Cocaine Cowboys

The true-life story of a Harlem's notorious Nicky Barnes, a junkie turned multimillionaire drug-lord. Follow his life story from his rough childhood to the last days of his life.

Cocaine has always gotten a bad rap, and for a reason. It is a drug used by the rich and the poor legally and illegally, Mexican cartels fought over it with Colombia once associated with the brutal cocaine wars, and a source of tension between the American and Mexican borders on the people who are illicitly bringing in cocaine from one side of the border to another and will do anything to do it. So it can be surprising at times to the viewer throughout the course of the documentary special, that it was never always like this.

Max S. reveals how he built a drug empire from his childhood bedroom in this story that inspired the series "How to Sell Drugs Online."

This follow-up to the 1989 documentary ONE YEAR IN A LIFE OF CRIME revisits three of the original subjects in New Jersey during a five-year period in the 1990s. We share in their triumphs and setbacks as they navigate lives of poverty, drug abuse, AIDS, and petty crime.

Their job is stealing, their lives a cruel dead end. Director Jon Alpert takes his cameras undercover for this hard-hitting look at men who live by theft and suffer addiction. Focusing on a year in the lives of three professional criminals, this gritty profile—which includes hidden-camera footage of actual thefts—exposes the "petty" crimes that are paralyzing America.

In the documentary, we follow twin brothers Mike and Chuck Rollins, former addicts who now work in addiction recovery. They know firsthand the struggles and vulnerabilities of addiction, as well as the challenges of reintegrating after treatment. For many addicts, returning to neighborhoods plagued by drugs and abandoned houses that serve as drug dens makes relapse almost inevitable. Through their nonprofit, Gemini Reliance, the Rollins brothers purchase dilapidated homes and transform them into safe, sober living spaces for those in recovery. Their efforts have proven effective, yet sobriety remains a constant battle. The story of HEROINOHIO begins as a profile of these two brothers but soon unfolds into a raw account of a fight against the powerful grip of addiction, revealing the relentless resilience required to reclaim one’s life.

Maya is Ayaibex's daughter, an addict in recovery that feels a blame for damages that caused her daughter, Maya decides to remember her mother's childhood experiences in her world of addiction to seek the redemption of the weight that her mother has loaded for 20 years and get both to forgiveness.

Drug crews in New York, Atlanta, and Portland take us on a journey through their daily lives.

Andrew Thornton’s drug operation was one of the largest Kentucky and Tennessee had ever seen. Thornton would perish while attempting to parachute carrying African gold coins, weapons, thousands in cash and 75 pounds of cocaine. From the CIA to secret parties, Thornton is described as the James Bond of Kentucky by those who knew him. The documentary uncovers the true story behind the drug-sniffing bear and its rise to stardom. The film dissects the myths surrounding the ultimate party animal. Did Country Music legend Waylon Jennings buy the taxidermied bear? How much cocaine did it eat? And is the actual drug-eating bear now on display in a Kentucky store?

When gang leader Rob Brown is sentenced to prison for a fifth time, he must confront his role in bringing violent drug culture into his beloved American Indian community in northern Minnesota. As Rob reckons with his past, his seventeen-year-old protégé, Kevin, dreams of the future: becoming the most powerful and feared Native gangster on the reservation.

In the 1980s, ruthless Colombian cocaine barons invaded Miami with a brand of violence unseen in this country since Prohibition-era Chicago. Cocaine Cowboys is the true story of how Miami became the drug, murder and cash capital of the United States. But it isn't the whole story - Pulling from hundreds of hours of additional interviews and recently uncovered archival news footage, Cocaine Cowboys has been RELOADED: packed with footage and stories that have never been told about Griselda Blanco, the Medellín Cartel, and Miami's Cocaine Wars, with firsthand accounts by hit man Jorge 'Rivi' Ayala, cocaine trafficker Jon Roberts, smuggler Mickey Munday, and others. Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded recreates Miami's Cocaine Wars like you've never experienced it.

In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.