If it seems like there are a million Ken Burns documentaries, you're right. (Well, you're half right — you also need to damn well mention Lynn Novick in that same sentence.) If it also seems like there are a million of those documentaries that worth watching, you're also correct.
That brings us to Hemingway, which is now available on PBS. It's a fascinating look at the author from birth in 1899 through his death in 1961.
The six-hour film — broken into three episodes — "penetrates the myth of Hemingway to reveal a deeply troubled and ultimately tragic figure, displaying the brilliant, ambitious, charismatic, and complicated man behind the legends and the art he created."
Here's how to watch it:
Watch Hemingway on Amazon Prime Video Channels
"Hemingway" is available a few ways on Amazon Prime Video. One of the best ways is via the PBS Documentaries Amazon Prime Video Channel. That'll get you all three episodes of the documentary — "A Writer," which covers 1899 to 1929; "The Avatar," which hits 1929 to 1944, and "The Blank Page," which finds Hemingway from 1944 to 1961.
The advantage of subscribing to the PBS Documentaries Amazon Prime Video Channels is that you get the docs and just the docs, so you don't need to wade through anything else. Amazon takes care of the billing, too, so there's no other registration to deal with.
And subscribing to the PBS Documentaries Amazon Prime Video Channel also gets you access to everything else on that channel, including more from Ken Burns like Baseball, or the excellent Country Music and Frank Lloyd Wright. That's barely scratching the surface, of course, because there's also The Civil War, The War, and The Vietnam War.
And there are days and days worth of other docs from folks not named Ken Burns. It's hard to beat all that for just $3.99 a month.
You also can buy the doc by itself, if you want. (And if you don't mind spending more money than you would with a subscription to the PBS Docs channel, never mind the free trial.) Each episode is available for $2.99 in high definition, or $1.99 in SD. (Or you can buy all three together in HD for $7.99, which is still more than the $3.99 channel subscription. Just saying.)
How to watch Hemingway on iTunes
If iTunes is more your thing, Apple's got the full documentary available for purchase for $14.99.
That gets you all three episodes, as well as the 34-second promo, just in case the previous six hours weren't enough.
Watch Hemingway on the PBS app
Another easy watch to watch the entire Hemingway documentary is via the PBS app on your favorite streaming platform.
There's a PBS channel app for Roku, which takes care of the largest streaming platform in the United States. (And the second-largest in the rest of the world.)
Or you can use the dedicated PBS app for Amazon Fire TV, or the PBS app for Android TV, or the PBS app for Apple TV.
Your call either way — they all do the exact same thing.
Watch Hemingway on PBS.com
If you're more of a watch-video-on-the-computer kind of person (and there's no shame in that!) then it's even easier. Just head to the Hemingway page on PBS.com and you can watch the doc there.
All three episodes are available in their entirety.
