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Beowulf, a half-man, half-god, arrives at a castle that has been taken over by the evil spirit Grendel. Due to his powers, Beowulf is the only one strong enough to stand up against Grendel in a fight to the death.

Uses film excerpts, dramatic readings, and location footage to look at what is known about the life and career of sixteenth-century playwright William Shakespeare, from his youth in Stratford-on-Avon, to his death at age fifty-two.

Free-spirited Janie Crawford's search for happiness causes her to leave two unfulfilling marriages and take up with a much younger man.

Author Erica Jong and experts on Gustave Flaubert's works discuss his classic novel "Madame Bovary" and his motivation for creating its famous heroine.

Minerva Mirabal and her sisters, known as the Butterflies, become heroes and martyrs for their country as they work to overthrow tyrannical dictator General Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic in the 1950s.

Three of the classic stories by Chaucer relating the tales of various pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury.

Autobiographical story of the mousy governess Jane, and her relationship with the stormy Mr. Rochester.

Credited with both unifying China and tormenting its citizenry, Qin Shi Huangdi, the "first emperor of China," is one of the most controversial leaders in the nation's history. His reign brought advances such as standardized currencies, weights, and measures, unified written and spoken language and transportation systems. In battle, too, he was centuries ahead of his time, creating assembly lines to mass-produce precision-crafted swords, arrows and other weapons. This documentary examines this ruler's complex legacy, from the brilliant military strategies that created an empire to his plans for the original Great Wall. Bonus disc, China's Wall of Doom, features the discovery of the emperor's 7,000 life-size army of terra-cotta statues and the Great Wall of China.

A story about teenage hopes, fears, bravery and violent rebellion and living on the right side of the tracks.

Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself.