American Playhouse Theatrical Films

Acclaimed filmmaker Errol Morris paints a fascinating portrait of four obsessed eccentrics. Morris weaves interviews with a wild animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot designer and an expert on the naked mole rat together with old movies, cartoons and stock footage for a compelling, kaleidoscopic look at the very thin line which separates madness from genius.

Story of Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at East Los Angeles' Garfield High School, who refuses to write off his inner-city students as losers. Escalante pushes and inspires 18 students who were struggling with math to become math whizzes.

Carol White is an L.A. housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what cannot be seen.

El norte: Enrique and Rosa are brother and sister Mayan Indian peasants, living in the mountains of Guatemala. When the village attempts to organize for better treatment, Enrique and Rosa are forced to flee as the Guatemalan army is sent in to punish the townspeople. Receiving clandestine help from friends and humorous advice from a veteran immigrant, they make their way to Los Angeles, hoping to make a new life as young, uneducated, and illegal immigrants. The...

Examines the roadside murder of a Dallas police officer, and the subsequent arrest and conviction of drifter Randall Adams, who was given a death sentence despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence.