Latest Documentaries

Will You Get Dementia

Dr Claire Taylor learns more about the the UK's fastest growing health condition, she meets patients living with dementia, as well as scientists and experts working in the field. The GP puts herself through innovative tests to find out how to spot the earliest signs and learns about different types of the disease. Plus, Claire investigates cutting edge treatments and asks what can be done to prevent dementia developing.

2025 • Health

The Space Race in Colour

A two-part documentary recounting the Cold War space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Through newly colorized archival footage and firsthand accounts, it follows the rivalry from early satellites and rocket development to espionage, surveillance, and the Apollo Moon landings.

2026 • Astronomy

Science and Survival

Explores the ever-present dangers faced by astronauts on the ISS, ranging from meteor strikes and docking disasters to the entire station backflipping out of control.

S1E2 • Terror on the Space Station • 2025 • Astronomy

High-Risk Build

Explores the danger and ambition of building the International Space Station in space, where a single mistake could prove fatal.

S1E1 • Terror on the Space Station • 2025 • Astronomy

Witnesses for Eternity

How did Stone Age communities build enormous burial mounds, stone circles, temples, and tombs with the limited technology available to them? This episode visits major archaeological sites in Scotland, Brittany, Austria, Malta, Turkey, and Jordan to investigate how massive stones were transported, what these monuments meant, and what they reveal about early social organization and beliefs.

S1E2 • Secrets of the Stone Age • 2017 • History

From Hunters to Farmers

Around 12,000 years ago, humans began abandoning a nomadic existence for settled life. The episode follows the emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry, the growth of settlements, changing diets, and the remarkable discovery of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey—where hunter-gatherers erected massive decorated stone columns long before farming became widespread.

S1E1 • Secrets of the Stone Age • 2017 • History

Cunk on Life

Philomena Cunk returns with her most ambitious quest yet - venturing right up the universe to examine life and existence. Mockumentary from Charlie Brooker starring Diane Morgan.

2024 • Nature

Mongolia

Simon Reeve embarks on a 3,000-mile journey across the deserts, plains and mountains of Mongolia in search of snow leopards and the nomadic people who hunt with golden eagles.

S2E4 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature

Yukon

Simon Reeve treks and canoes through Canada’s rugged and frozen Yukon Territory to meet the people who make the wilderness home and to search for grizzly bears, the apex predator.

S2E3 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature

Sea of Cortez

Simon Reeve voyages across Mexico’s beautiful and remote Sea of Cortez, known as the 'aquarium of the world', to dive with rare and dangerous sharks.

S2E2 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature

Papua New Guinea

Simon Reeve journeys through the lost world of Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in search of the tenkile tree kangaroo, one of the rarest animals on Earth.

S2E1 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature

Kalahari

Simon Reeve crosses the parched desert of southern Africa, tracking wildebeest with the famous hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari, before heading to the oasis of the Okavango Delta.

S1E4 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2024 • Nature

Recommended Documentaries

Fungi: The Web of Life

Much of life on earth is connected by a vast, hidden network that we are only just beginning to understand. Out of sight, between the world of plants and animals, another realm exists - the kingdom of fungi. Passionate biologist and writer Merlin Sheldrake travels the globe, exploring the secret world of fungi. Through dazzling images of fungi under the microscope and all around us in the forest, Merlin unravels the many secrets of these essential organisms. So much more than mushrooms, not only do fungi shape the weather and support life on land, they are also at the cutting edge of medical research and even have the power to break down plastic waste. This film takes us from the ancient Tasmanian Tarkine rainforest to the mystical wilds of China's Yunnan Province, in search of solutions to some of our planet's biggest challenges. Can the answers be found in the wonderful world of fungi?

2023 • Nature

Deep Trouble [Extra]

Dr Martha Holmes looks at man's influence on the oceans. Is there a solution so that we can save our seas or is it too late to get us out of Deep Trouble?

Blue Planet I • 2001 • Nature

Apeman - Spaceman

Beginning in Ethiopia, Professor Brian Cox discovers how the universe played a key role in our ascent from apeman to spaceman by driving the expansion of our brains. But big brains alone did not get us to space.

S1E1 • Human Universe • 2014 • People

Rivers - Friend and Foe

Human Planet meets people for whom rivers can be both a risk to life and a lifeline.

S1E7 • Human Planet • Environment

The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms

Without us noticing, modern life has been taken over. Algorithms run everything from search engines on the internet to satnavs and credit card data security - they even help us travel the world, find love and save lives. Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms. By showing us some of the algorithms most essential to our lives, he reveals where these 2,000-year-old problem solvers came from, how they work, what they have achieved and how they are now so advanced they can even programme themselves.

2015 • Math

The Power of the Elements

In the final part, Professor Al-Khalili uncovers tales of success and heartache in the story of chemists' battle to control and combine the elements, and build our modern world. He reveals the dramatic breakthroughs which harnessed their might to release almost unimaginable power, and he journeys to the centre of modern day alchemy, where scientists are attempting to command the extreme forces of nature and create brand new elements.

S1E3 • Chemistry: A Volatile History • 2010 • Science

Lifehack Documentaries

The Early Years

Meet the most scientifically studied people in the world. A group of 1,037 New Zealanders born in one city have been followed since their births in 1972. Members are now dispersed around the globe but 96% of the original group are still taking part - an extraordinary achievement in such a long running study.

S1E1 • Predict my Future: The Science of Us • 2016 • Lifehack

Knowledge

The way TV pollutes our minds with the wrong kind of information.

S1E6 • How TV Ruined Your Life • 2011 • Lifehack

The Social Dilemma

This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.

2020 • Lifehack

Why Religious Beliefs Aren't Just Silly

Nowadays, many atheists declare not just that god is dead but that anyone who believes in him must be stupid. This seems a little harsh – we prefer to think about where religious beliefs come from: the pained parts of ourselves.

The School of Life • 2015 • Lifehack

The power of passion

For love or money? Based on hundreds of interviews and his personal experience, Richard St. John suggests that passion, not money, is one of the key drivers of success.

Lifehack

Astronomy Documentaries

7 Ages of Starlight

This is the epic story of the stars, and how discovering their tale has transformed our own understanding of the universe. Once we thought the sun and stars were gods and giants. Now we know, in a way, our instincts were right. The stars do all have their own characters, histories and role in the cosmos. Not least, they played a vital part in creating us. There are old, bloated red giants, capable of gobbling up planets in their orbit; explosive deaths - supernovae - that forge the building blocks of life; and black holes, the most mysterious stellar tombstones. And, of course, stars in their prime, like our own sun. Leading astronomers reveal how the grandest drama on tonight is the one playing above our heads.

2012 • Astronomy

Novo Mundo

The story is told in a documentary way, looking at the present day. The future mission is filmed as a movie. In this episode scenes are changing in these timeframes.

S1E1 • MARS • 2016 • Astronomy

The Asteroid Mysteries

The Solar System is home to a vast array of asteroids and comets with experts taking a journey deep into space to examine these mysterious wanderers in the search to reveal the origins of the universe and the human race itself.

S3E3 • Mysteries of our Universe: Our Solar System • 2021 • Astronomy

Dark Secrets of the Solar System

New evidence is rewriting the history of our solar system, and using the latest discoveries and cutting-edge tech, experts are investigating if our cosmic neighborhood once featured oversized alien Earths and a second Sun.

Space's Deepest Secrets • 2019 • Astronomy

Journey From The Center of the Sun

How does light escape from the sun? We take a journey from the centre of the sun, following the path of light. We witness its fiery birth from in the core, its 430,000 mile battle against gravity and magnetism, and its escape from the solar surface.

S3E1 • How the Universe Works • 2014 • Astronomy

Timelapse of the Entire Universe

On a cosmic time scale, human history is as brief as the blink of an eye. By compressing all 13.8 billion years of time into a 10 minute scale, this video shows just how young we truly are, and just how ancient and vast our universe is. Starting with the big bang and culminating in the appearance of homo sapiens, this experience follows the unfolding of time at 22 million years per second, adhering closely to current scientific understanding.

2018 • Astronomy

Random! Documentaries

Kakapo

In New Zealand the travellers make their way through one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world. They are on a journey to find the last remaining kakapo, a fat, flightless parrot which, when threatened with attack, adopts a strategy of standing very still indeed.

S1E5 • Last Chance to See • 2009 • Nature

Alcohol is AMAZING

Alcohol kills more people each year than wars, terrorism, homicides, and car accidents combined. It destroys bodies, relationships, and lives. Yet we toast with it at weddings, sip it at parties, and unwind with it after work. Why do we cling to something so harmful?

In a Nutshell • 2025 • Health

Iceland: Land of Ice and Fire

In what turns out to be an explosive year, witness Iceland through the eyes of the animals and people that have made this wild island home. An arctic fox family must eke out a cliff-top living, an eider farmer has his hands full playing duck dad to hundreds of new arrivals and Viking horsemen prepare to saddle up for the autumn round up. But nature's clock is ticking, and the constant volcanic threat eventually boils over with one of Iceland's biggest eruptions in more than 200 years. This land of ice and fire will not be tamed.

Natural World • 2015 • Nature

Make me Brave

To prove that brain training can overcome fear, Todd uses all his previous brain training to face his fears and achieve the ultimate challenge - a skywalk between two buildings 21 floors high.

S2E3 • Redesign my brain • 2015 • Brain

The Year Earth Changed

Showcasing footage from around the world after an unprecedented year, “The Year Earth Changed” is a timely documentary special that takes a fresh new approach to the global lockdown and the uplifting stories that have come out of it. From hearing birdsong in deserted cities and seeing whales in Glacier Bay, to meeting capybara in suburbs across South America, people worldwide have had the chance to engage with nature like never before. In this documentary special, viewers will witness how the smallest changes in human behavior – reducing cruise ship traffic, closing beaches a few days a year, identifying more harmonious ways for humans and wildlife to coexist – can have a profound impact on nature. The documentary, narrated by David Attenborough, is a love letter to planet Earth, highlighting the ways nature’s resiliency and ability to bounce back can give us hope for the future.

2021 • Nature

Making Tracks on Mars

Mars has beckoned humankind for centuries, but only in the last 50 years have we begun to scratch its surface. The latest Martian explorer is Perseverance, an uber-sophisticated rover, chock-full of scientific instruments, including 23 cameras, a robotic arm, lasers, and spectrometers, designed to analyze the terrain and reveal if there was ever life on the Red Planet. Join us as we examine the latest rocket, rover, and interplanetary helicopter.

2021 • Technology