Lyndon Baines Johnson rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of power only to suffer disillusionment and defeat as his visions of a Great Society were swallowed in the quagmire of Vietnam. Standing six feet four inches tall with a size 7-3/8 Stetson hat, he was both a charmer and a bully, loved, hated, and feared. The series tells how LBJ exploited his mastery of the legislative process to shepherd a collection of progressive programs through Congress with astounding success, while an unpopular and costly war eroded his political base and left him an exile within his own White House.
Alfred I. duPont Award – Columbia Journalism Award
Writers Guild of America Award
“LBJ is historical filmmaking at its deepest and classiest, a full, warm-blooded, ten-gallon sized portrait.”
– Los Angeles Times
“Ranks up there with PBS’s finest – “Eyes on the Prize” and “The Civil War” – it’s equal parts storytelling, filmmaking, and scholarly research.” – Houston Chronicle
“Documentary television at its best. A superb evocation of a troubling past.”
– Washington Post
“The best straight documentary of the year.”
– Newsday
“Visually arresting, beautifully written, and ever-engrossing, it may be the best program on public television this season. Or anywhere else for that matter.”
– Dallas Morning News
“Masterful...an oral and visual storytelling feast, vigorously re-imagining a seminal, larger-than-life personality.”
– USA Today
“Grubin captures Johnson’s Sophoclean rise and fall masterfully. One watches on the edge of the seat.”
– Boston Globe