The American Revolution: A Film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt
PLEASE NOTE: "The American Revolution: An Evening with Ken Burns" event on 9/26 is SOLD OUT.
PREMIERING NOVEMBER 16, 2025
New Six-Part, 12-Hour Series Directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt and Written by Geoffrey Ward
The new 12-hour documentary series explores the country’s founding struggle and its eight-year War for Independence.
Starting Sunday, November 16 and air for six consecutive nights through Friday, November 21st at 8:00-10:00 p.m. on Detroit PBS, the full series will be available to stream beginning Sunday, November 16 at PBS.org and on the PBS App.
The much-anticipated series, which has been in production for eight years, was directed and produced by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt and written by long-time collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward. The filmmakers and PBS scheduled the broadcast for 2025, the 250th anniversary of the start of the war, which began in the spring of 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down. Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe.
An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the war and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of figures from a wide variety of backgrounds. Viewers will experience the war through the voices of those who lived it—soldiers, civilians, Loyalists, Patriots, and allies. The American Revolution was a fight for independence, a civil war, and a global conflict that touched millions.
Historical Scholars who appear in the film or advised the production include:
Rick Atkinson, Friederike Baer, Maggie Blackhawk, Ned Blackhawk, Darren Bonaparte, Christopher Leslie Brown, Vincent Brown, Colin G. Calloway, Stephen Conway, Iris de Rode, Philip J. Deloria, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Kathleen DuVal, Joseph J. Ellis, Charles E. Frye, Annette Gordon-Reed, Don N. Hagist, William Hogeland, Maya Jasanoff, Edward G. Lengel, William E. Leuchtenberg, Jennifer Loren, Holly A. Mayer, Nathaniel Philbrick, Jeffrey Rosen, Claudio Saunt, Barnet Schecter, Stacy Schiff, Alan Taylor, Michael John Witgen, Kevin J. Weddle, Gordon S. Wood, Serena Zabin, and the late Bernard Bailyn.
The film, narrated by Peter Coyote, includes the first-person voices of nearly 200 individual historic figures, read by a cast of actors, including: Adam Arkin, Jeremiah Bitsui, Corbin Bleu, Kenneth Branagh, Josh Brolin, Bill Camp, Tantoo Cardinal, Josh Charles, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, Keith David, Hope Davis, Marcus Davis-Orrom, Bruce Davison, Leon Dische Becker, Alden Ehrenreich, Craig Ferguson, Morgan Freeman, Christian Friedel, Paul Giamatti, Domhnall Gleeson, Amanda Gorman, Michael Greyeyes, Jonathan Groff, Charlotte Hacke, Tom Hanks, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, Lucas Hedges, Josh Hutcherson, Samuel L. Jackson, Gene Jones, Michael Keaton, Joe Keery, Joel Kinnaman, Tracy Letts, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Josh Lucas, Michael Mando, Carolyn McCormick, Lindsay Mendez, Tobias Menzies, Joe Morton, Edward Norton, David Oyelowo, Mandy Patinkin, Wendell Pierce, Jon Proudstar, Matthew Rhys, LaTanya Richardson, Liev Schreiber, Chaske Spencer, Dan Stevens, Meryl Streep, and Yul Vazquez, among others.
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost fifty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made. A December 2002 poll conducted by Real Screen Magazine listed The Civil War as second only to Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North as the “most influential documentary of all time,” and named Ken Burns and Robert Flaherty as the “most influential documentary makers” of all time. In March 2009, David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said, “… Burns is not only the greatest documentarian of the day, but also the most influential filmmaker period. That includes feature filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I say that because Burns not only turned millions of persons onto history with his films, he showed us a new way of looking at our collective past and ourselves.” The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.” And Wynton Marsalis has called Ken “a master of timing, and of knowing the sweet spot of a story, of how to ask questions to get to the basic human feeling and to draw out the true spirit of a given subject.” Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including seventeen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. In September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In November of 2022, Ken was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Ken has been the recipient of more than thirty honorary degrees and has delivered many treasured commencement addresses. He is a sought-after public speaker, appearing at colleges, civic organizations and business groups throughout the country.
Ken was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953. He graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1975 and went on to be one of the co-founders of Florentine Films.
Sarah Botstein has produced some of the most popular and acclaimed documentaries on PBS. Her work with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick includes Jazz (2001), The War (2007), Prohibition (2011)
The U.S. and the Holocaust marked Botstein’s debut as a co-director. The series, which premiered in September 2022 to widespread critical acclaim, tells the story of how the American people grappled with one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies in history.
In addition to the television broadcasts, Botstein is an original contributor to Ken Burns UNUM, a web-based platform that highlights historical themes across the Florentine Films body of work. Botstein works closely with PBS LearningMedia and WETA-TV to develop educational content for programming as part of the Ken Burns Classroom.
Currently, Botstein is working on an epic six-part series on the American Revolution and a three-part series about the life and presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
Geoffrey C. Ward was born in Newark, Ohio, in 1940 and grew up on the south side of Chicago and in New Delhi, India. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1962, with a bachelor’s degree in studio art.
He was senior picture editor at Encyclopedia Britannica in Chicago during the mid-1960s, founding editor of Audience magazine from 1970 to 1973, and managing editor and editor of American Heritage magazine from 1977 to 1982. For fourteen years he wrote a monthly column for American Heritage called “The Life and Times.”
Ward has collaborated with Ken Burns since 1984 and has been the sole or principal script writer for HUEY LONG; STATUE OF LIBERTY; THOMAS HART BENTON; THE CIVIL WAR; EMPIRE OF THE AIR: THE MEN WHO MADE RADIO; BASEBALL; THE WEST; THOMAS JEFFERSON; FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT; NOT FOR OURSELVES ALONE: THE STORY OF ELIZABETH CADY STANTON AND SUSAN B. ANTHONY; JAZZ; MARK TWAIN; UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS: THE RISE AND FALL OF JACK JOHNSON; THE WAR; THE ROOSEVELTS; THE VIETNAM WAR; THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST; and the forthcoming THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Ward also wrote or co-wrote companion volumes for ten of these series.
He was the principal or sole writer of Nixon; Lindbergh; Reminiscing in Tempo; The Kennedys; The Last Boss; TR; and Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided – all part of PBS’s “American Experience” series. For his work in documentary films, Ward has won two Writers’ Guild Awards, eight Christopher Awards, eight Emmys, and the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement in Writing conferred by the Writers’ Guild.
Ward is also an independent historian and biographer, the author of nine other books, among them A First-Class Temperament: the Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, which won the National Book Critics Circle and Los Angeles Times Awards for Best Biography, the Francis Parkman Award of the Society of American Historians in 1989, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Geoffrey Ward lives in New York City with his wife, writer Diane Raines Ward.
About The American Revolution
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C. Directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt. Written by Geoffrey C. Ward. Produced by Sarah Botstein, David Schmidt, Salimah El-Amin and Ken Burns. Edited by Tricia Reidy, Maya Mumma, Charles E. Horton, and Craig Mellish. Co-Produced by Megan Ruffe and Mike Welt. Cinematography by Buddy Squires. Narrated by Peter Coyote. The executive in charge for WETA was John F. Wilson (who passed away in November of 2024). Executive producer is Ken Burns.
Corporate funding for The American Revolution was provided by Bank of America. Major funding was provided by The Better Angels Society and its members Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine with the Crimson Lion Foundation; and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Major funding was also provided by David M. Rubenstein; The Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Family Foundation; Lilly Endowment Inc.; and the following Better Angels Society members: Eric and Wendy Schmidt; Stephen A. Schwarzman; and Kenneth C. Griffin with Griffin Catalyst. Additional support for The American Revolution was provided by: The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations; The Pew Charitable Trusts; Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha A. Darling; Park Foundation; and the following Better Angels Society members: Gilchrist and Amy Berg; Perry and Donna Golkin; The Michelson Foundation; Jacqueline B. Mars; Kissick Family Foundation; Diane and Hal Brierley; John H. N. Fisher and Jennifer Caldwell; John and Catherine Debs; The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund; Philip I. Kent; Gail Elden; Deborah and Jon Dawson; David and Susan Kreisman; The McCloskey Family Charitable Trust; Becky and Jim Morgan; Carol and Ned Spieker; Mark A. Tracy; and Paul and Shelley Whyte. The American Revolution was made possible, in part, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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