Frontline

The bets were huge and risky, billions of dollars on the housing market. Superbanks reaped billions of dollars, and gobbled up competitors. Then the bottom dropped out, massive losses on Wall Street nearly broke the banks and many are on the brink of failure. As the federal government contemplates what could become a massive nationalization of the industry, watch as FRONTLINE tells the inside story.

FRONTLINE producers Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria unravel the story behind the world's first truly global Ponzi scheme - a deception that lasted longer, reached wider, and cut deeper than any other business scandal in history.

In this follow up to the groundbreaking film The New Asylums, FRONTLINE examines what happens to the mentally ill when they leave prison and why they return at such alarming rates. The intimate stories of the released-along with interviews with parole officers, social workers, and psychiatrists-provide a rare look at the lives of the mentally ill as they struggle to stay out of prison and reintegrate into society.

More than two decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America's waters clean enough for swimming and fishing again, two iconic waterways - the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay - are in perilous condition. With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists fear contamination to the food chain and drinking water for millions of people. A growing list of endangered species also is threatened in both estuaries. As a new president, Congress and states set agendas and spending priorities, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the rising hazards to human health and the eco-system and why it's so hard to keep our waters clean.

FRONTLINE examines the shadowy world of international bribery, revealing how multi-national companies create slush funds, set up front companies, and make secret payments, all to get billions in business. These practices are facing a new international crackdown. At the center of this is a controversial, ongoing investigation into the British-based multi-national BAE Systems and allegations about billion dollar bribes.

As the worsening economy leads to massive job losses -- potentially forcing millions more Americans to live without health insurance -- FRONTLINE travels the country examining the nation's broken healthcare system and explores the need for a fundamental overhaul. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Jon Palfreman dissects the private insurance system, a system that not only fails to cover 46 million Americans, but also leaves millions more underinsured and at risk of bankruptcy.

All of the federal government's efforts to stem the tide in the financial meltdown that began with the subprime mortgage crisis have added hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt. FRONTLINE reports on how this debt will constrain and challenge the new Obama administration, and on the growing chorus on both sides of the aisle that without fiscal reform, the United States government may face a debt crisis of its own, which makes the current financial situation pale in comparison. Through interviews with leading experts and insiders in government finance, the film investigates the causes and potential outcomes of -- and possible solutions to -- America's $10 trillion debt.

FRONTLINE investigates the causes of the worst economic crisis in 70 years and how the government responded. The film chronicles the inside stories of the Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Brothers collapse, the propping up of insurance giant AIG and the $700 billion bailout. It also examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn't see, couldn't stop and haven't been able to fix.

In 2004, journalist Dave Iverson received the same news that had been delivered to his father and older brother years earlier: He had Parkinson's disease. In My Father, My Brother and Me, Iverson sets off on a personal journey to explore the scientific, ethical, and political debate that surrounds Parkinson's. And he has intimate conversations with fellow Parkinson's sufferers like actor Michael J. Fox and writer Michael Kinsley.

As Barack Obama assumes the presidency on January 20th, 2009, FRONTLINE tells the story of how a little known state senator rose from obscurity to the White House in just over four years. Dreams of Obama draws on interviews with those closest to Obama to provide insight into how he might lead the country. A personal and political biography, the film examines the key moments that shaped Obama, and asks what his election says about America.

Six months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, producer June Cross came across 82-year-old Herbert Gettridge working alone on his home in the Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood devastated when the levees broke in August 2005. Over the next two years, Cross would document the story of the extended Gettridge clan, an African-American family with deep roots in New Orleans, as they struggled to rebuild their homes and their lives.

Frontline looks at Venezuela's controversial and outspoken president Hugo Chavez and the revolution he claims is turning his country into an anti-capitalist beacon for Latin America and the world. Through the lens of his unique weekly program "Al? Presidente" and the eyes of the Venezuelans who know him well, Frontline digs beneath the surface of his presidency and his personality to try to understand the mercurial leader.

The next president of the United States will inherit vast foreign policy challenges-an overstretched military, frayed alliances, and wars on two fronts. FRONTLINE gives viewers a hard, inside look at the real policy choices the next president will face. The report features strategists and diplomats giving their best advice about how to correct past failures and how to shape a realistic foreign policy approach in the Middle East.

For years, big business has resisted environmental policy and stifled the debate over climate change. Now, facing pressure from governments, green groups and investors alike, big business is promising to reshape its approach to the environment, fundamentally transforming the politics of the debate. FRONTLINE producer Martin Smith travels the globe to test what big business is really doing to solve one of the most urgent issues of our time.

One of the most memorable presidential races in decades pits the iconoclast John McCain against the newcomer Barack Obama; a heroic former prisoner of war against the first African-American major party nominee. The 20th anniversary broadcast of "The Choice" examines the personal and political biographies of these men and goes behind headlines to discover how they arrived at this moment and what their very different candidacies say about America.