of the Railriding Worker

Documentary - Ernest Borgnine, star of the classic train movie Emperor of the North, hosts and narrates this remarkable examination of the uniquely American Hobo.

Hobo

John T. Davis stashes a camera in his bedroll, catches out, and rides the rails from Minneapolis to Seattle with Beargrease - a part-time hobo and full time philosopher, who narrates their way through the incredible scenery of the Northwest and gives us his views on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Along the way, the pair meet with several other men living life on the margins.

Shoot 'Em Up

A man named Mr. Smith delivers a woman's baby during a shootout, and is then called upon to protect the newborn from the army of gunmen.

He Who Lives In Hidden Lakes

The fanatic beliefs of an internet mystic, a cult leader, and a rookie cop gone rogue are tested on the hunt for the "Hidden Man" -- an elusive forest-dwelling cryptid that terrorizes their idyllic suburb.

Bound for Glory

A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.

Blues in the Night

A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.

C.H.U.D.

A rash of bizarre murders in New York City seems to point to a group of grotesquely deformed vagrants living in the sewers. A courageous policeman, a photojournalist and his girlfriend, and a nutty bum, who seems to know a lot about the creatures, band together to try and determine what the creatures are and how to stop them.

The Great McGinty

Told in flashback, Depression-era bum Dan McGinty is recruited by the city's political machine to help with vote fraud. His great aptitude for this brings rapid promotion from "the boss," who finally decides he'd be ideal as a new, nominally "reform" mayor; but this candidacy requires marriage. His in-name-only marriage to honest Catherine proves the beginning of the end for dishonest Dan...

Ironweed

An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.

Sullivan's Travels

Successful movie director John L. Sullivan, convinced he won't be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise and sets off on a journey, aiming to "know trouble" first-hand. When all he finds is a train ride back to Hollywood and a beautiful blonde companion, he redoubles his efforts, managing to land himself in more trouble than he bargained for when he loses his memory and ends up a prisoner on a chain gang.

Dwellers

While shooting a documentary on the suspicious disappearances within the homeless community, a filmmaker and his crew go missing while uncovering a terrifying and vicious secret below the city's surface.

Down and Out in Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills couple Barbara and Dave Whiteman find their lives altered by the arrival of a vagrant who tries to drown himself in their swimming pool.

Emperor of the North

Hobos encounter a sadistic railway conductor that will not let anyone "ride the rails" for free.

Wild Boys of the Road

At the height of the Great Depression, Tommy's mother has been out of work for months when Eddie's father loses his job. Eager not to burden their parents, the two high school sophomores decide to hop the freight trains and look for work.

Beggars of Life

After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada.

Oh, Yeah!

A couple of roving vagabonds hitch a freight to the railroad town of Linda, and between bouts with the fright-yard bulls and other drifters, find romance in the persons of two waitresses at the camp restaurant. American-slang rules the dialogue to the point non-USA viewers need a slang-glossary to follow the dialogue.

The Incorrigible Dukane

A rich contractor sends his son to supervise the building of a new dam. His clothes are stolen by a tramp and dressed in the tramp's clothes he's mistaken for a laborer.

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet

A 10-year-old child prodigy cartographer secretly leaves his family's ranch in Montana where he lives with his cowboy father and scientist mother and travels across the country on board a freight train to receive an award at the Smithsonian Institute.

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!

A streetcar conductor has adventures with a would-be passenger hippo, a cow blocking the tracks, and a runaway train while he, his passengers, and some hobos sing the title song.

Flare

As a solar flare is heading towards Earth, a family man named Arthur befriends a homeless man and faces a pivotal choice.

Love on a Bet

An aspiring theater producer convinces his wealthy uncle to finance a play on the condition that he lives the play’s far-fetched plot: making a cross-country trip with no money.

Burn 'Em Up Barnes

Car racer Burn 'em Up Barnes, son of a wealthy manufacturer, leaves home to make his own way in the world. After being robbed by hoodlums, Barnes joins a group of hobos who take him in and show him the carefree life.

Rail Kings

An irresponsible preppie, Preston West, is presumed to have murdered his parents for a sizable inheritance, so he flees to find the real killer, Phantom 13, a crazed freight train hobo. Riding speeding boxcars, Preston encounters hostile train yards, vicious railroad cops, hidden hobo jungles, mysterious Lacy, the notorious Baron and his colorful Hobo Gang. In a surprise ending, Preston finally confronts Phantom 13.

Half-Fare Hare

Bugs Bunny boards the Chattanooga Choo Choo and finds Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, from "The Honeymooners" TV show. Ralph and Ed are starving, and when they set eyes on Bugs, they yell, "It's foooooood!"

Friendly Neighbors

The Weaver Brothers hit the road and taste the hobo's life in this, the sixth, entry in the eleven-film "Weaver Brothers and Elviry" comedy-drama series. The singing hayseed family's journey begins when a drought destroys their farm. The young travelers soon hook up with a band of tramps and end up in a small town that has been nearly destroyed by the floods that occasionally roar through it. The Weavers' are moved by the townsfolk's plight and so decide to stay a spell and help out.

A Stinking Fairytale

Moma is a hobo and suffers from depression. Ema is a hobo and had been treated for alcoholism. Moma lives in the abandoned factory premises. Ema lives in the shaft. Moma liked Ema at first sight. Ema liked Moma at second sight.

Charlie Chaplin & the Hobo

Charlie Chaplin meets a hobo and he is in desperately in need of food and shelter. What transpires is Charlie’s mission to help this hobo however he can.

Elizabeth R: A Year in the Life of The Queen

Join the BBC cameras as they go behind the glitter of Buckingham Palace and the pomp of Windsor Castle for a close-up look at the minutia of the monarchy. Culled from a year of unprecedented access to Queen Elizabeth II, the documentary trails the queen as she interacts one-on-one with her family, her staff, her public, and international heads of state. Go behind closed doors for Christmas with the royal family, eavesdrop on cocktail chatter with Ron and Nancy Reagan, and catch unguarded moments when the queen pilots her own jeep or romps with her dogs. Elizabeth R. is a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse into the everyday life of a queen.

Yes I Am: The Ric Weiland Story

A film that chronicles the life of Ric Weiland. The unsung hero of Microsoft and trailblazer for the LGBTQ community, Ric's bequeathed $65 million dollars to the Pride Foundation to support gay rights and HIV research. It is a dive deep into Ric's life and diaries to discover why Ric was the biggest benefactor for the gay community, why his friends loved him so much, and how he helped start an empire.

Sans Soleil

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Daybreak Express

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

The Bridge

The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.

March of the Penguins

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

Perfect Feet

A feature length documentary film about one man's journey to find the perfect set of feet

Residente

After taking a DNA test, Latin America's most decorated artist – René Pérez (AKA Residente) – embarks on a global adventure to trace the footsteps of his ancestors and record his latest album.

Spettacolo

Once upon a time, villagers in a tiny hill town in Tuscany came up with a remarkable way to confront their issues: they turned their lives into a play. Every summer, their piazza became their stage and residents of all ages played a part – the role of themselves. Monticchiello’s annual tradition has attracted worldwide attention and kept the town together for 50 years, but with an aging population and a future generation more interested in Facebook than farming, the town’s 50th–anniversary performance just might be its last. SPETTACOLO tells the story of Teatro Povero di Monticchiello, interweaving episodes from its past with its modern-day process as the villagers turn a series of devastating blows into a new play about the end of their world.

Operation "Wedding"

Leningrad, 1970. A group of young Jewish dissidents plot to hijack an empty plane and escape the USSR. Caught by the KGB a few steps from boarding, they were sentenced to years in the gulag and two were sentenced to death; they never got on a plane. 45 years later, filmmaker Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov reveals the compelling story of her parents, leaders of the group, "heroes" in the West but "terrorists" in Russia, even today.

Hot Money

With wit, satire, and historical context, Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark and his son Wes Clark Jr. take us on a journey through the financial circulatory system connecting farmers, homeowners, bankers, academics, and business professionals in a tale that explains the knot of economic forces that can lead to collapse and how to untie it.

Puerto escondido

In 1879, Bolivia lost its access to the sea in a war. When I was a child I did not understand how we had lost it; he thought the Chileans had taken him away in buckets. It is a diary towards interior landscapes, myths, characters and contradictions in a country that relives this loss every day.

Dig!

A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.

First Man

Man’s early ancestors set off to conquer the world, to explore the unknown, to adapt to every environment. And one day, to conquer fire – a discovery that made them invincible. They built shelters. They transformed their environment. But still this did not slake their thirst for more. They sought to fathom Nature’s mysteries. They invented stories to explain the inexplicable. Now, they are Men. Here, for the very first time in television history, is the saga of our origins, told through the story of one single family - an epic journey upon which the latest scientific discoveries shine an exciting new light.

Risky Drinking

Are you a risky drinker? Nearly 70% of American adults drink alcohol and nearly 1/3 of them engage in problem drinking at some point in their lives. Produced with The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Risky Drinking is a no-holds-barred look at a national epidemic through the intimate stories of four people whose drinking dramatically affects their relationships.

And He Led Them Up the Mountain

The film attempts a philosophical understanding of some chapters of the Gospel and raises questions about the surmountability of the exoteric barrier.

Titanic's Final Mystery

The sinking of the RMS Titanic remains one of the most enduring and mysterious tragedies of the 20th century. For decades, investigators and amateurs alike have floated theories for why it occurred and who was to blame for the extraordinary loss of life, but no one answer could fully explain what happened. Until now. To mark the 100th anniversary of the infamous disaster, Smithsonian Channel will premiere Titanic's Final Mystery. The two-hour special investigates a century of theories and uncovers astonishing new forensic evidence that proves the most likely theory for the case.

Nas: Time Is Illmatic

Time Is Illmatic is a feature length documentary film that delves deep into the making of Nas' 1994 debut album, Illmatic, and the social conditions that influenced its creation.

Showing Up

An unprecedented look at the audition, compiled from more than 50 interviews with notable artists including Kristin Chenoweth, Richard Griffiths, Zoe Kazan, Nathan Lane, Chris Messina, Sam Rockwell and Eli Wallach.

Free to Play

Follow three professional video game players as they overcome personal adversity, family pressures, and the realities of life to compete in a $1,000,000 tournament that could change their lives forever.

World's Greatest Train Ride Videos: Scotland & Wales

"The World's Greatest Train Ride" video series takes you on the train adventure of a lifetime! Filled with all the breathtaking excitement of authentic train travel, this exhilarating journey through Scotland and Wales is hosted by popular television actor Bernie Kopell, and takes you on three complete rail tours.

Revolution Rent

A Cuban-American director travels to his exiled parents' homeland to mount a stage production of the musical, RENT, where he discovers an inspiring artistic family and embarks on a personal journey to reclaim his complicated heritage.

Johnny Strange: Born to Fly

JOHNNY STRANGE: BORN TO FLY tells the extraordinary story of a 23 year old American adventurer, through candid interviews with his family, friends and Johnny himself, along with 100's of hours from Johnny's private video archive. The film asks the question what does it truly mean to be alive, and to what extent a young man's passion to seek the ultimate thrill was actually the most lethal form of addiction.

My Way: The Life and Legacy of Pat Patterson

Pat Patterson and those who knew him best look back at his unlikely path to the top of sports-entertainment. From growing up a poor kid in Montreal, to finding fame in San Francisco and New York City and working side-by-side with Vince McMahon, Pat became the celebrated creative force behind some of the greatest moments and matches in WWE history.