Documentary that frames gun violence as a Disaster and Public Health issue by taking an in depth look at how one shooting impacts individuals, families and communities, while also giving voice to the questions and insights that arise from these conversations. In the documentary, all those scarred by gun violence eventually arrived at the same question: "Why...Why did this happen to us?" After looking at these in depth experiences of gun violence "Trigger turns its attention to the bigger question: "What can we do to prevent gun violence?"
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Bowling for Columbine (2002)
This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (2019)
Marion Stokes secretly recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. For Marion taping was a form of activism to seek the truth, and she believed that a comprehensive archive of the media would be invaluable for future generations. Her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart, but now her 70,000 VHS tapes are being digitized and they'll be searchable online.
Murder: No Apparent Motive (1984)
This documentary about serial killers and FBI Behavioral Sciences profilers features interviews with Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy as well as crime victims and law enforcement officials. The film includes some dramatic recreations.
Acts of Violence (1985)
A riveting expose about the personalities of murderers and their motives. This 72 minute film covers the McDonalds' restaurant massacre, President Reagan's assassination attempt, serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas and others.
A Murder in Abidjan (2000)
1995. On the outskirts of Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast, a policeman is murdered. Shot outside his vehicle, while his fiancée sits in the car, terrified. Superintendent Kouassi is the detective in charge of the investigation. Tall and lanky, he moves with the tired energy of a man who has seen it all. Drawing on a network of underworld characters with dubious information, Kouassi’s team begins bringing in potential suspects and subjecting them to horrific brutality: beating them with sticks, hanging them upside-down, threatening their lives. Some of the men are left so broken they have to literally drag themselves into Kouassi’s office later, to be interrogated while lying on the floor, their bodies a mess of bruises, broken bones, and lacerations.
Newtown (2016)
A look at how the community of Newtown, Connecticut came together in the aftermath of the largest mass shooting of schoolchildren in American history.
Under the Gun (2016)
A look at the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre where 20 children were murdered at school by a crazed gunman, but lead to no changes in American gun laws.
Print It Black (2024)
After the Robb Elementary school shooting in Texas, local Uvalde Leader-News journalists are left to report on the fallout – and on one of their staff members. Reporter Kimberly Rubio rises to national prominence as an advocate for gun reform after her ten-year-old daughter, Lexi, is killed in the shooting. Through the journalists’ reporting, we witness the social fabric of this small Texas town unravel as Kimberly and other victims’ families search for accountability from law enforcement and local leaders. The documentary also shines a light on the critical role of community journalism, at a time when local newspapers are folding rapidly across the country.
Lessons from a School Shooting: Notes from Dunblane (2018)
In the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that took the lives of 20 first graders and their teachers, local clergymen Father Bob Weiss receives a letter from a fellow priest in Dunblane, Scotland, whose community suffered an eerily similar fate in 1996. From across the Atlantic, the two priests forge a poignant bond through the shared experience of trauma and healing.
After Parkland (2019)
In the aftermath of the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead, filmmakers Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman traveled to Parkland and began filming with students who endured gunfire and the parents who lost their children in the crosshairs. "After Parkland" is an intimate chronicle of families as they navigate their way through the unthinkable; reckoning with unexpected loss, journeying through grief, and searching for new meaning.
The Killer at Thurston High (2000)
In May 1998, a year before the massacre at Columbine High, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his mother and father, and then opened fire at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, killing two fellow students and wounding 25 others. In this first in-depth television examination of a school shooter, FRONTLINE reveals the intimate inside story of how the “shy and likeable” Kip Kinkel from a solid middle-class family became the boy police call “a cold-hearted killer.”
Down in Dallas Town (2023)
Through interviews with people on the street and songs recorded to memorialize JFK in the mid-1960s, the film explores the impact of the November 22, 1963 assassination on issues in today’s world, from lingering conspiracy theories to the proliferation of gun violence, homelessness, and the scourge of K-2.
The Plymouth Shootings (2024)
On 12 August 2021, Jake Davison shot and killed five people before turning the gun on himself. How did a seemingly normal young man turn into one of Britain’s most lethal killers?
Ordinary Men: The "Forgotten Holocaust" (2022)
Six million Jews died during World War II, both in the extermination camps and murdered by the mobile commandos of the Einsatzgruppen and police battalions, whose members shot men, women and children, day after day, obediently, as if it were a normal job, a fact that is hardly known today. Who were these men and how could they commit such crimes?
Terror at the Mall (2014)
A documentary detailing an indiscriminate terrorist attack that left 71 dead in Kenya.
The Killing of America (1981)
A documentary of the decline of America. Featuring footage (most exclusive to this film) from race riots to serial killers and much, much more.
All the Empty Rooms (2025)
Follows veteran CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they embark on a seven-year-long project to document the empty bedrooms of children killed in school shootings. Tired of whitewashing tragedy with obligatory uplift, Hartman steps away from his heartwarming human interest stories to pursue a project his network never approved. As gun violence claims more young lives than any other cause in America, these quiet bedrooms reveal truths more powerful than statistics ever could.
Shots Fired (2021)
Amid record police shootings in Utah, an investigation into the use of deadly force in the state with Frontline's local journalism partner The Salt Lake Tribune.
The Truth vs. Alex Jones (2024)
Filmed over four years with unprecedented access, this documentary chronicles the riveting courtroom drama of two defamation lawsuits brought by Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims' families against Alex Jones and his website, InfoWars.
Black Thoughts (2020)
A man that is a stranger, is an incredibly easy man to hate. However, walking in a stranger’s shoes, even for a short while, can transform a perceived adversary into an ally. Power is found in coming to know our neighbor’s hearts. For in the darkness of ignorance, enemies are made and wars are waged, but in the light of understanding, family extends beyond blood lines and legacies of hatred crumble.