Prohibition: Season 1
  • Network: PBS
  • Series Premiere Date: Oct 2, 2011
  • Season #: 1
Prohibition Image
Metascore
86 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 19 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.1 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 14 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
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  • Summary: Ken Burns' latest documentary series focuses on the origins of the 18th Amendment and the eventual end of Prohibition.
  • Genre(s): Documentary

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    Oct 3, 2011
    100
    Great historical documentaries not only enlighten us about the past, but tell us things about our own times as well, either directly or implicitly. Prohibition, the latest project by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, states the implicit links between the passage of the 18th Amendment and contemporary politics so loudly, you'd have to be drunk on bathtub gin not to get the message.
  2. Uncle Barky
    Reviewed by: Ed Bark
    Oct 3, 2011
    100
    In the end, it may be the most fun you'll ever have with a Ken Burns film.
  3. Slate
    Reviewed by: Troy Patterson
    Oct 5, 2011
    80
    Over three nights and five and half hours, Prohibition provides a very fine analytic survey of the noble experiment, and most criticisms of it are quibbles.
  4. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Lloyd
    Oct 3, 2011
    50
    At something more than five hours, Prohibition, while interesting from moment to moment, is longer than it needs to be, and made even longer by Burns' habitual stateliness.

See all 19 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. Shortfuse
    10
    Fascinating, as usual. Ken Burns is a master, and this is another masterpiece. As is his staple, he breaks the subject into logical, manageable chunks, and turns even the dry (read: boring) parts of the story into a dramatic, engaging piece of television. If you like this, I strongly recommend any other Ken Burns documentary (especially Baseball). At a time when "American Idol" passes for respectable content, do yourself a favour and invest some time in PBS.… Collapse
  2. CritiqueGirl
    7
    Bottom Line: I know all of this already. It seems Burns has pieced together a lot of other documentaries, statements, photos, footage and such already readily available. I don't think I saw or heard anything that has not been brought out on other programs through the years. Not that history changes but really his other works are so much better. It is like he used wiki for his main source of information. I watched it because there was nothing else on. Watching the behind the scenes footage made me cringe. Actors are full of themselves and I could care less about how much fun they had and the talent and insight for so and so. I wish Tom Hanks would just go away.… Expand

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