One Documentary per Amendment. Almost.
What to Watch on the 4th (Besides Fireworks)
July 4 is about the ideals of our country and the best version of it we can be. I've spent my career believing documentaries and journalism can help get us there.
Ken Burns's The American Revolution is the obvious pick for the Declaration of Independence, but here’s a list that really represents our American ideals. A documentary for (almost) every amendment in the Bill of Rights. Here's what I came up with. The 10th might be my favorite doc. Comment with more!
1st Amendment
This was a tough one to decide. So many important journalism docs.
Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (2017). How a billionaire secretly funded a lawsuit to bankrupt a news outlet.
Storm Lake (2021). A Pulitzer-winning editor and his family fight to keep their small Iowa newspaper alive as local news dies out nationwide.
2nd Amendment
The Perfect Neighbor (2025). A Florida neighbor dispute escalates into a fatal shooting under the state's Stand Your Ground law. It's really about that law more than the amendment itself, but it belongs on this list.
3rd Amendment
Couldn't find one. It's up for grabs for any ambitious filmmaker out there. I suppose Ken Burns's The American Revolution fits here too, given the amendment's origins in the quartering of British troops.
4th Amendment
Crime + Punishment (2018). A group of NYPD officers risk everything to expose illegal quota practices in their own department.
5th, 6th and 8th Amendments
Philly D.A. (2021). A civil rights attorney elected district attorney tries to reform prosecution, bail, and mass incarceration from the inside.
7th Amendment
Hot Coffee (2011). The real story behind the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, and how arbitration clauses have eroded the right to a jury trial.
9th Amendment
The Fight (2020). Five ACLU lawyers battle Trump-era policies on family separation, transgender military service, abortion access, and the census citizenship question.
10th Amendment
Last, and probably my favorite documentary (or maybe tied with Minding the Gap):
Boys State (2020). A thousand Texas teenagers build a state government from scratch: parties, primaries, a governor’s race, and all the compromises and dysfunction that come with it.
If you've got a 3rd Amendment documentary I'm missing, or another example for any of the amendments, I want to hear about it. Let me know in the comments.
Bonus (Future Doc for the 8th Amendment)
My friends are making The Dead Zone, a documentary about the bail bonds industry, the business of the 8th Amendment’s promise against “excessive bail.” In this country, freedom before trial often just comes down to money. That’s the story. They’re raising funds on Seed&Spark right now. Go check it out, and if you can, kick in a few bucks:
https://seedandspark.com/fund/the-dead-zone#story