Why would US military veterans take up arms against the country they swore to protect? This is the question at the heart of Against All Enemies, a new documentary by Charlie Sadoff. In it, Charlie explores the role disaffected veterans played in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol.  In order to better understand what happened on that day, he looks at the history of civil unrest involving veterans, from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan through to modern day extremist organisations like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. His journey takes him not only inside these groups but to the top as ..read more

God Save Texas is a three-part docu-series inspired by Lawrence Wright’s book of the same name. In each episode, an acclaimed filmmaker explores the past, present, and future of the Lone Star State.  Episode One is directed by Richard Linklater, Episode Three by Iliana Sosa. Episode Two is directed by Alex Stapleton, and she joins Matthew Sherwood to discuss what it was like returning to her hometown of Houston to explore the effect of Texas’ oil and gas industry on her family and local communities.  That effect has been vast, for though the energy industry has brought a lot of prosp ..read more

Between 2001-19, head coach Bill Belichick created one of the most successful dynasties ever seen in American football. Under his leadership, the New England Patriots won a record equalling six Super Bowl titles. Guided by quarterback Tom Brady, the team also set a host of other NFL records, including most wins over a ten year period, longest regular season/play-off winning streak, and most consecutive divisional titles. But this era of nearly unprecedented success did not come without a cost, and the franchise was rocked by a number of controversies. Chief among them were the Spygate and Defl ..read more

On November 13th 1974, Ronald DeFeo shot his family dead in Amityville, New York. Not long after he was convicted of the killings, the Lutz family moved into the DeFeos’ former home. They did not stay long. After just 28 days, they fled, claiming to have been driven out by paranormal activity. The Lutz family’s experience formed the basis of The Amityville Horror. Released in 1979, it went on to spawn a seemingly endless number of sequels, prequels, and derivatives: over 40 to date. In his docu-series, Amityville: An Origin Story, director Jack Riccobono explores what happened to both the DeFe ..read more

The 1980s were a time of allegation and scandal in America. From the 1980 October Surprise, 1985-87 Iran-Contra Affair, and 1986-91 BCCI scandal, the decade seemed only to be going downhill. And in the midst of it all, the US Justice Department was accused of stealing PROMIS, a piece of software that could be used to create a programme that would allow the US government to spy on whomever used it. Danny Casolaro was a writer, poet, and investigative journalist. At the start of the 1990s, he began exploring what had happened to PROMIS, and it led him to see the theft of this software as being a ..read more

Tatiana Suarez was born into poverty, endured a ‘tumultuous [and] traumatic childhood’, and at school chose to compete in a sport – wrestling – that led to her being relentlessly bullied. She overcame every obstacle that life and people put in front of her and became a champion. And not just once, but multiple times. Finally, the greatest prize of all, Olympic glory, lay within her grasp. And then, she broke her neck. And as that was being treated, doctors discovered that Tatiana had cancer. In The Unbreakable Tatiana Suarez, Cassius Corrigan tells the story of how Tatiana overcame these seemi ..read more

Who is Mark Zuckerberg? That is the question at the heart of Nick Green’s new Sky documentary, Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse.  We all know how Zuckerberg took Facebook from being a website accessible to just a few American college students in 2004 to one that is used by over a billion people worldwide in 2024. Along the way, he has acquired Instagram and WhatsApp making him one of the most wide reaching and influential men in the world today. But what are his thoughts? His views? What does he believe in? As Nick Green tells Matthew Sherwood, uncovering the man behind the avatar and up ..read more

On the night of March 23rd 2015, Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn were drugged and bound by a mystery assailant who had broken into their home. Denise was then kidnapped. When Aaron called the police the next day, they believed he had murdered her. Two days later, however, Denise – who had been sexually assaulted by her kidnapper - was freed. Now the police believed no crime had been committed at all, and that Aaron and Denise were hoaxers. The psychological thriller Gone Girl had been released just six months before. In American Nightmare, co-directors Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris exp ..read more

Lady Bird Johnson is best known today as the wife of Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the USA between 1963-69. However, there was much more to her life than simply the role of ‘First Lady’. In this episode of Factual America, Matthew Sherwood takes a deep dive into Lady Bird Johnson’s life with Dawn Porter, director of new documentary film, The Lady Bird Diaries.  It’s 1963. Liz Carpenter, Lady Bird’s Press Secretary, suggests that she records her ‘thoughts and experiences’ on a tape recorder. Lady Bird agrees and borrows one from Carpenter’s son. She never looks back. Over the ne ..read more

On 28th January 2017, a mosque in Victoria, Texas was burnt to the ground by an arsonist. In the aftermath, Victorians stood side-by-side with their Muslim neighbours. In A Town Called Victoria, Li Lu – who grew up in nearby Sugar Land, Texas – explores what happened next: to the town, its Islamic community, and to the arsonist, who was soon apprehended. Li joins Matthew Sherwood to discuss her series, its themes, which include white supremacy, patriotism and mental illness, as well as the limits of healing. Li looks back at her own upbringing, and shares how she discovered the arson attack ha ..read more