PBS American Experience - The Presidents: Reagan (1998)

On the eve of his election, Ronald Reagan was asked, "What is it, governor, that people see in you?" He responded, "Would you laugh if I told you that they look at me and they see themselves?"

Ronald Reagan was America's most ideological president in his rhetoric, yet pragmatic in his actions. He believed in balanced budgets, but never submitted one; hated nuclear weapons, but built them by the thousands; preached family values, but presided over a dysfunctional family. His vision of America divided the nation, yet no matter what people thought of him politically, Reagan always won them over personally. A seemingly simple man, Ronald Reagan was consistently underestimated by his opponents; one by one, he overcame them all to become a president who always preferred to see America as a "shining city on a hill."

A look at Reagan's life through the testimony of family, friends, historians, biographers, Reagan was produced with unprecedented access to the Reagan family, including Nancy Reagan and three of Reagan's four children, biographer Edmund Morris and members of Reagan's inner political circle – his "California Cabinet" – and his counterparts on the world stage, including former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.