PBS Sets Fall Premiere for The American Revolution

Ken Burns’ upcoming six-part series The American Revolution, which explores the country’s founding and its eight-year War for Independence, has been lined up for a fall premiere on PBS.

The 12-hour series, which has been in production for eight years, was directed and produced by 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.

It will debut on November 16 and air for six consecutive nights through November 21 at 8 p.m. on PBS. The full series will be available to stream beginning November 16 at PBS.org and on the PBS App.

Led by the cinematographer Buddy Squires, the series features original footage that highlights the beauty and diversity of the North American landscape. The team shot in every season over the course of several years and at nearly 100 locations within and beyond the original 13 colonies, including at Colonial Williamsburg, Fort Ticonderoga, Minute Man National Historical Park, Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Mount Vernon, Valley Forge National Historical Park, the South Carolina backcountry, overseas in London and the English countryside and elsewhere. The filmmakers also worked with extensive networks of reenactors to film troop movements and camp life.

The film, narrated by Peter Coyote, includes the first-person voices of nearly 200 individual historical figures, read by a cast of actors that includes Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, David Oyelowo, Mandy Patinkin and many others.

“The American Revolution has always been surrounded by myth that keeps us from seeing the real picture,” said Burns. “The story of the birth of this country is at once devastating and inspiring. It was a bloody civil war that divided families and communities, displaced native nations, both challenged and protected the institution of slavery, while also proclaiming the noblest aspirations of humankind.”

“Our film tells the remarkable history of the people who lived through the American Revolution, their everyday concerns and their hopes, fears and failings,” Botstein said. “It’s a surprising and deeply relevant story, one that is hugely important to understanding who we are as a country and a people. The Revolution changed how we think about government—creating new ideas about liberty, freedom and democracy.”

“The Revolution was eight years of uncertainty, hope and terror, a brutal war that engaged millions of people in North America and beyond and left tremendous loss in its wake,” Schmidt noted. “At the same time, the Revolution also changed how Americans thought about themselves, their government and what they were capable of achieving. The United States that emerged from the war was a nation few could have imagined before the shooting began in April 1775.”

PBS and Florentine Films, Burns’ production company, will be working on outreach and engagement with a wide range of national and local organizations focused on commemorating the country’s founding, including the National Constitution Center, Colonial Williamsburg, America 250, The Smithsonian Institution, The National Parks Service, The National Archives, The Museum of the American Revolution, Monticello, Mount Vernon, the Aspen Institute, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 250 state and local organizations and many others.