Marion Stokes, a reclusive activist and former TV producer, first pressed record on her VCR during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 and didn’t stop until her death in 2012. For three decades, she secretly recorded TV channels in America, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Her 70,000 VHS tapes capture revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows ,and commercials that tell us who we were and how television has shaped the world of today. Built from interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, together with rare and forgotten footage from Stokes’s own collection, Recorder is a fascinating, weird and moving portrait of an intelligent, radical woman whose seemingly crazy mission ended up being a glorious gift to the world.