Chicago Stories
2020 · Documentary
An original documentary series from Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW uncovering the city’s fascinating history. Each story presents an entertaining and intriguing tale about a person or event that shaped Chicago. The series reflects the rich diversity and breadth of human experience that shaped this great American city.
Episodes
1. The Great Chicago Fire57m · On October 10, 1871, Chicago awoke to an unrecognizable landscape: where 48 hours earlier there had been a vibrant city, now there was nothing but rubble stretched for miles on end. The event is brought to life as never before, using vivid animations, elaborate re-creations, and interviews with historians and the descendants of eyewitnesses.
2. Ida B. Wells60m · There are few Chicago historical figures whose life and work speak to the current moment more than Ida B. Wells, the 19th century investigative journalist, civil rights leader, and passionate suffragist.
3. Inventing Improv60m · Chicago’s greatest cultural export just might be improvised theater, which was born at Jane Addams’ Hull House during the Great Depression and carried out into the world by the likes of Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Stephen Colbert. But while to most people improv might seem synonymous with comedy, the art form was devised by a woman named Viola Spolin who wasn’t out for laughs.More Like This
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The Murder Castle
2017 · ★ 8
H.H. Holmes builds a three-story hotel in Chicago where he tortures and kills an untold number of people visiting the city for the 1893 World's Fair.
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jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
2022 · ★ 7.1
The lives of an emerging superstar and a filmmaker intertwine in this intense, intimate docuseries charting Kanye West's career, filmed over two decades.
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Prohibition
2011 · ★ 7.9
The history of the rise, rule and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the entire era it encompassed (1920-33). After nearly a century of activism, Prohibition was intended to improve the lives of all citizens by protecting individuals, families and society at large from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse; but paradoxically it made millions of people rethink their definition of morality.
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America to Me
2018 · ★ 8.4
A year-long immersion into one of Chicago's most progressive and diverse public schools, located in suburban Oak Park. Both intimate and epic, exploring America's charged state of race, culture and education today with unprecedented depth and scope.
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Hotel Chocolat Unwrapped
2025
A glimpse inside the wonderful world of Hotel Chocolat, one of Britain's best-loved chocolate makers.
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Noisey Chiraq
2014
Noisey presents an 8 part documentary on the music, culture, politics and young people behind Chicago's current rap music scene.
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I Was There When House Took Over the World
2017 · ★ 7.5
Nile Rodgers and more on how disco's death gave birth to the most iconic sound in dance.
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Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders
2025 · ★ 6.8
Who really laced Tylenol with cyanide? This true-crime series examines alarming theories behind the unsolved killings — and tracks down a key suspect.
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2024
The odd-couple hosts -- Poochie (the face of the Wiener's Circle) and Kevin Pang (longtime Chicago food writer, author and New York Times contributor) -- explore the "unknowns" of Chicago's unrivaled food scene.
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