Latest Documentaries

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

The Elephant

In Kenya, Chris embarks on a journey through time to uncover how a creature as vast, complex and charismatic as the elephant came to be. It's a story of innovations, lucky breaks and unlikely partnerships.

S1E1Evolution • 2026 • Nature

The Odyssey with Dan Snow

Dan Snow sets sail across the Mediterranean in the wake of Homer's The Odyssey. This epic was written down almost 3,000 years ago, and it has been loved by generations of filmmakers, artists, authors and historians since. Now Dan re-tells the story visiting the harbours, mysterious islands and incredible ancient locations across Greece that inspired The Odyssey.

2026 • Travel

The Tech Billionaire Takeover

A new generation of tech billionaires believe their technologies can replace democracy as we know it and upend the global financial system. Matt Shea gets inside access to this new super-elite, visiting the sovereign nations they're building and tracing their growing political connections to the Trump administration. Are these men trying to take over the world?

2026 • Technology

ROMANIA: The Country Everyone Gets Wrong

Most people hear "Romania" and immediately picture Dracula, the gothic myths of Bran Castle, or the grey, concrete remnants of the communist era. But the reality of this nation in Eastern Europe is far more complex, untamed, and beautiful.

2026 • Travel

The Hadron Collider: In Search of the Peace Particle

In the aftermath of Hiroshima, a group of scientists vowed never to turn knowledge into weapons again, and from that promise, CERN was born. Deep underground, researchers from nations in conflict have worked side by side for decades, driven by curiosity and shared wonder. For 70 years, CERN has stood as an act of hope, a place where collaboration transcends borders, even as the world above grows more divided. Blending poetry, music and rare archival footage of nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer with remarkable access to the Large Hadron Collider, the film explores how science, politics and culture collide.

2026 • Physics

OnlyFans: Inside the Machine

Behind the billion-pound success of OnlyFans lies a hidden ecosystem of exploitation. A BBC Current Affairs investigation uncovers allegations of exploitation, coercion and violence committed by some of the hundreds of agents who manage many of the platform's creators as well as the potential for modern slavery. Through survivor testimony, undercover access to a managers' chat forum and expert legal analysis, the film exposes an industry where young women are trapped, threatened and profited from - raising urgent questions about accountability at the heart of one of Britain's most lucrative tech companies.

2026 • Economics

Dolly: The World's Most Famous Sheep

The story of the cloned sheep that was the first mammal to be created from an adult cell, and the unassuming lab that changed scientific history, leading to press stampedes, presidential panic, protests and even a failed kidnapping plot. As Dolly blinked up at the cameras, the Roslin science team's sleepy lab became the centre of an ethical uproar.

2026 • Science

Building the Sun - The World's Largest Fusion Project

ITER is an international attempt to meet humanity's energy needs by harnessing nuclear fusion. We take you within the ITER project to see how close the technology is to becoming a reality.

2026 • Science

Recommended Documentaries

Part II

In a race to find out what great pressures confront life in our ocean, the team continue their mission to investigate the effect human impact has had on our marine ecosystem.

S1E2Blue Planet Live • 2019 • Nature

Inheriting the Earth

Emerging from the dinosaurs' shadows, mammals went from underdogs to global power, with game-changing adaptations that would conquer land, air and sea.

S1E7Life on Our Planet • 2023 • Nature

How to Get Divorced

The rules for how to doom a relationship are relatively easy to follow. Here are a selection that are guaranteed to blow up love.

The School of Life • 2015 • Lifehack

The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth

The Ship of the Imagination embarks on a journey through space and time to grasp how the autobiography of the Earth is written in its atoms, its oceans, its continents and all living things. Later, American geologist Marie Tharp creates the first true map of Earth's ocean floor, and discovers microscopic life that exists deep beneath the ocean.

S1E9Cosmos: A Spacetime OdysseyAstronomy

Transilvania - Part II

The second leg of the journey through Transilvania. We pick up our journey in the fields just outside the scenic village of Crit.

S1E6Flavours of Romania • 2018 • Travel

Painted Wolf

Documentary following endangered species fighting for their survival. A painted wolf matriarch's feud with her daughter threatens to bring the dynasty down.

S1E4Dynasties • 2018 • Nature

Travel Documentaries

Part 4: Panama, Darien Gap and Colombia

Levison and Alberto explore an uncharted vampire bat-infested cave, visit the Panama Canal and modern Panama City, meet indigenous tribes-people and tackle the world's most dangerous stretch of jungle.

S1E4Walking the Americas with Levison Wood • 2017 • Travel

East

his leg takes Ade to the east of the continent, from Tanzania, through Ethiopia and on to war-torn Somalia. Ade begins in Tanzania, in Selous Game Reserve – a game park the size of Switzerland. He is on the lookout for elephants. But the numbers in this park have fallen by 90 per cent over the last few decades. As well as poaching, one of the big problems is that elephants trample and eat crops – so the locals don't like them. But a new collaring programme is helping numbers to recover. Ade's next stop is Ethiopia's far north. He travels to the hottest place on the planet where he spends a night with some of the toughest people on earth - the Afar. He joins them doing what their ancestors have done for centuries – hacking blocks of salt from a dried-up salt lake and loading them onto camels. But change is finally coming to this place – thanks to another of its resources, the fertilizer potash. It is a sign of Ethiopia's development, which Ade sees more of in the capital, Addis Ababa. Having grown up with images of starving children in the famine-plagued 80s, Addis is nothing like Ade expected. The city is booming. And it is driving Ethiopia's economy - now one of the fastest-growing in the world. Ade gets a guided tour from perhaps the world's greatest-ever long distance runner, Haile Gebrselassie. Haile is now a businessman, with investments in coffee and construction. The real fuel in Ethiopia's boom is manufacturing. Asia is still the workshop of the world, but with wages there on the rise, Chinese companies are increasingly looking to countries like Ethiopia to set up factories – as Ade discovers on a visit to a shoe factory. Leaving Addis, Ade travels on Ethiopia's new high-speed Chinese built train, which whisks him all the way to neighbouring Djibouti, a vital port for Ethiopia's export-led economy. The final stop on this leg of Ade's trip is war-torn Somalia. He joins the African Union troops on a mission out of Mogadishu and discovers a country in ruins, thanks to decades of conflict with Islamist group al-Shabab. Even in areas ruled by the government conservative Islam dominates and women face restriction on their freedom. Back in Mogadishu, Ade shoots some hoops with a group of women defying the odds by playing basketball. His final encounter is with a female doctor who worked for the NHS for 30 years, and has now returned to Somalia to rebuild her country. She is prepared to give her life, if necessary, in her efforts to provide quality maternity care for new mothers.

S1E3Africa with Ade Adepitan • 2019 • Travel

Japan to Siberia

The trip begins on the frozen Japanese sea of Okhotsk, and goes across China and Mongolia before arriving at Lake Baikal in Siberia, where Joanna meets some amazing seals.

S1E1Joanna Lumley’s Unseen Adventures • 2020 • Travel

Santorini

In this episode, Julia’s journey brings her to the impossibly glamorous island of Santorini in search of the perfect sunset. Her trip begins in one of Santorini's most exclusive hotels where she discovers how one of the Aegean’s poorest islands became a playground for the rich and famous. In search of the secret Santorini away from the bustling crowds, she heads inland for a walk on the wild side, hiking through a forager’s paradise to the hilltop village of Pyrgos

S1E3The Greek Islands with Julia Bradbury • 2020 • Travel

Part 2

Four months into his journey, explorer Levison Wood arrives in the capital of the world's newest nation, South Sudan, only to be arrested by secret police. After several days' delay he and his guide Boston are allowed to continue onwards and soon enjoy a highlight of the trek - an encounter with members of the Mundari tribe. This community has set up a cattle camp on an island in the middle of the River Nile, where its members lead a very simple and sustainable existence of only drinking milk, burning cow dung, washing in cow urine and covering themselves in ash to ward off flies and mosquitos. After bidding them farewell, Lev finds himself caught up in the worsening civil war as his path winds through minefields and he witnesses increasing numbers of refugees fleeing in the opposite direction.

S1E2Walking the Nile with Levison Wood • 2015 • Travel

Puerto Rico

Martin visits the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Martin sees how the Puerto Ricans have begun to recover from the disaster.

S1E3Martin Clunes: Islands of America • 2019 • Travel

Science Documentaries

The Telescope

In the first of 3 episodes we take a look at how the telescope was invented, from Galileo to Edwin Hubble, and how the invention reaches the universe 13 billion light-years out. Narrated by Patrick Stewart.

Breakthrough the Ideas that Changed the World • 2019 • Science

Top Science Stories of 2016

From the detection of gravitational waves generated in space over a billion years ago, to discoveries in genetics here on Earth, we've collected the most compelling science breakthroughs and advances of 2016. Thanks to magnificent, hard-working scientists and researchers around the world, science keeps marching ever forward. And this year saw some discoveries that are absolutely brimming with the promise of greater discoveries, breakthroughs and quality of life in the future.

2016 • 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

Professor Uta Frith discusses Alice Lee

The pioneering developmental psychologist Uta Frith discusses Alice Lee, whose work in craniology challenged the idea that women were intellectually inferior because they have smaller brain sizes.

S1E2People of Science with Brian Cox • 2018 • Science

Whales and Aliens

Can the study of Humpback Whale communication help researchers understand communications from an alien intelligence?

S1E3Stories of Impact • 2019 • Science

Will We Become God?

Humanity’s potential seems limitless. But could we become as powerful as God?

S5E09Through the WormholeScience

Random! Documentaries

Make me smarter

Todd Sampson puts brain training to the test. A pioneer in the neuroplasticity revolution, Michael Merzenich, mentors Todd, showing him how to radically improve his cognition by turbocharging his thinking speed, attention and memory.

S1E1Redesign my brain • 2013 • Brain

Carnivores of the Coral Garden

Nine miles off the coast of Oman, a zebra shark scans the ocean floor for crustaceans, while a menacing giant stingray floats by. Soon, night becomes day and new killers emerge, from toxic scorpion fish to crown-of-thorns starfish, both bringing coral devastation. Dive among these deadly marine carnivores.

S1E1Arabian Seas • 2018 • Nature

Journey Through Space

Brilliantly narrated by film and television legend Sir Patrick Stewart, Journey To Space gives a sweeping overview of humanity’s accomplishments in space, as well as our ongoing activities and future plans. Journey To Space puts into historical context the magnificent contributions made by the Space Shuttle program and its intrepid space pioneers. It uses the most spectacular space footage – including unique views of Earth and operations in space – such as deploying and repairing the Hubble Space Telescope. It then goes on to show how the shuttle launched and assembled the International Space Station (ISS). Together, these programs have taught us how to live, build and conduct scientific experiments in space. The ISS will continue operating in space until 2024, and the film shows how it is building a foundation for the next giant leaps into space, concluding with a fascinating, realistic scenario of how astronauts will actually get to Mars, live there for long durations, and then return home after a two-and-a-half-year mission.

2015 • Astronomy

Sisters of the Sun

Explores the violent cosmic phenomenon of supernovas, which on average occur once per galaxy per century or one billion times per year in the observable universe.

S1E8Cosmos: A Spacetime OdysseyAstronomy

The Legend of 420

A comedy documentary outlining the progression of the ever growing cannabis industry.

2017 • People

The Roaring 20s

Ever wonder what happens after a global pandemic? Sometimes the secrets of the future can be found in the past. In the wake of the Spanish Flu, the 1920s become the decade of flappers, jazz, and the speakeasy, and for many a time of unprecedented opportunity.

S1E3History By The Numbers • 2021 • History