Jon Else

National Geographic's Explorer gives viewers special access to the issues of the day.

Oakland, California. Young Afro-American Oscar Grant crosses paths with family members, friends, enemies and strangers before facing his fate on the platform at Fruitvale Station, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009.

Documentary on water usage, money, politics, the transformation of nature, and the growth of the American west, shown on PBS as a four-part miniseries.

Explore how one man's relentless drive and invention of the atomic bomb changed the nature of war forever, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and unleashed mass hysteria.

Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.

A documentary on the group The Radical Faeries.

Charley Tate is an old windbag, often a braggart, but somehow always lovable. Married over fifty years to his ever-patient wife Lucy, the two of them are on their Golden Honeymoon in Florida. Everything goes perfectly... until Lucy meets her former fiancee who's also vacationing with his wife. Suddenly there's a comic competition between Charley and the old boyfriend for Lucy's attention. After fifty years, cantankerous Charley has to win his girl all over again!

An epic meditation on psychoanalysis, the Baader-Meinhof, feminism, and pre-revolutionary Russia.

A 7-part series telling dramatic and diverse stories of struggle and survival during the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. From the producers of Eyes on the Prize, this series was met with critical acclaim and won both an Emmy Award for writing and a duPont-Columbia Award.

The "Missing Heart Murders" are plaguing San Francisco - dead bodies that turn up with their hears surgically removed! So a weak-stomached homicide cop looks into the possibilities of a black market for human organs, while across town a man must make a difficult decision regarding his wife, who needs a transplant...

A documentary about Yosemite National Park.

“Shellmound” is the story of how one location was transformed from a sacred center of pre-historic cultures to a commercial mecca for modern people. What began as a Native American burial ground three thousand years ago, was transformed first into an amusement park, and later an industrial age paint factory. Now, the tainted ancient soil sits beneath the glittering lights of Banana Republic, Victoria’s Secret, and the AMC movie theaters. “Shellmound” examines the decisions made during the recent toxic cleanup, excavation, and construction of the Bay Street mall through the eyes of the city of Emeryville, the developer, the archaeologists, and the native Californians who worked on the site.

Traveling from town to town during the summer of 1919, young Andy (Ron Howard) has left his Ohio home in search of adventure and romance as a horse trainer on the country fair racing circuit. Ashamed of his occupation, Andy leads Lucy to believe he's wealthy. Soon one deception leads to another... until there is no way to tell Lucy the truth.

A fascinating look at the high-speed, high-power trading floor of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Director Jon Else explores this hectic, noisy, seemingly chaotic workplace with his signature style -- eschewing narration in favor of long, real-time shots that bring the viewer right into the heart-stopping action of the trading floor. He reveals the traders' sudden wealth, sudden disaster, and grace under pressure as they exchange billions of dollars in futures and options contracts - for cattle, pork bellies, Eurodollars and the Nasdaq-100 futures. Also revealed is the endangerment of the open outcry trading system as the digital revolution replaces it at many of the world's financial exchanges.

Through interviews with Manhattan Project scientists and newly declassified archival footage, this documentary examines the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his leadership of the Manhattan Project. The film traces the development and testing of the first atomic bomb and follows Oppenheimer’s later opposition to nuclear proliferation during the early years of the Cold War.

Pseudo-documentary showing footage shot by a television crew studying the life of a young, middle-class drifter named John Little, a fellow who describes himself as "the last of the hippies."

Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids? is a 1977 documentary film about Dorothy and Bob DeBolt, an American couple who adopted 14 children [12 at the start of filming], some of whom are severely disabled war orphans -- in addition to raising Dorothy's five biological children and Bob's biological daughter. The film won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1978. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

An overview on the actions, hunt and capture of Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber.

Just before the advent of the Great Depression, Henry Ford controlled the most important company in the most important industry in the booming American economy. His offer of high wages in exchange for hard work attracted workers to Detroit, but it began to come apart when Ford hired a private police force to speed up production and spy on employees. After the depression hit in 1929, these workers faced a new, grim reality as unemployment skyrocketed.

Follows the globe-trotting journey of President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, the lowest-lying country in the world, who, after bringing democracy to his country, takes up the fight to keep it from disappearing under the sea.