Free Sociology Documentaries

Watch this entertaining documentary from 1972 which is hosted and narrated by Orson Welles. Adapted from Alvin Toffler's book of the same name, the film defines "future shock" as "too much change in too short a period of time".

Constable Al Arsenault, along with six other policemen, document the people on their beat to create a powerful film about drug abuse.

Scared Straight! is a 1978 documentary directed by Arnold Shapiro. Narrated by Peter Falk, the subject of the documentary is a group of juvenile delinquents and their three-hour session with actual convicts.

In this streaming audio documentary produced by American Public Media, the controversy over intelligent design is examined from all sides of the debate.

The Interrupters tells the moving and often surprising stories of three "Violence Interrupters"-Ameena Matthews, Eddie Bocanegra, and Cobe Williams--who with bravado, humility, and even humor, work to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed.

Through examining Fini Straubinger, an old woman who has been deaf and blind since adolescence, this film shows how the deaf and blind struggle to understand and accept a world from which they are almost wholly isolated.

On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese died after being attacked on a street in Kew Gardens, Queens. Soon after, The New York Times published a front-page story asserting that 38 witnesses watched her being murdered from their apartment windows for over half an hour - and did nothing to help.

Since 1992, Bill Moyers has been following the story of two ordinary, hard-working families in Milwaukee -- one black, one white -- as they battle to keep from sliding into poverty.

In this Academy Award-winning documentary, six Europeans trekked to Dutch New Guinea in 1959. The expedition met villagers who invited them to observe rituals and live with them.

Filmmaker, Michael Leoni heads to the streets of LA to shine a light on the epidemic of homeless youth in America. Once inside their world, he realizes he can no longer be an observer; every day is a matter of life or death and he'll do anything to get them off the streets.