Latest Documentaries

Into the Extreme

We turn the camera on the extraordinary people who are dedicating their lives to helping the animals cope with today's extreme weather.

S1E6Force of Nature • 2026 • Nature

Boiling Point

New extremes of heat and drought are pushing the extraordinary behavioural and physical adaptations of wombats, leopards and kangaroo rats to their very limits.

S1E5Force of Nature • 2026 • Nature

Melting Worlds

Andrew Lincoln narrates a look at how animals adapted to the cold are struggling in a warming world. A snow leopard in the peaks of the Indian Himalayas is forced from his home by a rival male, while an Arctic ground squirrel in Alaska undertakes the coldest migration of any mammal, and a young Arctic fox in Svalbard must face her first winter alone.

S1E4Force of Nature • 2026 • Nature

Savage Seas

The world's coastal regions have always been an extreme environment to raise a family, but warming seas are exacerbating the challenges of parenthood. A hurricane hits a flamingo colony while chicks are still on the nest, a sea otter faces a huge winter storm in California, a clownfish on the Great Barrier Reef sees its anemone home bleached, and a little anole lizard clings on during a hurricane.

S1E3Force of Nature • 2026 • Nature

Rising Waters

As the planet's shifting rain patterns rewrite the rules, survival is no longer about strength alone. From the desert to the jungle, three mothers face the ultimate test of survival as monsoon floodwaters tear through pygmy elephant territory in Borneo, a female platypus in Australia watches a flash flood destroy her home river, and a flood in Africa brings prey to a lone lioness. Andrew Lincoln narrates.

S1E2Force of Nature • 2026 • Nature

Extreme Earth

An owl protects its chicks underground, cheetahs struggle through record floods in Kenya, and a polar bear searches for disappearing Arctic sea ice as extreme weather intensifies across the planet.

S1E1Force of Nature • 2026 • Nature

The Fall

As internal crises, economic strain, and repeated barbarian invasions intensify, the Western Empire fractures and collapses in 476, while the Eastern Empire survives and evolves into the Byzantine state centered on Constantinople.

S1E2The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire • 2026 • History

The Rise

From a small Italian city-state to Mediterranean superpower, this episode traces Rome’s expansion, the transition from Republic to Empire under Augustus, and the stability and prosperity of the Pax Romana that cemented imperial dominance.

S1E1The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire • 2026 • History

The Horse

In the salt marshes of the Camargue, Chris explores the evolutionary beginnings of animal movement and how it reached its peak in one of the most elegant and athletic animals on Earth: the horse.

Evolution • 2026 • Nature

The Dolphin

In the Bahamas, Chris dives into one of the biggest questions in nature - how intelligence itself evolved, and how it arose in the dolphin's mind. Inside each is the result of a three-billion-year journey.

S1E4Evolution • 2026 • Nature

The Bat

In Borneo, Chris sets out to answer a deceptively simple question: how the drive to find food shaped life on Earth, and gave rise to one of nature’s most insatiable feeders. This feeding frenzy has origins from half a billion years ago.

S1E3Evolution • 2026 • Nature

The Ostrich

In South Africa, Chris finds out how reproduction has shaped life on Earth and the surprising evolutionary origins of sex, eggs and birds. This is a journey of innovation, adaptation and astonishing creativity.

S1E2Evolution • 2026 • Nature

Recommended Documentaries

Spacesuit

Before spaceflight aviators began wearing pressure suits to allow them to function at higher ceilings. These aviation suits were adapted for the early Cosmonauts and Astronauts but as requirements became more demanding spacesuit design became more elaborate.

S1E6Zenith: Advances in Space Exploration • 2021 • Technology

Transilvania - Part I

This week we are exploring Romania's largest and most iconic region,mistaken by many Americans and others as a country in its own right. In fact Transylvania is a name that most of the western world still associates with Dracula, werewolves and folk legend. But this land beyond the forest defies all preconceptions and remains one of the most culturally important and beautiful parts of Eastern Europe.

S1E5Flavours of Romania • 2018 • Travel

How did the Universe Begin

Scientists on the BICEP and Planck missions are attempting to solve a mystery about the earliest moments of our universe, by searching for patterns in the cosmic microwave background. If successful, the missions will help to answer the biggest question anyone can ask: how did our universe begin?

Secrets of the Universe (Curiosity) • 2021 • Astronomy

Infinite Secrets the Genius of Archimedes

In 1991, a small Medieval prayer book was sold at auction. Miraculously, some original writings of Archimedes, the brilliant Greek mathematician, were discovered hidden beneath the religious text. Through scholarly detective work with the help of modern technology, this book now reveals Archimedes' stunningly original concepts, ideas, and theories--revelations that, if known sooner, might have reshaped our world.

NOVA PBS • 2003 • People

The Age of Invention

How harnessing the link between magnetism and electricity transformed the world.

S1E2Shock and Awe: The Story of ElectricityPhysics

Why Are We Here?

Brian Cox tackles the question that unites Earth's seven billion people - why are we here?

S1E2Human Universe • 2014 • Science

Science Documentaries

The Coriolis Effect

Why do storms spin in different directions depending on their location—and why do they spin in the first place?

2013 • Science

Science can answer moral questions

Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.

TED-EdScience

A Glitch in the Matrix

Are we in fact living in a simulation? This is the question postulated, wrestled with, and ultimately argued for in the latest provocation from acclaimed documentary stylist Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare) through archival footage, compelling interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, and a collection of cases from some of our most iconoclastic figures in contemporary culture.

2021 • Science

Sir David Spiegelhalter discusses Thomas Bayes and Ronald Fisher

David Spiegelhalter discusses how the work of amateur mathematician Thomas Bayes and statistician Ronald Fisher helped to shape the current thinking of probability.

S1E5People of Science with Brian Cox • 2018 • Science

Bill Bryson discusses Benjamin Franklin

The writer Bill Bryson talks to Brian Cox about his admiration for the US scientist, author and inventor Benjamin Franklin and his many achievements.

S1E3People of Science with Brian Cox • 2018 • Science

A.I. & Morality

Can computers be given a sense of morality using AI, and what are the implications for decision making in a hospital setting?

S1E2Stories of Impact • 2019 • Science

History Documentaries

Homo Naledi

Discovered in 2013, new and puzzling finding of small-skulled fossils of Homo Naledi has scientists trying to understand whether Homo Sapiens lived at the same time as Homo Naledi, and how Homo Naledi communities may have lived.

Science Breakthroughs • 2017 • History

Need for Speed

No prizes for second place! In this episode we learn how being the fastest enabled empires to be born and capitalism to thrive.

12/12Mankind Decoded • 2013 • History

Theatre of Death

Bettany Hughes explores the day in 80AD when the Colosseum opened its gates for the first time. For new emperor Titus, the spectacular games and events were an opportunity to win over the people and secure his place on the imperial throne, but why did the Romans - cultured and civilised in so many ways - enjoy witnessing such brutality and bloodletting? Bettany travels across the Roman world in a bid to find answers.

S1E7Eight Days That Made Rome • 2017 • History

The Ming

The tale of one of China's most famous dynasties begins with the amazing story of Hongwu, a peasant rebel who founded one of greatest eras in Chinese history.

S1E4The Story of China • 2016 • History

City of the Sacred

Simon Sebag Montefiore looks at how every event in ancient Rome revolved around religion. From the foundation myth through to the deification of emperors, nothing could happen without calling upon the pantheon of Roman gods. Simon investigates how the Romans worshipped and sacrificed to the gods. He discovers that sacredness defined what was Roman and it was the responsibility of every Roman to play their part in the cult. Even the ancient Roman sewer was holy ground!

S1E1Rome: A History of the Eternal City • 2012 • History

Space for Everyone

The new Space Shuttle program captivates America and draws a diverse, determined crop of astronauts. But safety issues arise out of public view.

S1E1Challenger: The Final Flight • 2020 • History

Random! Documentaries

Coasts

This episode takes a bird’s eye view of Germany’s coasts, the North and Baltic, coastlines and islands in astonishing, brilliant pictures.

Part 1Wild Germany • 2012 • Nature

Visualizing Atomic Deaths

Many people believe the Hiroshima atomic bomb instantly incinerated nearly everyone in the Japanese city. That was true at ground zero, but not everywhere. Hiroshima government officials have been tirelessly collecting records on those killed to find out how they died. Using this "big data", NHK created a visualization of the movements of the 557,000 victims of the 6th August 1945 attack. Some did indeed perish instantly. Others burned to death in collapsed buildings. But what about the people who died in a strange "donut zone of death" days after the bombing and in areas more than 2 kilometers from ground zero? This documentary goes beyond big data to provide heart-rending accounts from people close to victims and survivors, revealing the true story of what happened on that dark day more than 70 years ago.

2017 • History

Cassini's Final Secrets

For twenty years, NASA's Cassini spacecraft revealed the strange secrets of Saturn until it vaporized in its atmosphere in a blaze of glory. But today its legacy lives on, as fresh data from the probe helps scientists make brand-new discoveries.

S7E10How the Universe Works • 2019 • Astronomy

New York

The geological history of New York City is as superlative as it's current economic impact including; a titanic mountain rage, massive volcanic eruptions, immense glaciers and an enormous flash flood.

S1E5How the Earth Was Made • 2009 • Environment

Parallel Universes

Everything you're about to see here seems impossible and insane, beyond science fiction. Yet it's all true.

HorizonAstronomy

The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard

The documentary about the founders of the Pirate Bay.

Technology