CNN Originals Teases 2025-2026 Programming Slate
May 14th, 2025
CNN EXPANDS THE 'SEARCHING FOR' FRANCHISE WITH NEW CNN ORIGINAL SERIES EVA LONGORIA: SEARCHING FOR FRANCE
CNN ORIGINAL SERIES INTRODUCES TONY SHALHOUB BREAKING BREAD AND RELEASES FIRST LOOK
CNN FILMS BACKS I'M CHEVY CHASE AND YOU'RE NOT AND IN THE PRIME OF LIFE
CNN RENEWS HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU FOR A THIRD SEASON PREMIERING SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 AT 9PM ET/PT
CNN ORIGINAL SERIES RELAUNCHES THE DECADES SERIES WITH DECADES IN SPORTS
NEW YORK – (May 14, 2025) – CNN unveiled highlights of the new premium nonfiction content from CNN Originals for 2025-2026 as part of the Warner Bros. Discovery upfront presentation.
CNN Worldwide offered a sneak peek into CNN Originals' upcoming programming slate, announcing new projects from CNN Original Series, including the extension of the Primetime Emmy® Award-winning Searching For franchise with Eva Longoria: Searching for France coming in 2026, and new international food and travel series Tony Shalhoub Breaking Bread premiering this fall . Additional CNN Original Series include New Orleans (w/t) from CNN Studios, Decades in Sports from Emmy® Award-winning Executive Producers Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog, and This Land is Your Land (w/t) produced by October Films .
CNN Films will produce two new documentary features in the year ahead, I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not , the authorized yet unfiltered documentary of the comedy legend directed by two-time Emmy® Award winner Marina Zenovich, and In the Prime of Life (w/t) , which explores the rise of cancers in adults under 50 and reteams CNN Films with the Emmy® and Peabody Award winning director Janet Tobias (CNN Films Unseen Enemy and Race for the Vaccine ).
Earlier this month, CNN Films joined forces with Magnolia Pictures, HBO Documentary Films and Max to acquire the Madison Wells produced and financed Prime Minister , which made its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary Competition category.
CNN has also picked up CNN Original Have I Got News For You for a third season which will premiere on Saturday, September 6 at 9pm ET/PT. This series will continue to support the network's Saturday primetime lineup of topical entertainment programming which has made CNN a top cable destination on Saturday nights.
Additional details about upcoming 2025-2026 titles for CNN Originals include:
Eva Longoria: Searching for France – Often referred to as the food capital of the world, France has long been synonymous with culinary excellence. In the tradition of her journeys in Searching for Mexico and Searching for Spain , Longoria will now discover the iconic origins of French cuisine, where the dining experience was first elevated to an art form. Throughout multiple regions, Longoria will be at the crossroads of centuries old gastronomic tradition and cutting-edge creativity in a country whose national identity is defined by its rich culinary history. Produced by Hyphenate Media Group, the series will premiere in 2026.
Tony Shalhoub Breaking Bread – Breaking Bread introduces the authentic Tony behind the neurotic characters he plays – a passionate food-lover who comes from a large family of home cooks and is now deeply embedded in the New York restaurant world. In this delectable new docuseries, Shalhoub embarks on a mouthwatering journey around the world, with bread serving as the conduit into a variety of international cuisines and cultures. The ultimate comfort food, bread is the foundation for any shared meal and Shalhoub will make and break bread with a cast of characters he picks up in every corner of the globe. From baguettes to buns, flatbreads to focaccias and every grain in between, Shalhoub believes breaking bread has the power to bring people together. Produced by Lionsgate Alternative Television and originating from its Blackfin label, the series will premiere this fall on CNN platforms.
I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not – Directed by two-time Emmy® Award winner Marina Zenovich, the film is the authorized yet unfiltered documentary of the comedy legend, Chevy Chase. Whether it is his Saturday Night Live screen test or his starring roles in multiple Hollywood comedies, Chase has always had huge comedic range. He is also a complex and contradictory human being, full of outsized gifts and striking flaws. Through illuminating interviews with the Chase family, friends and costars, Zenovich brings us into Chase's inner world, revealing what is beneath the surface of his superstar bravado. Coming in 2026, I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not is presented by CNN Films and West Buttermilk, in association with Propagate Content and Five All in the Fifth Productions,
In the Prime of Life – In the US and around the world, a disease once thought of as affecting the elderly is increasingly becoming a disease of adults in the prime of their lives. 'Early onset' cancer, cancer affecting adults from 18-49, increased globally by a staggering 79% between 1990 and 2019. Directed by Emmy®, Peabody, and two-time WGA Award nominee Janet Tobias (CNN Films Unseen Enemy and Race for the Vaccine ), the film follows early on-set cancer patients and the doctors, scientists, nurses and social workers who care for them at one of the world's leading cancer centers, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). With her signature blend of curiosity and empathy, Tobias documents every aspect of their lives – from dating and marriage to work and finances, from sexuality and fertility to friendship and parenting. For the first time in its history, MSK is granting exclusive access to their doctors, scientists and other staff as they race to understand and treat these patients' disease and work to provide specialized support for this rising population. Presented by CNN Films, In the Prime of Life (w/t) is a Global Health Reporting Center and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios production and will premiere in 2026.
Prime Minister – In August 2017, in the lead-up to national elections, Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became New Zealand's opposition party leader. She had just turned 37. Going behind the scenes of her administration and her private life, Prime Minister follows Jacinda for seven years as she is catapulted to the top of New Zealand politics, becomes only the second head of state in history to give birth while in office, resigns suddenly from office and continues to champion the fight against isolationism, fear, and the distortion of truth. Intimate home footage shot by her husband and audio interviews that Jacinda did while in office give us unparalleled access. Along with in-depth contemporaneous interviews, these form the emotional backbone of the story, giving viewers an unfiltered window into her years in power. Directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz, Prime Minister is produced by Madison Wells and Dark Doris, in association with Divergent Pictures. The film will be released in theaters by Magnolia Pictures on June 13 and will premiere on HBO, CNN and Max later this year.
Have I Got News For You – The American version of the long-running UK comedy series, Have I Got News For You is hosted by Roy Wood Jr. along with team captains Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black. Always relevant and of-the-moment, Have I Got News For You serves up a smart and edgy take on the news of the week, as the comic trio guides a rotating collection of guests through an array of games and quick-witted panel conversations that test their knowledge of current events. Produced by Hat Trick Productions for CNN Originals, the third season of Have I Got News for You premieres Saturday, September 6 at 9pm ET/PT on CNN.
New Orleans (w/t) – New Orleans is a city unlike any other. Every day on its narrow and historic streets, it lives its culture out loud. From the sounds of live jazz, to the smell of warm beignets, to the ultimate party of all parties – Mardi Gras – the city communes with its history through music, food, sports and tradition. This four-part series tells its roaring story from its swampy founding to the present day. It uncovers the city through its trials and triumphs, and reveals how 20 years after Katrina, the city is louder and more resilient than ever. Voices include notable New Orleanians such as Emeril Lagasse, Wendell Pierce, Malcolm Jenkins, Trombone Shorty and James Carville.
Decades of Sports – No single sport, season, game or player can adequately capture why athletic competition at the highest level is so wildly compelling. But taken as a whole, this six-part series will unravel the thrill of the victory and the agony of defeat across six decades of larger-than-life athletes, intense rivalries and stunning upsets that encapsulate the command sports have on our cultural attention. Coming in 2026, Decades of Sports is a continuation of CNN Original Series' celebrated and Emmy® Award-nominated partnership with Playtone and Herzog & Company from Executive Producers Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog.
This Land is Your Land (w/t) – Marking America's 250th birthday, This Land is Your Land tells the story of the dramatic transformation of six iconic locations throughout the nation's storied past, as titans of history clash to reshape the map and seize the future of the United States. As a young nation claims new territory and shapes its identity, this series illuminates how themes from America's past echo strongly in the present. Coming in 2026, This Land is Your Land is produced by October Films.
###
About CNN Originals
The CNN Originals group develops, produces and acquires original, long-form unscripted programming for CNN Worldwide. Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent, CNN Originals and creative development, oversees the award-winning CNN Originals portfolio that includes the following premium content brands: CNN Original Series, CNN Films, CNN Presents, and the newly formed CNN Studios, an internal production studio which creates long-form programming for CNN's global platforms. Since 2012, the team has overseen and executive produced more than 45 multi-part documentary series and 60 feature-length documentary films, earning more than 110 awards and 445 nominations for the cable network, including CNN Films' first Academy Award® for Navalny . Acclaimed titles include the Peabody Award winning and 13-time Emmy® Award-winning Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown ; five time Emmy® nominee, Apollo 11 , directed by Todd Douglas Miller; Emmy® nominated Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico ; the Emmy® Award-nominated 'Decades Series': The Sixties , The Seventies , The Eighties , The Nineties , The 2000s , and The 2010s, executive produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman; The Last Movie Stars , directed by Ethan Hawke about the lives and careers of actors and humanitarians Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman; Grammy® Award nominee Little Richard: I Am Everything , directed by Lisa Cortés; The Many Lives of Martha Stewart ; This is Life with Lisa Ling ; Primetime Emmy® and duPont-Columbia Award-winning, RBG , directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen; See It Loud: The History of Black Television , executive produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter; Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight in partnership with the BBC; the Producers Guild Award and three-time Emmy® Award-winning Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy ; BAFTA nominee and Directors Guild Award winner, Three Identical Strangers , directed by Tim Wardle; and the five-time Emmy® Award-winning United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell ; and the five-time Emmy® Award-winning The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper . CNN Originals can be seen on CNN, the CNN Original Hub on Max and discovery+, and for pay TV subscription via CNN.com, CNN apps and cable operator platforms.
CNN Originals Press Contacts:
Jordan.Overstreet@cnn.com
Sophie.Tran@cnn.com
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Associated Press
39 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Key moments from the fourth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial
NEW YORK (AP) — The fourth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs ' sex trafficking trial featured testimony from the second of two ex-girlfriends who are crucial witnesses in the government's quest to prove sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against the hip-hop mogul. Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, has pleaded not guilty in the trial, which resumes Monday. Here are key moments from the past week: Hotel worker says Combs sought video of Cassie beating Fearing career ruin, Combs delivered $100,000 in cash to a security guard for a Los Angeles hotel in return for assurances that he was given the only security footage of Combs' 2016 attack on then-girlfriend Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura, the security guard testified. Eddy Garcia, 33, recounted how the deal came to be, saying he first heard from a fast talking, stuttering and 'very nervous' Combs on a phone call seeking to obtain the video of him kicking and dragging Cassie from the hotel's elevator bank into a hallway because 'if this got out it could ruin him.' Days later, Garcia said, he was the nervous one when he was greeted in an office building by a smiling Combs who called him 'Eddy, my angel' before Garcia turned over a USB drive containing the security footage. Combs then made him sign a nondisclosure agreement promising it was the only copy of the video and that Garcia would never speak of it, he said. Then, Combs, with a bodyguard at his side, fed stacks of cash from a brown bag into a rectangular money counter machine until it reached $100,000, Garcia said. He said he pocketed $30,000 and gave $50,000 to his boss and $20,000 to another hotel security guard. Garcia testified under immunity. A recording of the hotel attack on Cassie aired on CNN last year and security footage along with clips of the security tape recorded by a guard on his personal phone so he could show it to his wife have been shown repeatedly during the trial. Judge threatens Combs with trial expulsion Minutes after a prosecutor complained that Combs was seen 'nodding furiously' as his lawyer cross examined a witness on Thursday, Judge Arun Subramanian took a look himself and said he saw Combs 'nodding vigorously and looking at the jury' and doing the same later when the lawyers and the judge were having a sidebar discussion. Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey said prosecutors were concerned because the gestures amounted to 'testifying by nodding affirmatively' while his lawyer asked questions. During a lunch break, defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo promised to speak with Combs and ensure it wouldn't happen again after the judge told him it was 'absolutely unacceptable.' The judge sternly responded: 'If it happens again, if it happens even once, I will hear an application from the government to give a curative instruction to the jury, which you do not want. Or I will consider taking further measures, which could result in the exclusion of your client from the courtroom.' Mia says she was 'brainwashed' to send Combs loving texts after rape A former Combs personal assistant who testified under the pseudonym 'Mia' told jurors that Combs had sexually assaulted her multiple times over her eight-year career, though the attacks were 'random, sporadic, so oddly spaced out' so that she thought each was the last. She said he first molested her and forcibly kissed her at his 40th birthday party before raping her months later in a guest room at his Los Angeles home. On cross examination, defense lawyer Brian Steel's suggested that she fabricated her claims to cash in on 'the #MeToo money grab against Sean Combs.' Steel confronted her with loving texts she sent Combs long after her employment ended and asked how she could tell him, as she did in a 2019 text, that she had imagined Combs rescuing her from a nightmare in which she was trapped in an elevator with R. Kelly, the singer who has since been convicted of sex trafficking. 'I was still brainwashed,' Mia explained. Defense has success with questioning of Cassie's friend The defense had one of its most successful moments of the trial when attorney Nicole Westmoreland cast doubt on the credibility of a graphic designer who says Combs once dangled her from the balcony of a 17th-floor apartment in Los Angeles. Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan, a friend of Cassie who is suing Combs, had taken a cellphone image of a softball-size welt on her leg that she said occurred when Combs held her over the balcony for 10 to 15 seconds and then threw her into furniture. After it was shown to the jury, Westmoreland showed the jury cellphone metadata revealing that the photograph was taken while Combs was on tour in September 2016, staying at a Manhattan hotel. 'You agree that one person can't be in two places at the same time?' Westmoreland asked. 'In, like, theory, yeah,' Bongolan responded. 'You're not sure?' Westmoreland asked. 'Hard to answer that one,' she said. Later, Bongolan said she did not recall the exact date, but she had no doubt the balcony episode happened. Woman recalls sex performances during three years as a Combs' girlfriend A woman testifying under the pseudonym 'Jane' fought through tears and sobs to recount frequent sexual performances she participated in with male sex workers to please Combs and keep their three-year relationship alive until his September arrest. Jane's testimony, which is likely to continue deep into next week, is identical in many ways to the four-day testimony in the trial's first week by Cassie. Jane said she never wanted to have sex with other men but did it to please Combs because she loved him. Cassie described having hundreds of drug-fueled sexual performances known as 'freak-offs' in which she had sex with male sex workers for days at a time while Combs watched, sometimes directed the activity, and pleasured himself. Jane described having nearly the same experiences from 2021 until last August, though she called them 'hotel nights.' She said her relationship with Combs began with romance but later became reliant upon the sexual performances, especially after Combs began paying rent for her apartment. Defense attorneys have insisted that Jane and Combs only engaged in consensual sex and that Jane's protests to Combs in text messages were fueled by jealousy.

Associated Press
39 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Why a Minneapolis neighborhood sharpens a giant pencil every year
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Residents will gather Saturday in a scenic Minneapolis neighborhood for an annual ritual — the sharpening of a gigantic No. 2 pencil. The 20-foot-tall (6-meter-tall) pencil was sculpted out of a mammoth oak tree at the home of John and Amy Higgins. The beloved tree was damaged in a storm a few years ago when fierce winds twisted the crown off. Neighbors mourned. A couple even wept. But the Higginses saw it not so much as a loss, but as a chance to give the tree new life. The sharpening ceremony on their front lawn has evolved into a community spectacle that draws hundreds of people to the leafy neighborhood on Lake of the Isles, complete with music and pageantry. Some people dress as pencils or erasers. Two Swiss alphorn players will provide part of this year's entertainment. The hosts will commemorate a Minneapolis icon, the late music superstar Prince, by handing out purple pencils on what would have been his 67th birthday. In the wake of the storm, the Higginses knew they wanted to create a sculpture out of their tree. They envisioned a whimsical piece of pop art that people could recognize, but not a stereotypical chainsaw-carved, north-woods bear. Given the shape and circumference of the log, they came up with the idea of an oversized pencil standing tall in their yard. 'Why a pencil? Everybody uses a pencil,' Amy Higgins said. 'Everybody knows a pencil. You see it in school, you see it in people's work, or drawings, everything. So, it's just so accessible to everybody, I think, and can easily mean something, and everyone can make what they want of it.' So they enlisted wood sculptor Curtis Ingvoldstad to transform it into a replica of a classic Trusty brand No. 2 pencil. 'People interpret this however they want to. They should. They should come to this and find whatever they want out of it,' Ingvoldstad said. That's true even if their reaction is negative, he added. 'Whatever you want to bring, you know, it's you at the end of the day. And it's a good place. It's good to have pieces that do that for people.' John Higgins said they wanted the celebration to pull the community together. 'We tell a story about the dull tip, and we're gonna get sharp,' he said. 'There's a renewal. We can write a new love letter, a thank you note. We can write a math problem, a to-do list. And that chance for renewal, that promise, people really seem to buy into and understand.' To keep the point pointy, they haul a giant, custom-made pencil sharpener up the scaffolding that's erected for the event. Like a real pencil, this one is ephemeral. Every year they sharpen it, it gets a bit shorter. They've taken anywhere from 3 to 10 inches (8 to 25 centimeters) off a year. They haven't decided how much to shave off this year. They're OK knowing that they could reduce it to a stub one day. The artist said they'll let time and life dictate its form — that's part of the magic. 'Like any ritual, you've got to sacrifice something,' Ingvoldstad said. 'So we're sacrificing part of the monumentality of the pencil, so that we can give that to the audience that comes, and say, 'This is our offering to you, and in goodwill to all the things that you've done this year.''

Associated Press
40 minutes ago
- Associated Press
How groundbreaking gay author Edmund White paved the way for other writers
NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Sean Greer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, remembers the first time he read Edmund White. It was the summer of 1989, he was beginning his second year at Brown University and he had just come out. Having learned that White would be teaching at Brown, he found a copy of White's celebrated coming-of-age novel, 'A Boy's Own Story.' 'I'd never read anything like it — nobody had — and what strikes me looking back is the lack of shame or self-hatred or misery that imbued so many other gay male works of fiction of that time,' says Greer, whose 'Less' won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2018. 'I, of course, did not know then I was reading a truly important literary work. All I knew is I wanted to read more. 'Reading was all we had in those days — the private, unshared experience that could help you explore your private life,' he said. 'Ed invented so many of us.' White, a pioneer of contemporary gay literature, died this week at age 85. He left behind such widely read works as 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' and a gift to countless younger writers: Validation of their lives, the discovery of themselves through the stories of others. Greer and other authors speak of White's work as more than just an influence, but as a rite of passage: 'How a queer man might begin to question all of the deeply held, deeply religious, deeply American assumptions about desire, love, and sex — who is entitled to have it, how it must be had, what it looks like,' says Robert Jones Jr., whose novel above love between two enslaved men, ' The Prophets,' was a National Book Award finalist in 2021. Jones remembers being a teenager in the 1980s when he read 'A Boy's Own Story.' He found the book at a store in a gay neighborhood in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, 'the safest place for a person to be openly queer in New York City,' he said. 'It was a scary time for me because all the news stories about queer men revolved around AIDS and dying, and how the disease was the Christian god's vengeance against the 'sin of homosexuality,'' Jones added. 'It was the first time that I had come across any literature that confirmed that queer men have a childhood; that my own desires were not, in fact, some aberration, but were natural; and that any suffering and loneliness I was experiencing wasn't divine retribution, but was the intention of a human-made bigotry that could be, if I had the courage and the community, confronted and perhaps defeated,' he said. Starting in the 1970s, White published more than 25 books, including novels, memoirs, plays, biographies and 'The Joy of Gay Sex,' a response to the 1970s bestseller 'The Joy of Sex.' He held the rare stature for a living author of having a prize named for him, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, as presented by the Publishing Triangle. 'White was very supportive of young writers, encouraging them to explore and expand new and individual visions,' said Carol Rosenfeld, chair of the Triangle. The award was 'one way of honoring that support.' Winners such the prize was founded, in 2006, have included 'The Prophets,' Myriam Gurba 's 'Dahlia Season' and Joe Okonkwo's 'Jazz Moon.' Earlier this year, the award was given to Jiaming Tang's ' Cinema Love,' a story of gay men in rural China. Tang remembered reading 'A Boy's Own Story' in his early 20s, and said that both the book and White were 'essential touchpoints in my gay coming-of-age.' 'He writes with intimate specificity and humor, and no other writer has captured the electric excitement and crushing loneliness that gay men experience as they come of age,' Tang said. 'He's a towering figure. There'd be no gay literature in America without Edmund White.'