"The Movies” from exec producers Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Mark Herzog is a 12-hour series companion piece to CNN’s decade-long retrospective series that started in 2014 with “The Sixties” and continued through last year with “The 2000s.”

None of those multi-part series spent much time on the movies of the era, in part because clip licensing is so expensive but producers always planned to follow-up with a movie-focused series.

“Movies” will examine filmdom’s powerful role in shaping pop culture and influencing social norms. The first two-hour installment will cover the 1930s through the ’50s. Subsequent episodes will focus on the decades highlighted in CNN’s earlier series.

NEW YORK – June 10, 2019 – Emmy Award-winning executive producers Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog bring The Movies to CNN on Sunday, July 7, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The new six-part CNN Original Series explores American cinema through the decades and the cultural, societal and political shifts that framed its evolution. Combining archival footage and interviews with leading actors, directors, producers, critics and historians, the series showcases the most pivotal moments in film that have stirred the imagination and influenced our culture.

The series features interviews with Paul Thomas Anderson, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, Tim Burton, Cameron Crowe, Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, Jon Favreau, Antoine Fuqua, Morgan Freeman, Bill Hader, Tom Hanks, Amy Heckerling, Ron Howard, Holly Hunter, Anjelica Huston, Baz Luhrmann, Julianne Moore, Ed Norton, Rob Reiner, Molly Ringwald, Julia Roberts, Maya Rudolph, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, Steven Spielberg, Sharon Stone, Robert Zemeckis and many more.

The Movies, which follows in the footsteps of CNN’s popular Decades series, kicks off with a two-hour episode highlighting the groundbreaking films of the 80s including The Empire Strikes Back, E.T., The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future, Coming to America, When Harry Met Sally and Do The Right Thing.

Following are airdates and episode descriptions for The Movies (all times are Sunday, 9-11 p.m. ET/PT) –

(7/7) The Eighties – The episode explores the crowd-pleasing titles of the 80s such as The Empire Strikes Back, E.T. and The Breakfast Club.
(7/14) The Nineties – The episode explores movie stars of the 90s like Julia Roberts and Will Smith and beloved films such as Jurassic Park, Titanic and Pulp Fiction.
(7/21) The 2000s To Today – The episode explores popular films of the 2000s such as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Moulin Rouge.
(7/28) The Seventies – The episode explores the films of the 70s that pushed the medium of movie-making such as The Godfather, The Exorcist and Jaws.
(8/4) The Sixties – The episode explores the popular films of the 60s such as West Side Story, Bonnie and Clyde, and The Graduate.
(8/11) The Golden Age – The episode explores the most iconic films from the 1930s through the 1950s such as King Kong, Casablanca and A Star is Born.

CNN is producing a six-part companion podcast to The Movies where entertainment experts Lisa France, Sandra Gonzalez and Kristen Meinzer discuss the groundbreaking films of each decade and talk to some of today’s biggest movie stars. The podcast will launch Monday, July 8 on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast platforms, with new episodes available weekly.

To celebrate The Movies launch, CNN Original Series is creating a pop-up video store at Hudson Yards in New York City, which will be free and open to the public on Sunday, July 7. The experience will include branded giveaways, concessions, photo ops, games and entertainment.

The Movies will stream live for subscribers on Sunday, July 7 via CNNgo (at CNN.com/go and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Samsung Smart TV and Android TV) and on the CNN mobile apps for iOS and Android. The series will also be available the day after the broadcast premiere on demand via cable/satellite systems, CNNgo platforms and CNN mobile apps. In addition, viewers will get to watch a sneak peek of The Movies following the 9 p.m. ET/PT premiere of the CNN Film, Apollo 11, on June 23.