Latest Documentaries

Protecting Primates

With more than half of all primate species threatened with extinction, this episode follows scientists and conservationists working to understand and protect our closest animal relatives through groundbreaking research and conservation efforts.

S1E3Primates • 2020 • Nature

Family Matters

A look at the extraordinary social lives of primates. From devoted fathers and protective relatives to lifelong friendships and complex hierarchies, the episode explores how family bonds help primates survive and prosper.

S1E2Primates • 2020 • Nature

Secrets of Survival

Primates have adapted to survive everywhere from mountains and forests to cities and savannahs. This episode reveals the ingenious strategies used by monkeys, apes, and lemurs to find food, avoid predators, and thrive in some of the world's most challenging environments.

S1E1Primates • 2020 • Nature

Map of Money

An engaging overview of the history of money, exploring how societies evolved from barter systems to coins, paper currency, and modern financial systems. The video highlights the key developments that shaped trade, economics, and the way people exchange value throughout history.

2026 • Economics

Find your primal posture and sit without back pain

Discover how restoring your natural "primal posture" can help reduce back pain, neck pain, and other common musculoskeletal problems

TEDx • 2013 • Health

Motorway

Hannah takes a drive to the National Highways control centre for the UK’s busiest motorway to meet the team that keep the motorways running 24/7.

S3E5The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2025 • Technology

Doorbell

The rise of the smart doorbell is one of the great tech success stories of the 21st century. Hannah heads to Los Angeles to take a deep dive into doorbell history and talk to market leaders Ring.

S3E4The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2025 • Technology

Rollercoaster

Hannah uncovers the wild origins of the modern-day rollercoaster and gets the inside story on the UK’s newest, tallest and fastest coaster – Thorpe Park's Hyperia.

S3E3The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2025 • Technology

Fridge

Hannah hits the production line with appliance giants Bosch to find the lifeblood at the heart of every fridge and gets a lesson in carrot droop.

S3E2The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2025 • Technology

Aif Fryer

Hannah takes a look at the air fryer – a device that is rapidly taking over people's kitchens, cooking up everything from bread rolls to baked Alaska and almost making ovens obsolete.

S3E1The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2025 • Technology

Lift

Hannah goes behind the scenes to look at the technology behind the lift, entering a 246m high lift shaft to test everything from the brakes to her own fear of heights.

S2E6The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2023 • Technology

Headphones

Headphones: these marvels of miniaturisation are worn by 30 million people in the UK. Hannah Fry visits Bose to find out how the teeny earbud tech works and meets the human testers with ‘golden ears’.

S2E5The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2023 • Technology

Recommended Documentaries

The Impossible Flight

In March 2015, Solar Impulse II launched the greatest aviation undertaking of our time: to be the first solar-powered airplane to fly around the world. It was a feat 12 years in the making, and was anything but a sure bet. NOVA follows intrepid pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg - two men bent on pushing the boundaries of human flight and proving renewable energy's potential. Along with a team of brilliant engineers, the two designed and built Solar Impulse from scratch - though top airplane manufacturers told them would be too big, too light, and impossible to control. NOVA follows the team as it overcomes seemingly insurmountable challenges to build and fly the first solar plane around the world.

NOVA PBS • 2018 • Technology

Swamps

In a drought-stricken basin where much has perished, an old Pachycephalosaurus bull defends his leadership against a young challenger.

S2E3Prehistoric Planet • 2023 • Nature

The Soviet Story

The Soviet Story offers an alternative history of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale.

2008 • History

What will AI do for us/to us?

Love or loathe him, Microsoft founder Bill Gates presents an easily digested documentary series on the threats and opportunities facing humanity now and in the future.

S1E1What's Next: The Future with Bill Gates • 2024 • Technology

Where Do I Come From

Professor Alice Roberts meets our ancient ancestral family, from armadillos to sharks, and discovers our true place in the tree of life. With 4D scanning, giant origami and a ukulele, they will explore evolution like never before.

S1E1Who Am I (Royal Institution Christmas Lectures) • 2018 • Nature

The Full Circle

In this highlights programme compiled from the recent Life Story series, David Attenborough brings us the universal story that unites each of us with every animal on the planet, the story of the greatest of all adventures - the journey through life. For each stage of life we see the most spectacular, beautiful or dramatic stories from the Life Story series.

S1E7Life Story • 2014 • Nature

Nature Documentaries

Europe

Earthflight departs on its grand European tour, using a host of techniques including taking extraordinary footage from microlites as they fly alongside imprinted birds. Among other wonders, cameras soar with cranes and geese over Venice, the white cliffs of Dover and Edinburgh. White storks leave Africa and struggle to reach Istanbul, the gateway to Europe, while cranes take an easier route over the monkey-guarded Rock of Gibraltar. In France, the white horses of the Camargue make a splash around the new arrivals. In Rome, the heat of the city lures 20 million starlings that perform nature's greatest aerial display to outwit peregrines. In Hungary, sand martins grab mayflies from the air; and at Bass Rock, gannets create Britain's greatest natural spectacle as they dive in exquisite slow-motion. The story takes an emotional turn as storks and swallows wait for their partners to return and indulge in a spot of DIY to impress. Finally, geese touch down in Svalbard to raise a family. To protect their young, a squadron of birds assemble to see off polar bears. With views of birds flying over the Loire Valley, London docklands and the bulb fieds of Holland, this is Europe as never before.

S1E3Earthflight • 2012 • Nature

My Octopus Teacher

A filmmaker forges an unusual friendship with an octopus living in a South African kelp forest, learning as the animal shares the mysteries of her world.

2020 • Nature

The Blackcap Warbler

Every year the black cap warbler undertakes a mysterious migration. This discreet journey covers thousands of kilometers and triggers puzzles that scientists are still trying to understand today. Thanks to cutting-edge technology, we will track the black caps on their journey.

S1E3Secret Migrations • 2019 • Nature

Deserts

The world's deserts force animals to come up with ingenious ways of coping with hostile conditions, giving rise to the most incredible survival stories on earth.

S1E4Planet Earth II • 2016 • Nature

The Mammal Hothouse

Professor Richard Fortey investigates the remains of ancient volcanic lake in Germany where stunningly well-preserved fossils of early mammals, giant insects and even perhaps our oldest known ancestor have been found. Among the amazing finds are bats as advanced and sophisticated as anything living today, more than 50-million-years-later; dog-sized 'Dawn' horses, the ancestor of the modern horse; and giant ants as large as a hummingbird.

S1E3Fossil Wonderlands: Nature's Hidden Treasures • 2014 • Nature

Uncharted Amazon

Deep in the jungles of Peru, a silky anteater is fighting to stay awake and a mother hummingbird is struggling to raise her chick. As this documentary reveals, life in his incredible part of the planet faces changing conditions.

2015 • Nature

Lifehack Documentaries

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

Live to Learn

These 9 life lessons from comedian Tim Minchin will make you laugh -- and learn

2017 • Lifehack

Minimalism

How might your life be better with less? MINIMALISM: A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE IMPORTANT THINGS examines the many flavors of minimalism by taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from all walks of life—families, entrepreneurs, architects, artists, journalists, scientists, and even a former Wall Street broker—all of whom are striving to live a meaningful life with less.

2016 • Lifehack

Love

Advertisements and movies' clichéd and unrealistic portrayal of romance.

S1E4How TV Ruined Your Life • 2011 • Lifehack

Lessons from the Presidents

Through her unique understanding of some of our greatest presidents, Doris Kearns Goodwin, writer and presidential biographer, provides leadership lessons we all can learn from in our never-ending pursuit to live our fullest and most successful lives.

S1E7Curiosity Retreats: 2016 Lectures • 2016 • Lifehack

The Great Math Mystery

Join NOVA on a mathematical mystery tour—a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math's signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy, and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the prediction and discovery of the Higgs boson and the successful landing of rovers on Mars. Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, follow math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond. It all leads to the ultimate riddle: Is math a human invention or the discovery of the language of the universe?

NOVA PBS • 2015 • Lifehack

Random! Documentaries

The Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula is a interstellar cloud situated in the Milky Way, south of Orion's Belt. In a 2-year effort, scientists create a mosaic of over 100 images at the tip of Orion's sword to discover four massive young stars. What do they tell us about how planetary systems are formed?

18Cosmic Front • 2014 • Astronomy

Animal Intelligence

What goes on inside an animal's mind? Figuring out how they think and feel might just be the key to understanding our own place in the world.

S2E3Explained • 2019 • Nature

Urbanized

A documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world's foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.

2011 • Design

The Grand Tour

From the raging inferno of the Sun to the icy beauty of Pluto, experts investigate the secrets that have lingered in the Solar System for billions of years in cutting-edge missions to infinity and beyond.

S2E4Mysteries of our Universe: Our Solar System • 2021 • Astronomy

Chimp Island

In the 1990s, one million chimpanzees lived across Central Africa. Since then, habitat loss, hunting for bushmeat, and the exotic pet trade has caused their population to crash to just 200,000. But on Ngamba Island, a semi-wild sanctuary just off the coast of Uganda's Lake Victoria, a team of caregivers is dedicated to giving them another chance in life. Visit this remarkable safe haven, where victims--most arriving as orphaned babies--recover from mental trauma, form a new family, and learn how to be chimps.

2019 • Nature

Great Vaccine Race

The inside story of the high-stakes race to defeat a killer virus and save millions of lives.

S61E1The Nature of Things • 2021 • Health