Latest Documentaries

Levison Wood Walking With...

Levison Wood tracks down some of the most iconic but endangered animals on Earth and gets a better understanding of how they are surviving against worsening odds. Chapter 1: Orangutans Deep in Borneo's forests, Levison meets the last-remaining endangered orangutans, and learns more about their unique lives and their environment, as they face the threat of deforestation and poaching. Chapter 2: Lions In Namibia's extreme environment, Levison tracks down some of the last remaining desert lions and learns about the vital work that's giving them a fighting chance of survival. Chapter 3: Polar Bears Levison travels deep into the vast arctic wilderness of east Greenland to track down some of the most elusive populations of polar bears on the planet. But will he get up close and personal with one?

2023 • Nature

Ghost Bear Family

In the vast Canadian wilderness, there lives a very special bear family. Just out of hibernation, two black cubs have a pure white mother. She's not a polar bear or albino - locally she's known as a ghost bear. This far north, winter is never far away, and this unusual family must work hard to find enough food to see them through. They will also need to avoid other large predators, but being so different could bring them unwelcome attention.

2015 • Nature

Bad Faith

The forces tearing apart our democracy have never been more frightening or powerful, but who is actually behind them? BAD FAITH reveals how Christian Nationalist leaders have spread fear and anger for decades, distorting political issues into Biblical battles between good and evil. Financed through the secretive Council for National Policy, Christian Nationalists have succeeded in taking over the Republican Party, turning it into a powerful weapon to demolish democracy from within. Discover the origins of this organized grasp for power and the grassroots coalition of secular and interfaith leaders bravely confronting the unholy forces threatening democracy.

2024 • History

Part 3: In Memory of the Vanquished (1922-1945)

By assassinating nearly a third of Europe's workers in some countries, World War 1 reduced the militant mass to silence. But it was above all the repressive measures of the major democracies that, from deportations to executions, dealt a blow to the anarchist movement. In this fertile inter-war period, where capitalism gave birth to its two foul beasts, Stalinism and fascism, more than ever before, anarchism continued to be the only force of resistance for the people, in the face of the totalitarian hydra that was increasingly generalising theft and industrialising death. From Boston to Barcelona, from Tokyo to Paris, anarchism was to lead a struggle on all fronts. It was eventually in Spain, during the course of a war resembling a revolution that the movement finally came within reach of utopia.

S1E3No Gods, No Masters: A History of Anarchism • 2016 • History

Part 2: Land and Liberty (1907-1921)

At the start of the 20th century, everything seemed to be plain sailing in the best possible of libertarian worlds, because anarchism had rid itself of its former demons. And thanks to the major waves of migration that carried the movement to the remotest areas of the world, it was able to rally a major part of the peasantry around to its cause. But to ensure their ideal triumphed, before the imminence of a world conflict, libertarians could no longer afford merely to indulge in wishful thinking and think up generous practices. They must take up arms and go on the offensive once again. And so, from the two shores of Mexico to the vast steppes of the Ukraine, in an era full of sound and fury, Nestor Makhno and the Flores Magon brothers found themselves at the forefront of the first major revolutions of the 20th century as they tried, once and for all, to change the world.

S1E2No Gods, No Masters: A History of Anarchism • 2016 • History

Part 1: Lust for Destruction

Born in France, around the Commune de Paris, and in the wake of the French Revolution, anarchism rapidly disseminated its theories throughout the world. When the brand new International Workers' Association was created, anarchism even became predominant within the workers' movement. Yet early on, anarchism instilled fear in people, not only because all over the world it waged the war for an 8-hour working day, founded schools with no God and no master, and promoted free love, but also, and above all, because from time to time it was quick to use violence and to destroy authority in a highly concrete way. From Ravachol to Bonnot, from the assassination of Empress Sisi of Austria to the Battle of Stepney, from bombs to raids, anarchism has become the bete noire of heads of states and royalty who, in an attempt to protect themselves from it, created anti-terrorist laws that are still in force today.

S1E1No Gods, No Masters: A History of Anarchism • 2016 • History

The Natural History of the Chicken

While most know chicken as a dinner-plate staple, few pause to consider this bird’s many virtues. In this fascinating and gently comic documentary, director Mark Lewis delves into the under-recognized complexities of this seemingly simple animal. Through interviews with those who have formed unique bonds with chickens and narrative vignettes depicting the birds at their magical best, Lewis allows us to rethink our relationship to a creature we have previously taken for granted, while at the same time providing a lens through which we can view ourselves anew.

2000 • Nature

The Polio Crusade

In the summer of 1950 fear gripped the residents of Wytheville, Virginia. Movie theaters shut down, baseball games were cancelled and panicky parents kept their children indoors — anything to keep them safe from an invisible invader. Outsiders sped through town with their windows rolled up and bandanas covering their faces. The ones who couldn't escape the perpetrator were left paralyzed, and some died in the wake of the devastating and contagious virus. Polio had struck in Wytheville. The town was in the midst of a full-blown epidemic. That year alone, more than 33,000 Americans fell victim — half of them under the age of ten.

2009 • Health

Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery

Cullen Hoback investigates the origins of Bitcoin and its anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, exploring the potential of this cryptocurrency on the global financial system and who could hold immense power if it became mainstream.

2024 • Economics

Can We Outsmart Disease?

Can technology help eradicate infectious diseases? Bill meets with Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health experts to examine the latest breakthroughs.

S1E5What's Next: The Future with Bill Gates • 2024 • Technology

Can you be too rich?

The income gap is a growing concern with far-reaching implications. Bill explores ways to address inequality with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Mitt Romney.

S1E4What's Next: The Future with Bill Gates • 2024 • Technology

Can we stop global warming?

Gates tackles the efficacy of fighting climate change, weighing the cost-benefit analysis that future generations will inevitably have to confront.

S1E3What's Next: The Future with Bill Gates • 2024 • Technology

Recommended Documentaries

Fountain of Youth

Youth may be wasted on the young, but luckily, you can buy it back. People are using everything from face-lifts to second skin tech to keep their youthful advantage. However, with so many unproven therapies on the market, how many actually work?

S1E2A User's Guide to Cheating Death • 2017 • Health

MP3s

MP3s transformed how we listen to music - and spawned digital piracy. Streaming helped the industry recover, but how can artists get their fair share?

S2E2History 101 • 2022 • Technology

Elemental

The elements that constitute every living being were formed within the very first stars. Today, a green sea turtle searches the ocean for them.

S1E4Our Universe • 2022 • Nature

Bucovina

Famed for its painted churches, this is a region that's replete with ancient monuments.

S1E9Flavours of Romania • 2018 • Travel

Part 2

In the second of this three-part series, Jacques reveals how fear remains one of the most powerful drivers of our spending. Visiting a neuroscience lab, Jacques hears from a consumer psychologist about how our brains are much more responsive to negative than to positive stimuli. He also meets some experts who have turned this knowledge into an art form, helping manufacturers make billions from our anxieties and insecurities. At the remote chateau of French anthropologist Clotaire Rapaille, Jacques learns how our sense of fear drives us in ways many of us do not understand - and how Rapaille's insights have helped companies sell us everything from SUVs to cigarettes. At the Beverley Hills pad of multimillionaire marketer Rohan Oza, he hears how Oza's connections to celebrities helped propel VitaminWater into the soft drink stratosphere, despite the fact that the product's health claims have been called into question. Jacques also confronts the men who say they are combating our most deep-seated fear - of age and decline. In Las Vegas, he mingles with the doctors and businessmen attending a global conference aimed at selling us ways to stay young and healthy, challenging them to justify their claims for the anti-aging business that has made them rich.

S1E2The Men Who Made Us Spend • 2014 • Economics

Professor Richard Dawkins

Dawkins discusses his book, the Selfish Gene, which divided the scientific community and made him the most influential evolutionary biologist of his time. Professor Richard Dawkins is one of the most well-known and controversial scientists in Britain. A passionate atheist he believes science rather than religion offers us the best way to appreciate the wonders of the Universe we live in. In the last 10 years he has become notorious for his outspoken views on religion, but at the heart of his success is his explosive first book -- The Selfish Gene -- which put forward a radical rewriting of evolutionary theory and divided the scientific community. Much of the controversy comes from its provocative title.

S2E3Beautiful Minds • 2012 • People

Design Documentaries

Norway

Piers and Caroline travel to Norway to see a charming family cottage, a summer house built around a rock, a daring concrete home and a rugged retreat.

S2E7The World's Most Extraordinary Homes • 2019 • Design

Tattoos

Jeff Goldblum learns everything there is to know about tattoos. He gets behind the needle and tests out his artistic skills.

S1E3The World According to Jeff Goldblum • 2020 • Design

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

Ralph Gilles: Automotive Design

As Fiat Chrysler’s global head of design, Ralph Gilles steers the brand into the future with sleek new sports cars and a self-driving electric van.

S1E5Abstract: The Art of Design • 2017 • Design

Rams: Principles of Good Design

For over fifty years, Dieter Rams has left an indelible mark on the field of product design with his iconic work at Braun and Vitsoe, and his influence on Apple. So, at 87 years old, why does he now regret being a designer? Rams is a design documentary, but it is also a rumination on consumerism, sustainability and the future of design. Dieter's philosophy is about more than just design. It is about a way to live. The film also features an original score by pioneering musician Brian Eno.

2019 • Design

Canaletto and the Art of Venice

We start with an immersive journey into the life and art of Venice's famous view-painter Canaletto. The film also offers the chance to step inside two official royal residences - Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle - to learn more about the artist and Joseph Smith, the man who introduced Canaletto to Britain. The programme visits some of the sites immortalised in Canaletto's views, from the Rialto Bridge to the Piazza San Marco, and the Palazzo Ducale to the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Featuring contributions from Royal Collection curators and the world's leading experts in Venetian history.

S1E1Great Art • 2018 • Design

Nature Documentaries

Spring

This special, narrated by Andrew Scott, celebrates spring on planet Earth, and the extraordinary tricks that animals and plants find to rise to the new challenges it brings. This magical season brings a burst of new life - but as soon as the air starts to warm, it's a race to wake up and get ahead of everyone else. For many, it's the perfect time to find a mate and raise babies - but for everything, from adventurous grizzly bear cubs and amorous dancing grebes, to flowers in the desert and swifts that fly marathons, spring is about rushing to make the most of the opportunities this busy season brings.

S1E4Earth's Seasonal Secrets • 2016 • Nature

Tropical Worlds

More kinds of plants are crammed together in the tropical rainforests than anywhere else on Earth. The result is astonishing beauty and intense competition - a plant battleground. New filming techniques allow us to enter the plants’ world and see it from their perspective and on their timescale. From fast-growing trees to flowers that mimic dead animals, this is a journey into a magical world that operates on a different timescale to our own.

S1E1The Green Planet • 2022 • Nature

Land of Rivers

In the final episode of "Hidden India, the Ganges is central. This mighty river flows through the heart of the nation, from deep in the Himalayas to the widespread delta mangrove forests and behind the wide blue ocean. She carries valuable nutrients, and irrigates the fertile soil of Asia. Moreover, there is in the wilder parts - far beyond the cities - to discover many hidden nature. Hidden beaches are a haven for tens of thousands of young turtles in mysterious swamps houses playful mudskippers and otter families enjoy themselves in the flowing water.

Part 3Hidden India • 2008 • Nature

Puma

A mother puma must battle rivals, tackle prey nearly three times her size and endure the wild mountain weather of Patagonia in her bid to raise four cubs.

S2E1Dynasties • 2022 • Nature

Human Influence

When did we start riding horses? When did dogs become man's best friend? Answering questions like these help us understand our impact on other species' evolutionary journeys - a crucial step toward ensuring our survival doesn't necessarily come at the expense of their own.

S1E2Mysteries of Evolution • 2017 • Nature

Nowhere to Hide (Plains)

A look at predator and prey strategies in the open arenas of desert and grassland.

S1E5The Hunt • 2015 • Nature

Random! Documentaries

Tons

'Los Muchachos' lawyer is murdered by Columbian hitmen. The FEDs find the ledgers that outline how all their money is moving. Now the heat is on when Willy & Sal get 'popped' for 75 tons of cocaine. The two major criminals are considered untouchable and have repeatedly eluded justice for years: Falcon has been arrested twice and charged at least three times with drug and firearms offenses - but he has never been in prison for more than a week. As the authorities close in, the "Cowboys" are left with three options: flee, flip or face the music. But Willy and Sal won't go down so easily.

S1E2Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami • 2021 • People

Can We Save the Reef?

Off Australia's northeast coast lies a wonder of the world, a living structure so big it can be seen from space, more intricate and complex than any city, and so diverse it hosts a third of all fish species in Australia. The Great Barrier Reef as we know it -- 8,000 years old and home to thousands of marine species -- is dying in our lifetime.

S1E4Catalyst: Series 18 • 2017 • Environment

Superhuman

Takes us into the world of digestion and its amazingly complex environment.Our health, body shape, mood and even our evolution are determined by the unseen life forms that swarm throughout our bodies. There are worms in your bowels, bacteria in your mouth, fungi in your lungs and even viruses in your DNA.The combined genetic information of all these bugs is more than 150 times greater than our own genes. Their cells outnumber our own by 10 to 1. This collective menagerie is called the microbiome, and in a very real sense, it is the making of us all.

S1E2Life on Us • 2014 • Nature

River of Kings

During the rainy season, the Blue Nile tributary is more powerful than the main river. Follow it from the Ethiopian highlands to the delta.

S1E3Wild Nile • 2014 • Nature

Invasion of the Land

The first episode tells how invertebrates became the first creatures of any kind to colonise dry land. Their forerunners were shelled and segmented sea creatures that existed 400 million years ago. Some of them ventured out of the water to lay their eggs in safety, and Attenborough compares those first steps with today's mass spawning of horseshoe crabs off the Atlantic coast of North America.

Part 1Life in the Undergrowth • 2005 • Nature

Augmented

Follow the dramatic personal journey of Hugh Herr, a biophysicist working to create brain-controlled robotic limbs. At age 17, Herr’s legs were amputated after a climbing accident. Frustrated by the crude prosthetic limbs he was given, Herr set out to remedy their design, leading him to a career as an inventor of innovative prosthetic devices.

NOVA PBS • 2022 • Brain