Finding Your Roots
★ 6.5 · 2012 · 60m · Documentary
Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
Episodes
1. Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr.60m · Their European immigrant ancestors blazed unconventional trails in America, from capturing British ships for the American Revolution to crossing racial barriers in slave-era Louisiana. Generations later, as children growing up in New Orleans, Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis found a deep and abiding friendship through their common love of jazz and of the city itself. In this hour, we trace the turbulent and contradictory history of the city of New Orleans through the family stories of these two fascinating men.
2. John Lewis and Cory Booker60m · In this episode, we feature two African American politicians from different generations and opposite backgrounds. John Lewis grew up in a sharecropping family in rural Georgia, while Cory Booker was raised in an affluent, all-white New Jersey suburb. Although both men have devoted their lives to the betterment of African-American people, neither of them knows much about their own ancestors. In this episode, we introduce Booker to his white great-grandfather, a man he never knew, and move Lewis to tears over the extraordinary ambitions and accomplishments of his slave ancestors..
3. Barbara Walters and Geoffrey Canada60m · What's in a name? Well, a lot, at least when it comes to piecing together your family history. For former slaves, choosing a last name was one of their first acts of freedom. For Jewish immigrants, it was a way to fit in their new country. Whatever the reason for a name change, it can make the process of learning about one's ancestors difficult, if not impossible. In this episode, we unearth missing links in the family histories of media legend Barbara Walters and educational superstar Geoffrey Canada. Walters did not know her father's real last name. Canada did not know the name of his grandfather. Both of them had been unable to access their history... until now.
4. Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon60m · What do Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick have in common? They are both famous actors and both descend from prominent American families that have been in this country since its inception. But they share something else, too: both had ancestors who were early opponents of slavery. Bacon's Quaker ancestors repudiated slavery long before the rest of the country, in 1780. And Sedgwick's ancestor Theodore Sedgwick argued the freedom case of Elizabeth Freeman, also known as "Mumbet," in 1781 -- which helped bring an end to slavery in Massachusetts. We reveal this fact - and many others - to Sedgwick and Bacon in this episode, and learn quite a bit about slavery in the North in the process.
5. Rick Warren, Angela Buchdahl and Yasir Qadhi60m · Pastor Rick Warren, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Sheik Yasir Qadhi are of three different faiths, all with complex family histories that profoundly shaped their religious beliefs. Our research of their roots unearthed a story about the spiritual foundations of this country, an unrelenting struggle to achieve our ideal of religious freedom and tolerance, but also the difficulties sometimes of holding onto one's faith and still feeling like an "authentic" American.
6. Robert Downey, Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal60m · Many American descend from a dense soups of European ethnicities; we could call them mutts, with ancestral roots across every country in Europe. Actors Robert Downey, Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal are textbook examples of Americans with a rich tapestry of European immigrant stories making up their family trees. We delve in to their deep American roots in early colonial communities, and we meet their Eastern European Jewish ancestors, who share almost identical migration stories From the Mayflower to Ellis Island, we journey through centuries of immigration that shaped and built our melting pot nation.
7. Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice and Ruth Simmons60m · Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice and Brown University President Ruth Simmons have each climbed to the pinnacle of their profession, yet each started life as a second class citizen in the Jim Crow south. In this episode we will use DNA to investigate family mysteries: where do they come from in Africa, and who are the white men in their family trees?
8. Martha Stewart, Margaret Cho and Sanjay Gupta60m · The three guests in this episode are all children of first- or second-generation immigrants and share the peculiar burdens of that heritage. In an episode that crisscrosses the planet, from India to Korea to Poland, catch a glimpse of three distinct yet oddly overlapping experiences of families leaving their homes and becoming American.
9. John Legend and Wanda Sykes60m · Most African Americans struggle to trace their ancestors beyond Emancipation; slavery erased names and family ties with brutal efficiency. But what about the descendants of the handful of free black people who evaded bondage during that terrible time? Musician John Legend and comedian Wanda Sykes discover the extraordinary stories of the free black ancestors they never knew about, while Professor Gates himself and his 98-year-old friend Margarett Cooper delve into the mysteries shrouding the free people of color in their family trees.
10. Adrian Grenier, Michelle Rodriguez and Linda Chavez60m · Michelle Rodriguez, Adrian Grenier and Linda Chavez all share Spanish colonial roots, yet each views their own identity very differently. In this episode we ask what it means to be Hispanic-and find that the answer lies in the tangled histories of European, Native American and African peoples. Crisscrossing Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean, and the Southwest, Professor Gates reveals stories of ancestral Conquistadors, Indian rebels, and "Crypto-Jews" (Spanish Jews who converted to Catholicism to survive the Inquisition, yet continued to practice their religion ...More Like This
Movie Life: House of Wax
2005 · ★ 8
Ever wonder what it's really like to be in a movie? Go behind the scenes of House of Wax with Chad, Elisha, Paris and Jared.
More info →This Is How I Made It
This Is How I Made It is an American reality-documentary television series on MTV. The series premiered on October 13, 2012. The series sheds light on the mountains that various athletes, actors, artists and other celebrities hurtled over in order to become the person they are today.
More info →
Who Do You Think You Are?
2010 · ★ 6.9
From roots in the Deep South to the slums of New Jersey, "Who Do You Think You Are?" follows the journeys of some of the most well-known names in American popular culture. Watch as celebrities discover unknown details about themselves and their families while researching their ancestry with the help of historians and genealogical experts.
More info →Hilary Duff: This Is Now
2007 · ★ 1
Hilary Duff: This Is Now is a two-part MTV reality television series about singer Hilary Duff, broadcast in April 2007. It followed Duff during a promotional tour for her album Dignity in Spain, and her first performance of her single "With Love" in Europe. It showed Duff participating in photo shoots, her personal affairs, and interview segments. The first episode aired on April 3, and the second on April 9, 2007. The show took two weeks to film, and an MTV crew followed Duff around, filming her preparations for the release of the Dignity album.
More info →
Who Do You Think You Are?
2009 · ★ 10
A Swedish version of the British genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?, where famous people are searching for truths and hidden stories about their family history.
More info →
My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story
2025
The harrowing true story of how actress Eva LaRue and her daughter Kaya endured 12 years of terror at the hands of a relentless stalker. Operating from the shadows, he taunted and terrorized their lives while his identity remained a mystery, even to the FBI. In this gripping account, Eva reveals the constant fear, emotional toll, and the resolve, courage and resilience it took to protect her family.
More info →
Paris & Nicole: The Encore
2024 · ★ 7.4
More than 20 years since OG reality icons Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie first took the world by storm, the life-long friends reunite in a new special. Follow the dynamic duo as they try to produce a once-in-a-lifetime operatic performance based on their self-coined phrase, "Sanasa."
More info →
