'Jimmy Carter' AMERICAN EXPERIENCE to Air on PBS Tonight

In remembrance of the life of the 39th President, the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE documentary Jimmy Carter will have an encore broadcast on Monday, December 30, 2024, 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS App.

Jimmy Carter’s story is one of the greatest dramas in American politics, and the film traces his rapid ascent, dramatic fall from grace and unexpected resurrection. In 1980, he was voted out of office in a humiliating defeat, but over the following decades became one of the most admired statesmen and humanitarians in America and the world. Produced, written and directed by Adriana Bosch, Jimmy Carter is part of the Peabody Award-winning American Experience series The Presidents.

Carter’s story is told by the people who know him best. Wife Rosalynn, who passed away on November 29, 2023, provides a rare glimpse of the inner life of their marriage, his early career and political struggles. Son Chip speaks with candor about the president who was his father and the life of this political family. Others appearing in the film include Vice President Walter F. Mondale, press secretary Jody Powell, budget director Bert Lance, pollster Patrick Caddell, U.N. ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski and Carter’s most important biographers, Douglas Brinkley and Peter Bourne. The program also features Carter family home movies, as well as rare film of Carter’s final hours in the Oval Office, when he and his advisors waited in vain for the release of THE AMERICANS who had been held hostage in Tehran for 444 days.

Carter was the first president to confront the challenge of militant Islam, then embodied by the Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian revolution. Carter was also the first president to embark on what would prove to be the excruciating road to peace in the Middle East. But in the end, he would be undone by his failure to secure the release of the hostages and by a plummeting economy. 

The documentary shows how Carter’s political redemption was accomplished by Carter himself. The memories of his presidency — gas lines, inflation, recession, the Iran hostage crisis, an ineffectual and fractured administration, and the so-called national malaise — would be eclipsed, finally, by his post-presidential successes as a peacemaker in the world’s most troubled areas, and his emergence as a champion for the poor in his own country.

Jimmy Carter is written, produced and directed by Adriana Bosch. The film is edited by James Rutenbeck. David Condon is co-producer and Julie Rosenberg is associate producer. The music is by Mason Daring and the film is narrated by Linda Hunt. AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is produced for PBS by GBH Boston. The series executive producer is Cameo George. 

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Jimmy Carter will stream simultaneously with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. The film will also be available for streaming with closed captioning in English and Spanish.