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The Best Episodes of American Experience

Every episode of American Experience ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of American Experience!

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TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    American Experience Season 30 Episode 7 - The Circus (1)
    10.0/10(1 votes)

    S30:E7

    Explore the early days of this popular, influential and distinctly American form of entertainment during an era when master showmen P.T. Barnum, James Bailey and the Ringling Brothers transformed the nation’s popular culture.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. American Experience Season 30 Episode 8 - The Circus (2)
    10.0/10(1 votes)

    S30:E8

    Revisit the heyday of this distinctly American form of entertainment when former rivals Barnum, Bailey and the Ringling Brothers joined forces to present the “greatest show on earth” in big cities and small towns across the country.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. American Experience Season 31 Episode 7 - The Feud
    8.6/10(108 votes)

    S31:E7

    Anderson Hatfield and Randolph McCoy, the patriarchs of the legendary feud, were entrepreneurs seeking to climb up from hardship after fierce economic competition and rapid technological change had turned their lives upside down. When members of both families took their grievances to court, their dispute escalated into a war between two families and a struggle between two states. The Feud reveals more than an isolated story of mountain lust and violence between “hillbillies” — the Hatfield - McCoy feud was a microcosm of the tensions inherent in the nation’s rapid industrialization after the Civil War.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. American Experience Season 7 Episode 1 - FDR (1): The Center of the World (1882-1921)
    8.5/10(175 votes)

    S7:E1

    Polio at age 39, president at age 50. Explore the public and private life of a determined man who steered the United States through two monumental crises: the Depression and World War II. FDR served as president longer than any other, and his legacy still shapes our understanding of the role of government and the presidency. A film by award winning filmmaker David Grubin. This first episode looks at the early life of FDR. Born into a wealthy family, there was little about his youth that would suggest the giant of history that he would become. His entry into state politics and a significant meeting with a woman named Eleanor would change his life and the course of a nation.

    Director:David Grubin
    Writer:David Grubin

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  5. American Experience Season 9 Episode 1 - T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (1): The Long Campaign
    8.5/10(121 votes)

    S9:E1

    TR is born into a wealthy New York family that has a strong sense of social justice. He fights his severe asthma through a strenuous exercise program. He becomes New York State assemblyman. Then tragedy strikes with the untimely deaths of his beloved first wife and his mother. To escape his grief, he flees to the Dakota Badlands for the rigors of ranch life. When he returns, his political career flourishes; he eventually becomes William McKinley's Vice President.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. American Experience Season 13 Episode 7 - Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, Part I
    8.5/10(159 votes)

    S13:E7

    Parts 1 and 2 of a six-part chronicle of the Abraham Lincoln-Mary Todd relationship begins with their childhoods and courtship. He, of course, was born into poverty; she, however, grew up in luxury, the daughter of a Kentucky banker and slave owner. (Several of her brothers would die fighting for the South in the Civil War.) While he was something of a rube when they met, she was the opposite, polished and refined. Yet they shared something in common: a love of politics. The marriage of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln proves to be a tempestuous affair accented by her temper, his depression and their political ambitions. Included: his elections to the U.S. House of Representatives and, later, the presidency.

    Director:David Grubin
    Writers:David Grubin, Geoffrey C. Ward

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of American Experience

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  7. American Experience Season 5 Episode 9 - Knute Rockne and His Fighting Irish
    8.4/10(14 votes)

    S5:E9

    When he died in 1931 in a plane crash on his way to Hollywood to sign a film contract, the President called it a "national loss." The funeral was broadcast live on CBS Radio to Europe, South America and Asia. As Notre Dame's football coach, Knute Rockne galvanized attention to his "Fighting Irish" and was a pivotal figure in the sudden rise of sports to a position of enormous power in American life.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. American Experience Season 11 Episode 1 - America 1900
    8.4/10(47 votes)

    S11:E1

    Over one hundred years ago, Americans looked forward to the uncertainty of a new century with a mixture of confidence, optimism and anxiety. Following a range of characters from famous public figures to ordinary citizens, this chronicle of a year in the life of America examines the forces of change that would come to shape the twentieth century.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. American Experience Season 13 Episode 12 - Stephen Foster
    8.4/10(35 votes)

    S13:E12

    A profile of quintessentially American composer Stephen Foster features interviews with historian Fath Ruffins, biographer Ken Emerson, musicologists Josephine Wright and Dale Cockrell, and modern-day musicians influenced by Foster's work.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. American Experience Season 16 Episode 1 - New York (8): The Center of the World
    8.4/10(73 votes)

    S16:E1

    Filmmaker Ric Burns adds a poignant postscript to his series "New York: A Documentary Film" with this chronicle of the World Trade Center's rise and fall. Burns recounts Sept. 11 wrenchingly, but he devotes more than half the film to the Center's rise. This isn't a pretty story: It's one of economic, political, architectural and engineering labyrinths. The result was a critical and commercial flop, though historian Kenneth Jackson says: "It's more important to history now that it's gone."

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. American Experience Season 26 Episode 4 - Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
    8.4/10(385 votes)

    S26:E4

    The story of outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, whose turn-of-the-century exploits made headlines, led them to be pursued by Pinkerton detectives and inspired the popular 1969 film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. American Experience Season 7 Episode 2 - FDR (2): Fear Itself (1922-1933)
    8.3/10(108 votes)

    S7:E2

    In this second episode, the subject is FDR's courageous fight with polio. With his wife Eleanor Roosevelt at his side, FDR, wins the Democratic nomination for president. He takes office at the beginning of the Great Depression. Exhorting the nation to keep the faith, FDR utters his famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

    Director:David Grubin
    Writer:David Grubin

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  13. American Experience Season 9 Episode 2 - T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (2): The Bully Pulpit
    8.3/10(67 votes)

    S9:E2

    After McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt becomes an "accidental" president. Seeing himself as a crusader, TR uses the presidency to advance his agenda of social reform. He expands the power of the presidential office and comes to dominate American politics. Yet, the night he is elected to a second term, TR announces he will not run again, ultimately weakening his second term.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. American Experience Season 12 Episode 1 - New York (1): The Country and the City
    8.3/10(83 votes)

    S12:E1

    The Country and the City, 1609-1825: New York, notes narrator David Ogden Stiers, "was a business proposition from the very start," when Henry Hudson, exploring for the Dutch East India Company, sailed into its harbor. Part 1 also focuses on New Yorker Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary; and Gov. DeWitt Clinton, who built the Erie Canal. "All America," says Stiers, "now met in New York."

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. American Experience Season 13 Episode 9 - Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, Part III
    8.3/10(49 votes)

    S13:E9

    Parts 5 and 6 of a six-part chronicle. The third part recalls 1863, when opposition to the Civil War spread among Northerners: some see the high level of casualties as unacceptable, while others resent fighting to free black slaves. Abraham Lincoln, understandably, becomes anxious. Mary Todd Lincoln, meanwhile, copes by spending money compulsively, and falls into debt as a result. Conclusion. The final 16 months of the Civil War are charted, including the battle at Gettysburg and Abraham Lincoln's battlefield dedication and, just days after the South's surrender at Appomattox, his assassination. Included: Abraham's dedication to bringing the South into the Union; Mary's private wish for revenge.

    Director:David Grubin
    Writers:David Grubin, Geoffrey C. Ward

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  16. American Experience Season 14 Episode 1 - New York (6): The City of Tomorrow
    8.3/10(52 votes)

    S14:E1

    "City of Tomorrow (1929-45)" focuses on Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who used his close ties to FDR to make the city "a gigantic laboratory of civic reconstruction"; and master builder Robert Moses, who "adapted a 19th century city to 20th century circumstances," says historian Kenneth Jackson. The biggest one: the car. Says narrator David Ogden Stiers: "It challenged all previous assumptions about urban life."

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. American Experience Season 16 Episode 4 - Citizen King
    8.3/10(98 votes)

    S16:E4

    "Citizen King," a reverential chronicle of the final five years of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life, employs eyewitnesses to the history King made to recall it. Among them: Coretta Scott King, former representative William Gray, author David Halberstam, civil-rights veterans Joseph Lowery, Roger Wilkins and Taylor Branch, long-time political figure Andrew Young, former senator Harris Wofford, former attorney general Ramsey Clark and theologian James Cone.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. American Experience Season 22 Episode 6 - My Lai
    8.3/10(246 votes)

    S22:E6

    What drove a company of American soldiers — ordinary young men from around the country — to commit the worst atrocity in American military history? American Experience focuses on the 1968 My Lai massacre, its subsequent cover-up, and the heroic efforts of the soldiers who broke ranks to try to halt the atrocities and then bring them to light.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. American Experience Season 27 Episode 7 - Blackout
    8.3/10(107 votes)

    S27:E7

    First responders, journalists, shop owners, those inside the pressure-packed control center of Con Edison on West End Avenue, and other New Yorkers tell about what happened when the lights went out on July 13, 1977

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. American Experience Season 31 Episode 6 - Woodstock
    8.3/10(113 votes)

    S31:E6

    In August, 1969, half a million people from all walks of life and every corner of the country converged on a small dairy farm in upstate New York. They came to hear the concert of their lives, but most experienced something far more profound: a moment that would change them and the country forever, and define a cultural revolution.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. American Experience Season 3 Episode 7 - The Iron Road
    8.2/10(21 votes)

    S3:E7

    A tale of high adventure, enormous human effort and engineering brilliance. On May 2, 1869, when the last railroad spike was driven, bells in the churches of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Omaha and St. Louis rang in celebration. Six years in the making, the transcontinental railroad captured the imagination of the nation, symbolizing unification of the country after five years of Civil War.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. American Experience Season 5 Episode 3 - The Donner Party
    8.2/10(526 votes)

    S5:E3

    Of all the 19th century pioneer stories, none exerts so powerful a hold on the American imagination as this, during the worst winter ever recorded in the High Sierras. In June, 1846, 87 men, women and children began their legendary 2,000 mile journey from Illinois to California. They packed huge wagons, took food, hired servants. When family leaders made the fateful decision to take an untried short cut to beat the coming winter, only half would come out alive.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. American Experience Season 10 Episode 1 - Truman (1): An Accident of Democracy
    8.2/10(122 votes)

    S10:E1

    A study of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president. Part 1 covers his service during World War I; his accomplishments as a small-time Kansas City politician; his two terms as a Missouri senator.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. American Experience Season 12 Episode 2 - New York (2): Order and Disorder
    8.2/10(64 votes)

    S12:E2

    "Order and Disorder: 1825-1865" recalls a period of tremendous growth and ferment. Most of the new arrivals were Irish immigrants (100,000 by 1842—and that was before the potato famine), and the subsequent overcrowding led to the construction of Central Park (1857-58). But that didn't quell the ferment, which exploded in 1863 with the racially charged draft riots. "It was the largest incident of civil disorder in U.S. history," notes historian Mike Wallace.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. American Experience Season 12 Episode 3 - New York (3): Sunshine and Shadow
    8.2/10(63 votes)

    S12:E3

    "Sunshine and Shadow: 1865-1898" During the Gilded Age, New York "was home to the greatest concentration of wealth in human history," says narrator David Ogden Stiers. And, he adds, "the greatest concentration of poverty." This episode surveys that dichotomy, from Fifth Avenue mansions to slums documented by Jacob Riis in "How the Other Half Lives." Also recalled: the fall of William H. "Boss" Tweed ("he took a fall for the system," claims Pete Hamill).

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Best Episodes Summary

"The Circus (1)" is the best rated episode of "American Experience". It scored 10/10 based on 1 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 10/8/2018. This episode scored 0.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Circus (2)".