Code of the West

America ReFramed Season 2
  • Feature Film
  • 2013
  • 75 Mins

Set against the steamy lamplight of marijuana grow houses and the bustling halls of the Montana State Capitol, Code of the West follows the political process of marijuana policy reform - and the recent federal crackdown on medical marijuana growers across the country.

More from this film

Code of the West

  • Feature Film
  • 2013

Trailer

Set against the steamy lamplight of marijuana grow houses and the bustling halls of the Montana State Capitol, Code of the West follows the political process of marijuana policy reform - and the recent federal crackdown on medical marijuana growers across ...

Based on similar topics

Dark Money

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

Dark Money, a political thriller, examines one of the greatest present threats to American democracy: the influence of untraceable corporate money on our elections and elected officials. The film takes viewers to Montana frontline in the fight to preserve fair ...

Survivors

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Clip

Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmaker Arthur Pratt, Survivors presents an intimate portrait of his country during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the sociopolitical turmoil that lies in its wake. During one of the ...

Nowhere to Hide

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Clip

Nowhere to Hide follows nurse Nori Sharif through five years of dramatic change in one of the world's most dangerous and inaccessible areas: the "triangle of death" in central Iraq. Initially filming stories of survivors and the hope of a ...

Still Tomorrow

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Interview

A village woman with no high school diploma becomes China's most famous poet, and her book of poetry the best-selling such volume in China in the past 20 years. Still Tomorrow follows Yu Xiuhua, a 39-year-old woman living with cerebral ...

Whose Streets?

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Clip

When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of the St. Louis area and beyond. Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the ...

StoryCorps Shorts: Driven

  • Short Film
  • 2016

Short Film

Wendell Scott was the first African American inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. His son, Frank, remembers what it took for his father to cross the finish line at racetracks throughout the South in the '60s and '70s.

StoryCorps Shorts: School's Out

  • Short Film
  • 2016

Short Film

Following the federal mandate to integrate schools in the 1950's, Reverend James Seawood recalls how African Americans were forced out of Sheridan, Arkansas, the fate of his beloved school, and the human cost of "urban renewal."

Hotel 22

  • Short Film
  • 2015

Short Film

The Line 22 is a bus route that runs 24 hours in Silicon Valley. During the day, it is a regular city bus. But by night, it transforms into an unofficial shelter for the homeless. Commonly referred to as Hotel ...

StoryCorps Shorts: Traffic Stop

  • Short Film
  • 2015

Short Film

Alex Landau, an African American man, was raised by his adoptive white parents to believe that skin color didn't matter. But when Alex was pulled over by Denver police officers one night in 2009, he lost his belief in ...

StoryCorps Shorts: A More Perfect Union

  • Short Film
  • 2015

Short Film

When Theresa Burroughs came of voting age, she was ready to cast her ballot — but she had a long fight ahead of her. During the Jim Crow era, the board of registrars at Alabama's Hale County Courthouse prevented ...

Graven Image

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Using over 100 years of archival footage, director Sierra Pettengill explores the history of the largest Confederate monument: Georgia’s Stone Mountain.

Crisanto Street

  • Short Film
  • 2020

Short Film

In the shadow of Silicon Valley, a hidden community thrives despite difficult circumstances. For one resident, eight-year-old Geovany Cesario, impending change is bittersweet.

Edgecombe

  • Short Film
  • 2020

Short Film

Through the deeply personal truths of three local residents, Edgecombe examines the ways trauma repeats and reinvents itself in rural black communities.

Clash

  • Short Film
  • 2020

Short Film

Clash is a short experimental documentary critiquing the lack of diversity in on-screen representation in the U.K. today.

Muxes

  • Short Film
  • 2020

Short Film

In the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, Mexico, the world is not divided simply into men and women. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes”—men who consider themselves women ...

For Ahkeem

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

Expelled from high school, Daje Shelton is only 17 years old when she is sentenced by a judge – not to prison, but to an alternative school, the Innovative Concept Academy. It offers Daje one last chance to earn a high ...

Agents of Change

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

Agents of Change examines the racial conditions on college campuses across the U.S. in the late 1960’s, focusing on student demands at two seminal protests: San Francisco State in 1968 and Cornell University in 1969. Many of the ...

100 Years

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

100 Years: One Woman's Fight for Justice​ is the compelling story of Elouise Cobell, a petite Blackfeet warrior from Montana, the great granddaughter of the legendary, Mountain Chief. As an advocate for Native American financial self-determination and independence, she conducted ...

The Invisible Patients

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

Through the story of Jessica Macleod, Ph.D., a dedicated nurse practitioner in Evansville, Indiana, and her four homebound and marginalized patients, The Invisible Patients​ sheds light on some of the most urgent healthcare issues facing our nation today: from ...

MILWAUKEE 53206

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

MILWAUKEE 53206​ introduces viewers to a community with the highest rate of incarcerated African American men in the U.S. The unvarnished film unfolds through the stories of postal code 53206 residents directly impacted by imprisonment: Beverly Walker and her ...
SVG/POVCreated with Sketch.

Whiteness Project

  • Interactive
  • 2014
Whiteness Project is an interactive investigation into how Americans who identify as white, or partially white, understand and experience their race. Whiteness Project conducts interviews with people from all walks of life and localities in which they are asked about ...
SVG/POVCreated with Sketch.

Empire

  • Interactive
  • 2014
The Dutch East and West India Companies once controlled vast trading networks that stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the Indonesian archipelago, and from New York to South America's Wild Coast. Although they came in pursuit of short-term ...

Film Credits

  • Rebecca Richman Cohen Director, Co-Producer, Writer

Critical Acclaim

Chronicling the efforts of the warring parties in clear-eyed but not unemotional fashion, Code of the West provides a microcosm of the political and social divides facing the country.

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

Press Room

American Documentary Welcomes Monica Ma as New Development Officer for External Affairs ‘POV’ Presents Three Generations of Women As They Untangle the Painful Knots of Their Past in The Taste of Mango American Documentary Welcomes Back Nationally Recognized Public Media Veteran Jon Abbott in His Return to the Board of Directors
More from The Press Room

Broadcast schedule

Check your local PBS station
for upcoming airings of America ReFramed

More from this series

Learn more about America ReFramed