The Great Famine
"A grim but mesmerizing look at the nascent Soviet Empire’s disastrous famine that began in 1921…The Great Famine is one of those documentaries that benefits from the distance of time yet comes with a plenitude of archival footage and photographs, and in a few cases firsthand recollections.”
Washington Post
“Like the best history documentaries, “Famine” teaches you things you did not know and asks you to look at the familiar from a new perspective.”
Chattanooga Free Press
George H. W. Bush
"George H.W. Bush" was written, directed, and co-produced by Austin Hoyt, the gifted documentarian who has given us excellent works like "Eisenhower," "Reagan," and "Victory in the Pacific." As expected, it provides a sophisticated, linear look at the life of Bush senior.
Boston Globe
"Glimpses into the private thoughts and emotional moments of the former president surface frequently."
Washington Post
"Watch the first five minutes and try to turn it off. I promise you, you won't want to watch anything else."
Detroit News
"A biography that selects its images as thoughtfully as it selects its words."
Broadcasting and Cable
Victory in the Pacific
Nominated for three Emmy Awards, 2006
"The sign of a great documentary is that it can tell you a well known story and still hold you to the end. Another is that viewers with opposing viewpoints can appreciate it. Austin Hoyt succeeds on both accounts."
Bloomberg News, 2005
Chicago, City of the Century
"Hoyt's Chicago throbs with life and death, celebrating with clear but widened eyes the staggering 19th Century achievement that was this instant metropolis."
Chicago Tribune, 2003
MacArthur
Prime Time Emmy, 1999
"PBS's peerless American Experience series is generally so good, singling out individual efforts for special praise can prove difficult. Yet Austin Hoyt's ambitious four-hour MacArthur merits nothing less."
Variety, 1999
Reagan
Peabody Award 1998 for American Experience "The Presidents"
"This ambitious and consistently compelling film leaves one wanting more."
Washington Post
"Television at its best."
Boston Globe
Richest Man in the World
"I have worked with the best documentary filmmakers of our time in many cases on their best work," David McCullough told the PBS Annual Meeting in 1997. He included "Austin Hoyt's Carnegie."
"Vividly sketched"
New York Times, 1997
Eisenhower
Peabody Award 1998 for American Experience "The Presidents."
Christopher Award
"This balanced, perceptive portrait...superbly brings to life a huge canvas of this century's history."
New York Times, 1993
Vietnam: A Television History
Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award
"Austin Hoyt's LBJ Goes to War was a rare combination of both historical objectivity and gripping narrative. It provided a standard by which the rest of the series can be judged."
Wall Street Journal, 1983
