Imagine government officials barging into your home if you have multiple children, confiscating “extra” kids, then adopting them out to foreign countries. China’s one-child policy caused this scheme and much worse to occur for more than 35 years, from 1979 through 2015.

Amazon Prime Video’s One-Child Nation is a disturbing and weighty documentary investigating the devastating effects of China’s birthing restrictions.

Dr. Anthony Levatino’s story is not for the fainthearted. From 1977 to 1985, he performed nearly 1,200 first- and second-trimester abortions as a routine part of his residency and later obstetrics and gynecology practice at Albany Medical Center in New York.

Personal tragedy forever changed his practice and his life. In June of 1984, as he and his wife Cecelia visited with friends in their backyard, a car struck their 5-year-old daughter, Heather, in front of their home. Despite Levatino’s CPR and treatment by paramedics, Heather died in his and Cecelia’s arms in the ambulance.

Sean Rodríguez, right-handed versatile player for the Philadelphia Phillies, has just completed his 12th season of major league baseball—a season he wasn’t sure he’d ever play.

In November 2016, following his best season ever, Rodríguez signed an $11.5 million contract with the Atlanta Braves. Two months later, a stolen police cruiser T-boned the SUV he was driving with his wife, Giselle, and two of their four children. Giselle and his children suffered serious injuries. The driver of the stolen vehicle died as the cruiser burst into flames. 

Evenings find Paul Leclair cleaning the university campus in his custodian job in Bloomington, Minn. But Leclair, age 55, has another vocation: reaching the Hmong for Jesus.

He’d never heard of the Hmong until 1996, when he spoke to a co-worker from a group of foreigners whose home country he couldn’t place. He’d noticed how diligently and quietly they worked, but how lively they acted together at lunch. Leclair bluntly asked, “Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?”

What do you get when an agnostic physician meets a Franciscan nun? No joke—the Mayo Clinic. The unlikely partnership between W.W. Mayo and Mother Mary Alfred Moes launched what now ranks as the best medical center in the country.

Inimitable filmmaker Ken Burns tells Mayo Clinic’s story in the documentary The Mayo Clinic, available on Netflix (rated TV-14 for some medically graphic content).

The Golden Age of Baseball conjures up black-and-white images of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Another player of the 1920s and 1930s is not most recognizable but is arguably most enigmatic.

Moe Berg played on five major league teams over 15 years, mostly as a catcher. But as the title of a recent documentary, The Spy Behind Home Plate, foretells, Berg wasn’t known only for his rocket arm.

Roger Frisch had it all. A lengthy career as violinist and associate concert master of the acclaimed Minnesota Orchestra. A supportive, talented wife, Michele, principal flutist of the Minnesota Opera. Three adult children successfully launched. A fulfilling teaching post at a local Christian college.

But in 2007, at age 56, Frisch’s right arm started involuntarily quivering on a music ministry trip to China. He recalls, “It came on quickly. It progressed quickly. Real panic set in.”