American Masters - Season 33

First aired: 1/2/2019 12 episodes

Episodes

1. Decoding Watson

Aired: 1/2/2019

Meet James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist behind the double helix as he confronts his complex legacy. With unprecedented access to Watson and his family, "American Masters: Decoding Watson" explores his life, achievements, controversies and contradictions.

2. Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me

Aired: 2/19/2019

Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated and contradictory. Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice and shifting political territory.

3. Charley Pride

Aired: 2/22/2019

Raised in segregated Mississippi, country performer Charley Pride proves artistic expression can triumph over prejudice and injustice.

4. Holly Near: Singing for Our Lives

Aired: 3/1/2019

For 40 years, singer and activist Holly Near works on global social justice coalition-building in the women's and lesbian movements.

5. Joseph Pulitzer: Voice Of The People

Aired: 4/12/2019

Hungarian immigrant Joseph Pulitzer becomes one of America's most feared and admired newspaper moguls and a crusader for freedom of the press.

6. Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable

Aired: 4/19/2019

A documentary about an important American still photographer who captured New York City in the 1960s (his work there is said to have influenced the TV show Mad Men) and later the West in Texas and Los Angeles.

7. Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life

Aired: 6/14/2019

Playwright, librettist, scriptwriter and outspoken LGBTQ activist Terrence McNally has long believed in the power of the arts to transform society and make a difference. The film lifts the curtain on the life, career and inspirations of the complicated and brilliant Emmy- and four-time Tony Award-winning writer.

8. Robert Shaw -- Man of Many Voices

Aired: 6/21/2019

A profile of the conductor, his work with the civil rights movement, and his musical legacy.

9. Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin

Aired: 8/2/2019

Explore the remarkable life and legacy of late feminist author Ursula K. Le Guin whose groundbreaking work, including “The Left Hand of Darkness,” transformed American literature by bringing science fiction into the literary mainstream.

10. Raúl Juliá: The World’s a Stage

Aired: 9/13/2019

American Masters and Latino Public Broadcasting’s VOCES join forces to present the first documentary about Raúl Juliá, the versatile Puerto Rican actor whose work on stage and screen took the world by storm. Raúl Juliá: The World’s a Stage premieres Friday, September 13, 2019 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS, pbs.org/americanmasters and the PBS Video App in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

11. Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous

Aired: 10/25/2019

Explore the life of the celebrated artist whose luminous color field paintings helped define the abstract expressionist movement, which shifted the art world epicenter from Paris to New York.

12. N. Scott Momaday: Words From a Bear

Aired: 11/18/2019

Delve into the enigmatic life and mind of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet N. Scott Momaday, best known for “House Made of Dawn” and a formative voice of the Native American Renaissance in art and literature.