The First Wave

Nov 19, 2021

1h 34m

★ 6.8

Four months, New York City, 2020.

Overview

When Covid-19 hit New York City in 2020, filmmaker Matthew Heineman gained unique access to one of New York’s hardest-hit hospital systems. The resulting film focuses on the doctors, nurses, and patients on the frontlines during the “first wave” from March to June 2020. Their distinct storylines each serve as a microcosm to understand how the city persevered through the worst pandemic in a century

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

National Geographic

Our Time Projects

Participant

National Geographic Documentary Films

The First Wave Trailers

Cast

Self

Nathalie Dougé

Self - Ahmed's Wife

Alexis Ellis

Self

Kellie Wunsch

Self

Brussels Jabon

Self - Brussels' Husband

Naph Jabon

Self - Brussels' Sister

Athens Garrote

Self (archive footage)

Andrew Cuomo

Self

Michael Dowling

Self (archive footage)

Al Sharpton

Self

Karl Arabian

A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry scion of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé—someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.

0.0

The Blinding of Isaac Woodard

Mar 30, 2021

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.

6.8

Newsies

Apr 10, 1992

A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When their publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, tries to squeeze a little more profit out of their labours, they organize a strike, only to be confronted with the Pulitzer's hard-ball tactics.

6.1

Stonewall

Sep 18, 2015

Kicked out by his parents, a gay teenager leaves small-town Indiana for New York's Greenwich Village, where growing discrimination against the gay community leads to riots on June 28, 1969.

6.0

Anna Goldin, the Last Witch

Aug 1, 1991

A native of Sennwald, Anna Göldi arrived in Glarus in 1765. For seventeen years, she worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, a physician. Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi at first escaped arrest, but the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on February 9, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture, admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782 to execution by decapitation. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.

0.0

NYC Point Gods

Jul 29, 2022

An in-depth look at the legendary point guards of New York City who honed their craft and developed their legendary showmanship in the 1980s and ’90s. The documentary spotlights the ascent of Rafer Alston, Kenny Anderson, Mark Jackson, Stephon Marbury, God Shammgod, Kenny Smith, Rod Strickland and Dwayne “Pearl” Washington in the midst of a cultural renaissance.

6.0

Wuhan Wuhan

May 6, 2021

In a time when the world needs greater cross-cultural understanding, WUHAN WUHAN is an invaluable depiction of a metropolis joining together to overcome a crisis.

4.0

The Ring Thing

Jun 2, 2017

When Sarah accidentally proposes to her girlfriend in Provincetown, the mixup turns their loving relationship into a minefield of marital exploration.

0.0

Left Behind

Jan 17, 2025

A group of determined moms band together to create the first public dyslexic school in the largest school district in America, New York City.

7.9

CORONA.FILM - Prologue

Mar 23, 2021

As the first part of our investigation, the CORONA.FILM prologue will delve into the science behind the pandemic. Starting at the very beginning, we shine a light on the responses. The aim is not to point the finger; our aim is to tell the whole story in all its complexity, as we believe that justice cannot prevail if only one side of the story is told.

6.6

The Capote Tapes

Sep 10, 2021

A portrait of the brilliant American writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and the New York high society of his time.

0.0

Whiteley

May 11, 2017

A visual journey into the life and legacy of one of Australia's most celebrated artists, Brett Whiteley.

8.0

Covidland: The Shot

Jun 1, 2022

The Covid hysteria began with slogans like “just 15 days to flatten the curve”, but within a year, it evolved to be “everyone must get vaccinated”. Your rights to the absence of coercion and informed consent are now under continual attack! People around the world are unable to get on planes and trains, access hospitals, attend funerals, go to restaurants and gyms, simply because they do not have a “health” pass.

6.0

Factory Girl

Dec 29, 2006

In the mid-1960s, wealthy debutant Edie Sedgwick meets artist Andy Warhol. She joins Warhol's famous Factory and becomes his muse. Although she seems to have it all, Edie cannot have the love she craves from Andy, and she has an affair with a charismatic musician, who pushes her to seek independence from the artist and the milieu.

6.4

Me and Orson Welles

Sep 5, 2008

New York, 1937. A teenager hired to star in Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant.

7.2

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson

Jul 27, 2017

Describing herself as a 'street queen,' Johnson was a legendary fixture in New York City’s gay ghetto and a tireless voice for LGBT pride since the days of Stonewall, who along with fellow trans icon Sylvia Rivera, founded Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), a trans activist group based in the heart of NYC’s Greenwich Village. Her death in 1992 was declared a suicide by the NYPD, but friends never accepted that version of events. Structured as a whodunit, with activist Victoria Cruz cast as detective and audience surrogate, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson celebrates the lasting political legacy of Johnson, while seeking to finally solve the mystery of her unexplained death.

6.5

Genius

Jun 10, 2016

New York in the 1920s. Max Perkins, a literary editor is the first to sign such subsequent literary greats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When a sprawling, chaotic 1,000-page manuscript by an unknown writer falls into his hands, Perkins is convinced he has discovered a literary genius.

8.6

32 Pills: My Sister's Suicide

Nov 29, 2017

Traces the life and mental illness of New York artist and photographer Ruth Litoff, and her sister's struggle to come to terms with her tragic suicide.

6.4

Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn

Aug 12, 2020

The 30-year legacy of the murder of black teenager Yusuf Hawkins by a group of young white men in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, as his family and friends reflect on the tragedy and the subsequent fight for justice that inspired and divided New York City.