Frontline

The Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska is home to the last great wild Sockeye salmon fishery in the world. It is also home to enormous mineral deposits estimated to be worth some $300 billion. Two foreign mining companies want to extract this mineral wealth by digging a large open-pit mine, which will disrupt the fishery’s livelihood. Frontline travels to Alaska to probe the battle between the fishery and the mining company, and the political framework that will ultimately decide the outcome.

With advances in the medical field, people are living longer. Those in the 85-plus age group are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population. But many suffer from chronic illness and require an enormous amount of care, which puts a burden on our healthcare system. This program examines these challenges and speaks with families living in this type of situation.

This program chronicles the plight of the middle class in the recession through stories of people that the producer came to know through the hair salon she has frequented for the past 20 years. Revealed are the struggles for the small business salon to stay afloat, as well as struggles of the regular-person customers.

The impact of the Internet on adolescence through the eyes of teens and their parents is the subject matter of this Frontline. Viewers are taken into the private worlds that kids are creating online, from those that are bullied and harassed to those who make virtual social connections despite few friends at school.

The worst financial crisis in decades came about when massive losses on Wall Street nearly broke the banking business, which had been making billions providing questionable loans. As the federal government contemplates what could be a massive nationalization of the industry, Frontline goes behind closed doors to tell the inside story of how things went so wrong so fast, focusing on the complicated financial and political web threatening Bank of America.

This year, hundreds of thousands of prisoners with serious mental illnesses will be released into communities across the United States, the largest exodus in the nation’s history. Within 18 months, it is likely that two-thirds of them will be re-arrested. This follow-up to the ground-breaking film “The New Asylums” examines what happens to the mentally ill when they leave prison and why they return at an alarming rate.

More than three decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America’s waters clean, two large waterways, Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay, are in perilous condition. Frontline investigates how polluted runoff from industry, agriculture, and suburban development has put these estuaries at risk of contamination.

The shadowy world of international bribes is examined, revealing how multinational companies create slush funds, set up front companies, and make secret payments, all to get billions in business.

More than 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs, and thus their health insurance, within the past year. Frontline investigates the failures and future of the private insurance industry, examining the best and worst of U.S. healthcare by telling the gripping and sometimes tragic stories of ordinary Americans.

The financial meltdown that started with the mortgage crisis has added hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt. Frontline takes a look at how this debt will constrain and challenge the Obama administration, as well investigating the causes, potential outcome, and possible solutions to this enormous burden.

This documentary takes a look at what may be possible results of the anticipated closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camps.

This documentary is a first-person film about life with Parkinson’s disease.

This film takes a look at an undertaker whose family has cared for the dead in a small Michigan town for three generations. Through intimate stories of families coming to terms with grief, mortality, and a funeral’s rituals, the film illuminates the heartbreak in the journey taken between the living and the dead.

Venezuela’s controversial and outspoken president, Hugo Chavez, is claiming that he is turning his country into an anti-capitalist beacon for Latin America and the world. Through interviews with those who know him well, and excerpts from his unique weekly television program, Frontline examines his personality and presidency.

Six months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, a Frontline producer came across an 82-year old African-American gentleman working alone on his home in the lower Ninth Ward. This documentary looks at two years in the life of this man and his extended family as they struggle to rebuild their homes and their lives.

The sale of methamphetamines has become a big business. Hundreds of illegal meth labs are operating in the United States and the negative effects are sweeping the nation. Frontline investigates America’s addiction to meth and raises questions as to whether the government is doing enough to crack down on this latest craze. This proves to be a very comprehensive report on a very dangerous drug.