Dead drops, code names, double agents, daring escapes: the stuff of great spy novels. Somehow, the eight-chapter docuseries Spy Wars (Amazon Prime, TV-PG) manages to pull off all the intrigue and complexities of a riveting espionage tale in each 45-minute episode.

With British actor Damian Lewis narrating, each true story reconstructs the biggest spy schemes of the last 50 years.

Through believable reenactments, Lewis explains complicated, suspenseful plots that often spanned decades. The accounts are fast-paced, shot on location in London, Moscow, and Israel.

Dr. Tom Blee, wearing teal green scrubs, receives smiles from staff members as he walks the stark hallways of Regions, a major hospital in St. Paul.

The Minnesota trauma surgeon discovered that healing involves more than stitching up gunshot injuries or resecting a damaged colon. After professing faith in Christ in 2014, he began pointing patients, their families, and co-workers to the True Physician. He also co-founded LIFEteam, a ministry to bring lasting hope to the young gang members who often end up in his operating room with bullet or knife wounds.

Before COVID-19, only two days a year had no scheduled professional sports activity—the day before and the day after the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in July. Now, sports fans might have to wait a year before they can see another Stanley Cup or NBA playoffs or a rematch between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are out for revenge after learning in the off-season that the Astros’ 2017 World Series title is tainted by a cheating scandal.

Few images from World War II are as heart wrenching as those of Jewish child survivors of the Holocaust. A new PBS movie, The Windermere Children, and an accompanying documentary, The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words, tell the poignant, redemptive story of some of those youth.

Since COVID-19 has sidelined professional, amateur, and kids’ sporting events, some fans are wondering how to get their competitive sports fix. Only so many times can you rewatch game six of the 2011 World Series when the Cardinals beat the Rangers 10-9 in 11 innings. (If you like baseball, the excitement and competitive thrill that game generates make it worth watching.) 

The five documentaries listed below may have escaped notice when originally released. Each is very different from the next and immerses the viewer in a unique sports culture. Each has caveats, so take note. 

It’s not quite the same as box seats at Fenway or bleachers at Wrigley. But with baseball on hold, watching Fastball from your recliner brings a nostalgic smile.

This 2016 film, now on Amazon Prime (with some foul language), highlights pitchers who made the fastball great and hitters who tried to get a piece of one.

TV host John Oliver learned recently that making jokes in countries with authoritarian governments comes with a different set of rules.