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The Worst Episodes of POV

Every episode of POV ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of POV!

Worst episode
S24E12 The Learning
4.913 votes
Best episode
S22E5 The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
9.215 votes
Top season
Season 39
10.0avg
Binge time
22d 7h
522 episodes

Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Worst Episode
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    POV Season 24 Episode 12 - The Learning
    4.9/10(13 votes)
    S24:E12

    One hundred years ago, American teachers established the English-speaking public school system of the Philippines. Now, in a striking turnabout, American schools are recruiting Filipino teachers. The Learning is the story of four Filipino women who reluctantly leave their families and schools to teach in Baltimore. They hope to use their higher salaries to transform their families’ impoverished lives back home. But the women bring idealistic visions of the teacher’s craft and of life in America, which soon collide with Baltimore’s tough realities.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. POV Season 35 Episode 9 - The Last Out
    5.0/10(9 votes)
    S35:E9

    Three Cuban baseball players risk exile to chase their dream of playing in the US major leagues.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. POV Season 33 Episode 1 - And She Could Be Next, Part 1
    5.1/10(9 votes)
    S33:E1

    The story of a defiant movement of women of color, transforming politics from the ground up by fighting for a truly reflective democracy. Filmed during the historic 2018 midterm elections, the documentary features organizers and candidates (including Rashida Tlaib and Stacey Abrams) as they fight for a truly reflective government, asking whether democracy can be preserved—and made stronger—by those most marginalized.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. POV Season 36 Episode 1 - After Sherman
    5.3/10(8 votes)
    S36:E1

    A poetic quest in coastal South Carolina unearths Black inheritance amidst a violent past.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. POV Season 18 Episode 2 - The Education of Shelby Knox
    5.3/10(7 votes)
    S18:E2

    The Education of Shelby Knox is 2005 documentary film that tells the coming-of-age story of public speaker and feminist Shelby Knox, a teenager who joins a campaign for comprehensive sex education in the high schools of Lubbock, Texas. TEOSK was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and aired on PBS’ P.O.V. series that same year. It was directed and produced by Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. POV Season 26 Episode 15 - Listening Is an Act of Love: A StoryCorps Special
    6.2/10(18 votes)
    S26:E15

    Celebrate the transformative power of listening with this animated special from the oral history project StoryCorps, which captures intimate conversations among everyday people.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. POV Season 36 Episode 10 - Murders That Matter
    5.4/10(7 votes)
    S36:E10

    Black Muslim mother Movita Johnson-Harrell transforms from a victim of violent trauma to a fierce advocate against gun violence in Black communities.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. POV Season 36 Episode 8 - Bulls and Saints
    5.7/10(8 votes)
    S36:E8

    An undocumented family decides to return home after 20 years of living in the U.S.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. POV Season 34 Episode 7 - Fruits of Labor
    5.6/10(7 votes)
    S34:E7

    In California, a Mexican-American teen goes to work when ICE raids threaten her family.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. POV Season 34 Episode 10 - North By Current
    5.6/10(6 votes)
    S34:E10

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. POV Season 35 Episode 13 - Let the Little Light Shine
    6.3/10(9 votes)
    S35:E13

    An academic beacon for Black children on Chicago's South Side battles gentrification.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. POV Season 36 Episode 6 - Children of the Mist
    6.0/10(6 votes)
    S36:E6

    A 13-year-old Hmong girl is caught between tradition and modernity in rural northwest Vietnam.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. POV Season 34 Episode 6 - The Song of the Butterflies
    6.3/10(8 votes)
    S34:E6

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. POV Season 36 Episode 9 - Uýra: The Rising Forest
    6.3/10(8 votes)
    S36:E9

    Uýra shares ancestral knowledge with Indigenous youth in the Amazon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. POV Season 33 Episode 7 - Portraits and Dreams
    6.2/10(6 votes)
    S33:E7

    Photographs taken by Kentucky schoolchildren in the 1970s, their lives since then, and the linkage of personal memory to the passage of time.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. POV Season 34 Episode 11 - Unapologetic
    6.2/10(6 votes)
    S34:E11

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. POV Season 36 Episode 5 - Eat Your Catfish
    6.4/10(7 votes)
    S36:E5

    A woman's battle with late-stage Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) leaves her paralyzed and pushes her family to the breaking point.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. POV Season 20 Episode 3 - Standing Silent Nation
    6.3/10(6 votes)
    S20:E3

    What does a family have to endure to create a future for itself? In April 2000, Alex White Plume and his Lakota family planted industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota after other crops had failed. They put their hopes for a sustainable economy in hemp’s hardiness and a booming worldwide demand for its many products, from clothing to food. Although growing hemp, a relative of marijuana, was banned in the U.S., Alex believed that tribal sovereignty, along with hemp’s non-psychoactive properties, would protect him. But when federal agents raided the White Plumes’ fields, the Lakota Nation was swept into a Byzantine struggle over tribal sovereignty, economic rights and common sense. A co-presentation with Native American Public Telecommunications. (packaged to 56:46)

    Director:Yance Ford
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. POV Season 31 Episode 1 - Bill Nye: Science Guy
    6.6/10(9 votes)
    S31:E1

    The Rainey family are an African-American family living in Philadelphia.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. POV Season 20 Episode 12 - Lumo
    7.0/10(59 votes)
    S20:E12

    The agonies of present-day Africa are deeply etched in the bodies of women. In eastern Congo on the Rwanda border, vying militias, armies and bandits use rape as a weapon of terror. Lumo Sinai was just over 20 when marauding soldiers attacked her. A fistula, common among victims of violent rape, rendered her incontinent and threatens her ability to bear children. Rejected by her fiancé and cast aside by her family, Lumo awaits reconstructive surgery. Lumo is her story, tragic for its cruelties but also inspiring for the struggle she wages and the dignity she displays, with the help of an extraordinary African hospital, to overcome shame, fear, and the affliction that robs her of a normal life. (packaged to 56:46)

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. POV Season 34 Episode 3 - Stateless
    6.6/10(8 votes)
    S34:E3

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. POV Season 19 Episode 12 - Maquilapolis: City of Factories
    7.1/10(429 votes)
    S19:E12

    Just over the border in Mexico is an area peppered with maquiladoras: massive factories often owned by the world's largest multinational corporations. Carmen and Lourdes work at maquiladoras in Tijuana, where each day they confront labor violations, environmental devastation and urban chaos. In this lyrical documentary, the women reach beyond the daily struggle for survival to organize for change, taking on both the Mexican and U.S. governments and a major television manufacturer. A co-production of the Independent Television Service (ITVS).

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. POV Season 33 Episode 6 - About Love
    6.6/10(6 votes)
    S33:E6

    Three generations of the Phadke family live together in their home in Mumbai. When the youngest daughter turns the camera towards her family, the personal becomes political as power structures within the family become visible, and eventually unravel. Cruel and comic in equal measure, the film examines the vagaries of affection across generations, tied together by something stranger than love.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. POV Season 34 Episode 9 - Things We Dare Not Do
    6.6/10(6 votes)
    S34:E9

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  26. POV Season 18 Episode 1 - Chisholm `72: Unbought & Unbossed
    6.7/10(7 votes)
    S18:E1

    Chisholm `72: Unbought Unbossed is a PBS P.O.V. documentary about Shirley Chisholm.

    Director:Shola Lynch
    Writer:Unknown

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Worst Episodes Summary

"The Learning" is the worst rated episode of POV. It scored 4.9/10 from 13 votes. Written and directed by Unknown, it aired on September 20, 2011. This episode scored 0.1 points lower than the second lowest rated, "The Last Out".

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