STEM Documentaries: Overview

This page highlights documentary films related to STEM. Most films require Penn students, faculty, and staff to log in to their library account with PennKey and password.

Links connect with Franklin, the Penn Libraries catalog, and to films made available on YouTube or ad-supported services.

Hover over title links to see a description of each film. Search Franklin by keyword and limit to Format: Video, for more.

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Ascension (Jessica Kingdon, 2021)
The Atomic States of America (Don Argott & Sheena M. Joyce, 2012)
Before the Flood (Fisher Stevens, 2016)
Between the Folds (Vanessa Goulds, 2008)
The Botany of Desire (Michael Schwarz, 2009)
A Brief History of Time (Errol Morris, 1991) - until 3/15/2025
Century of the Self (Adam Curtis, 2002)
CERN: The Sense of Beauty (Valerio Jalongo, 2017)
Cosmos: Solar System (2010)
The Disruptors (Stephanie Soechtig, 2022)
Do No Harm: The Opioid Epidemic (Harry Wyland, 2018)
The Farthest: Voyager in Space (Emer Reynolds, 2017)
The Immortalists (David Alvarado & Jason Sussberg, 2014)
Into the Dark (Michael O. Snyder, 2020)
Merchants of Doubt (Robert Kenner, 2014)
Particle Fever (Mark A. Levinson & David E. Kaplan, 2013)
Picture a Scientist (Ian Cheney & Sharon Shattuck, 2020)
The Quantum Tamers: Revealing Our Weird and Wired Future (Derek Diorio, 2009) - until 12/14/2025
The Secret Life of the Brain (David Grubin, 2001)>

AlphaGo (Greg Kohs, 2017)
Banking on Bitcoin (Christopher Cannucciari, 2016)
BBS: The Documentary (Jason Scott, 2005)
Billion Dollar Bully (Kaylie Milliken, 2018)
Biometrics (Laurent Guyot, 2007) - until 12/14/2025
The Creepy Line (M.A. Taylor, 2018)
Deep Web (Alex Winter, 2015)
Digital Disconnect (Jeremy Earp, 2018)
Digital Memory Gatekeepers (Quentin Domart, 2013)
Do You Trust This Computer? (Chris Paine, 2018)
Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia (Salima Koroma, 2023)
Google and the World Brain (Ben Lewis, 2013)
Indie Game: The Movie (Lisanne Pajot & James Swirsky, 2011)
The Internet’s Own Boy (Brian Knapperberger, 2014)
The Nano Revolution (Takahiro Hamano & Tetsuya Itano, 2014)
NOVA: Cyber_war threat (James Bamford & Chris Schmidt, 2015)
Revenge Porn: The Cyberwar Against Women (Contessa Gayles, 2015)
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto (Brett Gaylor, 2008)
Silicon Cowboys (Jason Cohen, 2016)
Terms and Conditions May Apply (Cullen Hoback, 2013)
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard (Simon Klose, 2013)
The Triumph of the Nerds (Paul Sen, 1996)
Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain (Alex Winter, 2018)
We Are Legion: Story of the Hacktivists (Brian Knapperberger, 2012)

America Betrayed (Leslie Cardé, 2008)
Behemoth (Zhao Liang, 2015)
BP: In Deep Water (James Brabazon, 2010)
China's Ultimate Port (Steve R. Talley, 2007)
Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes (Jeff McKay, 2004)
Division Street (Eric Bendick, 2009)
Engineering Disasters: Kentucky Sinkhole (2015)
Ethicana (American Society of Civil Engineers, 2009)
Horizon: How to Be an Astronaut (Simon Winchcombe, 2015)
How Ships Grow (Lars-Olof Albert, 2014)
Mad Electricity (Jeff Cole & Bruce Nash, 2008)
NOVA: Nuclear Option (Miles O'Brien, 2017)
NOVA: Operation Bridge Rescue (Joby Lubman, 2018)
NOVA: Rise of the Robots (Terri Randall, 2017)
NOVA: Treasures of the Earth: Metals (Terri Randall, 2016)
Objectified (Gary Hustwit, 2014)
The Rise and Fall of Nokia (Arto Koskinen, 2017)
Singapore's Vegas (John Hyde & Jocelyn Little, 2010)
The Sustainable City (Voi Senart, 2003)
Who Killed the Electric Car? (Chris Paine, 2006)
Zerograd (Karen Shakhnazarov, 1988)

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Babies 1: Becoming You (Serena Davis & Helen Sage, 2018)
Babies 2: Becoming Social (Serena Davis & Helen Sage, 2018)
Babies 3: Becoming Independent (Serena Davis & Helen Sage, 2018)
Breeding Cells (Anna Straube, 2009)
The Child the Stork Brought Home (Gilian Goslinga-Roy, 2000)
The Crime of the Century (Part 1) (Alex Gibney, 2021) - until 10/31/2024
The Crime of the Century (Part 2) (Alex Gibney, 2021) - until 10/31/2024
Do No Harm: The Opioid Epidemic (Harry Wyland, 2018)
Drug$: The Price We Pay (Jonathan Marshall Thompson, 2018)
Dying at Grace (Allan King, 2014) - until 3/15/2025
The Electric Mind (Nadav Harel, 2010)
The End of Medicine (Alex Lockwood, 2022)
Ending Disease: The Stem Cell, Anti-Cancer T Cell, and Antibody Revolution in Medicine (Joe Gantz, 2019)
Fièvres (Fevers) (Ariane Doublet, 2017)
Fighting for Life (Terry Sanders, 2008)
Fire in the Blood (Sut Jhally, 2013)
The First Patient (Chip Duncan, 2018)
The Forgotten Plague (Chana Gazit, 2015)
Frontline: Being Mortal (Thomas Jennings, 2013)
Health for Sale (Michele Mellara & Alessandro Rossi, 2007)
The Immortalists (David Alvarado & Jason Sussberg, 2014)
In Our Own Hands: How Patients Are Reinventing Medicine (Elizabeth Horn, 2020)
It Is Not Over Yet (Louise Detlefsen, 2021)
The Man with the Golden Cells (Florence Martin-Kessler, 2015)
The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope, Science (Ken Burns & Ewers Bros., 2018)
Medicating Normal (Lynn Cunningham & Wendy Ractliffe, 2020)
Money & Medicine (Roger Weisberg, 2012)
Money-Driven Medicine (Andrew Fredericks, 2009)
The Odds of Recovery (Su Friedrich, 2013)
One Cut, One Life (Edward Pincus, 2014)
Organs for Sale (Steen Jensen, 2004)
Placebo (Abhay Kumar, 2014)
Rocio (Dario Guerrero, 2022)
Roots of Health (Sarah Holt et al, 2009)
Sastun (Guido Verweyen, 2004)
Selling Sickness (Catherine Scott, 2015)
The Shaman's Apprentice (Miranda Smith, 2014)
TED Talk: How Do We Heal Medicine? (Atul Gawande, 2013)
Vital Signs: Conjoined Twins (CNN / Sanjay Gupta, 2017)
White Coat Rebels (Greg Barker, 2021)
Worlds Apart (Maren Grainger-Monsen & Julia Haslett, 2003)