THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION to Stream for Free on PBS Ahead of 250th Anniversary

The American Revolution, the six-part, 12-hour documentary series directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, that premiered on PBS in November 2025, will stream for free on all PBS platforms from Memorial Day, Monday, May 25th through Sunday, July 12th.

All six episodes will be available on PBS.org and on the PBS App. The first episode is also scheduled for re-broadcast on PBS stations nationwide in primetime on Friday, July 3, 9:00 – 11:00 PM. Episodes 2-6 are scheduled on Saturday, July 4, 9:30 AM – 8:00 PM, leading into the live Independence Day special, AMERICA – MADE IN VIRGINIA: 250 YEARS TOGETHER (w.t.) from Colonial Williamsburg.

In addition, the first episode of each of Burns’s war films will be available for free on the Ken Burns Channel on YouTube beginning with THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (5/25/2026), THE CIVIL WAR (6/1/2026), THE WAR (6/6/2026) and THE VIETNAM WAR (6/15/2026).

The American Revolution broke all PBS streaming records when it premiered last November, pushing PBS, for the first time in its history,  onto the Nielsen’s Top Ten Streaming list, with 565 million minutes viewed. As of February 2026, 20 million viewers have watched the broadcast on PBS and more than 4 billion minutes of the series have been seen on all streaming platforms.

The much-anticipated series, which was in production for more than nine years, was directed and produced by Ken 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.

The American Revolution examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down. Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe.

An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the war and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of figures from a wide variety of backgrounds. Viewers will experience the war through the memories of the men and women who experienced it: the rank-and-file Continental soldiers and American militiamen (some of them teenagers), Patriot political and military leaders, British Army officers, American Loyalists, Native soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans, German soldiers in the British service, French and Spanish allies, and various civilians living in North America, Loyalist as well as Patriot, including many made refugees by the war. 

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 a hundred locations, within and beyond the original 13 colonies, including at THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Museum at Yorktown, Colonial Williamsburg, Fort Ticonderoga, Jamestown Settlement, 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 movement and camp life.

The film, narrated by Peter Coyote, includes the first-person voices of nearly 200 individual historic figures, read by a cast of actors, including Adam Arkin, Jeremiah Bitsui, Corbin Bleu, Kenneth Branagh, Josh Brolin, Bill Camp, Tantoo Cardinal, Josh Charles, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, Keith David, Hope Davis, Marcus Davis-Orrom, Bruce Davison, Leon Dische Becker, Alden Ehrenreich, Craig Ferguson, Morgan Freeman, Christian Friedel, Paul Giamatti, Domhnall Gleeson, Amanda Gorman, Michael Greyeyes, Jonathan Groff, Charlotte Hacke, Tom Hanks, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, Lucas Hedges, Josh Hutcherson, Samuel L. Jackson, Gene Jones, Michael Keaton, Joe Keery, Joel Kinnaman, Tracy Letts, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Josh Lucas, Michael Mando, Carolyn McCormick, Lindsay Mendez, Tobias Menzies, Joe Morton, Edward Norton, David Oyelowo, Mandy Patinkin, Wendell Pierce, Jon Proudstar, Matthew Rhys, LaTanya Richardson, Liev Schreiber, Chaske Spencer, Dan Stevens, Meryl Streep, and Yul Vazquez, among others.

The film uses a wide variety of music, both from the period and newly composed pieces for the series.  Music from the documentary, featuring performances by Brooklyn Rider, Nora Brown & Steph Coleman, Rhiannon Giddens, Jennifer Kreisberg and Yo-Yo Ma among others, was released by In a Circle Records on November 7, 2025.

In addition to using hundreds of 18th-century maps, the filmmakers created and commissioned over a hundred new maps. There are also well over a thousand still images in the film, including paintings, letters, lithographs, and other archival materials, from museums, galleries, and libraries throughout the United States and abroad.

The American Revolution is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C. Directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt. Written by Geoffrey C. Ward. Produced by Sarah Botstein, David Schmidt, Salimah El-Amin and Ken Burns. Edited by Tricia Reidy, Maya Mumma, Charles E. Horton, and Craig Mellish. Co-Produced by Megan Ruffe and Mike Welt. Cinematography by Buddy Squires. Narrated by Peter Coyote.  The executive in charge for WETA was John F. Wilson (who passed away in November of 2024). The executive producer is Ken Burns.

Photo Credit: IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo