Coming this Fall

The American Revolution, A New Film from Ken Burns

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, a new six-part, 12-hour documentary series that explores the country’s founding struggle and its eight-year War for Independence, will premiere in November.

The much-anticipated series, which has been in production for eight years, was directed and produced by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt and written by long-time collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward. The filmmakers and PBS scheduled the broadcast for 2025, the 250th anniversary of the start of the war, which began in the spring of 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down. Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe.

 

An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the war and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of figures from a wide variety of backgrounds. Viewers will experience the war through the memories of the men and women who experienced it: the rank-and-file Continental soldiers and American militiamen (some of them teenagers), Patriot political and military leaders, British Army officers, American Loyalists, Native soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans, German soldiers in the British service, French and Spanish allies, and various civilians living in North America, Loyalist as well as Patriot, including many made refugees by the war. The American Revolution was a war for independence, a civil war, and a world war. It impacted millions – from Canada to the Caribbean and beyond. Few escaped its violence. At one time or another, the British Army occupied all the major population centers in the United States – including New York City for more than seven years.

“The American Revolution is one of the most important events in human history.” said Ken Burns. “We went from being subjects to inventing a new concept, citizens, and set in motion democratic revolutions around the globe. As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our founding, I’m hopeful that people throughout the country will come together to discuss the importance of this history and to appreciate even more what our ancestors did to secure our liberty and freedoms.”

“Our film tells the remarkable history of the people who lived through the American Revolution, their everyday concerns, and their hopes, fears and failings,” said Sarah Botstein (THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST, HEMINGWAY, THE VIETNAM WAR). “It’s a surprising and deeply relevant story, one that is hugely important to understanding who we are as a country and a people. The Revolution changed how we think about government – creating new ideas about liberty, freedom, and democracy.”

“The Revolution was eight years of uncertainty, hope, and terror, a brutal war that engaged millions of people in North America and beyond and left tremendous loss in its wake,” said David Schmidt (BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE VIETNAM WAR). “At the same time, the Revolution also changed how Americans thought about themselves, their government, and what they were capable of achieving. The United States that emerged from the war was a nation few could have imagined before the shooting began in April 1775.”

The Revolution began a movement for people around the world to imagine new and better futures for themselves, their nations, and for humanity. It opened the door to advance civil liberties and human rights, and it asked questions that we are still trying to answer today. “I think to believe in America, rooted in the American Revolution, is to believe in possibility,” the historian Jane Kamensky says in the series. “Everybody, on every side, including people who were denied even the ownership of themselves, had the sense of possibility worth fighting for.”