Latest Documentaries

more Latest documentaries
Edge of Existence

This is a story about the greatest risks to humanity, and what we can do about it. We are living in a time when human-made risks pose the biggest threat to our existence. Technological progress has brought us to a precipice. For the first time ever, we have the capacity to destroy ourselves. Edge of Existence lays out how we can pull ourselves back from this precipice in order achieve a vast and extraordinary future.

2022 • Environment

We Are Not Dead Yet

Russia invades Georgia and Ukraine, putting Putin under intense scrutiny. While disinformation thrives, threats of nuclear war persist.

S1E9Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

Moscow Will Not Be Silent

Russia struggles to find a national identity as Vladimir Putin comes to power. With the Cold War in the rearview, a war on terror begins.

S1E8Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

The End of History

A new Russian leader emerges, and the republics seek independence. As the Soviet Union dissolves, several powers sign a landmark treaty on nuclear arms.

S1E7Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

Empire Is Untenable

The USSR's grasp on Eastern Europe weakens as the Berlin Wall comes down and the Communist Party mounts a coup against a prominent Soviet Union leader.

S1E6Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

War Games

With both sides planning for the worst-case scenario, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev find common ground. Tragedy strikes after a nuclear disaster.

S1E5Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

The Wall

The US and Soviet Union get caught in a nuclear arms race. A wall divides Berlin. John F. Kennedy looks for a peaceful solution after a crisis in Cuba.

S1E4Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

Institutional Insanity

Preparing for war against the Soviet Union, the US starts to test thermonuclear weapons. The CIA forms and interferes with global politics.

S1E3Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

Poisoning the Soil

As communism takes off in Russia and China, Joseph Stalin begins his ruthless reign and the Soviet Union enters an era of terror.

S1E2Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

The Sun Came Up Tremendous

During World War Il, the US begins to work on a top-secret project that results in the atomic bombings on Japan - and a global conflict lasting decades.

S1E1Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History

20 Days in Mariupol

An AP team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters who remain in the city as Russian forces close in, they capture what become some of the most defining images of the war: dying children, mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital, and more.

2023 • History

Eating You Alive

How and why what we eat is the cause of the chronic diseases that are killing us, and changing what we eat can save our lives one bite at a time.

2018 • Health

Recommended Documentaries

more Recommended documentaries
Why you shouldn't trust successful people's advice

10 Ways to be successful... that's bullshit :)

2016 • Lifehack

Fermentation Preservation & Exploration

Just as humans have always sought food to survive, we have also sought the means to preserve that food. Right from the very moment of a kill or a harvest, food begins to break down. With preservation, we can plan for times of scarcity during times of plenty.

S1E3The History of Food • 2018 • Health

Part 3

Jacques reveals how the lessons learned from selling to children were used to make childlike consumers of us all. From the rise of product-driven kids’ TV in the 80s, to the man who designed cars that appealed to children, and the contemporary creators of games that hook adults, Jacques asks how spending turned into a game – one that we can’t stop playing.

S1E3The Men Who Made Us Spend • 2014 • Economics

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

Air

From artificial photosynthesis to vegan diets, changes in science and behavior are helping improve Earth's air quality.

S1E2Age of Humans • 2021 • Environment

Seeing in Colour

Using the latest camera technology, David Attenborough reveals the extraordinary ways in which animals use colour: to win a mate, to fight off rivals and to warn enemies.

S1E1Attenborough's Life in Colour • 2021 • Nature

Health Documentaries

more Health documentaries
Superfoods - Fact or Fiction?

With more research being done into the link between what we eat and how we feel, the health-food industry is booming, and so-called superfoods are leading the way. Many people admit to buying such products because they believe they make them feel significantly better - but is this true? Jonathan Maitland investigates whether superfood claims are fact or fiction

S1E2The Food We Eat • 2014 • Health

What is leukemia?

Stem cells found in the bone marrow are crucial for our health because they are needed to become new blood cells that sustain and protect our bodies. But when the transformation goes wrong, harmful mutations can cause the cells to start replicating without control -- a type of cancer known as leukemia. Danilo Allegra and Dania Puggioni explain how this happens and how certain treatments provide hope for those suffering from the disease.

TED-EdHealth

Coronavirus: Combating the Outbreak

Officially designated as a pandemic, it seems as if COVID-19 has taken over the world. Lucky for us, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with a serious virus outbreak. Experts share the methods currently in place to slow down this infectious disease.

Breakthrough • 2020 • Health

Cradle to Grave

An ambitious account of the story of human physiology in a feature-length dramatised documentary. Harnessing the magic of the most modern visual effects, we tell the story of the human body—inside and out—as it lives, grows, and dies on this predestined journey we call life. This unique National Geographic docudrama traces the life of a man, Adam, from the Cradle to the Grave, explaining the science behind our highs and lows, the rites of passage we all go through and exploring the inner workings of our bodies and how they change through time. The 90-year-old narrator, Adam, reflects on his life from conception through boyhood, adolescence and beyond, revealing the events that shape him. Along the way we meet the class bully, Adam's first love and the sergeant major preparing him and fellow recruits for Vietnam. With the aid of stunning computer-generated visuals, we go under the skin to reveal how Adam's body responds to major life events, and his story is told in dramatic scenes from the 1950s to the present day.

2016 • Health

React

Through the lens of a boxer, a first responder, a cell tower climber and a man with a bionic limb, go deep into the universe of the most powerful machine on earth: the human brain and the vast nervous system it controls.

S1E6Human: The World Within • 2021 • Health

Why Did I Go Mad?

For hundreds of years, psychiatry has treated voices and hallucinations as an enemy - regarding them as 'insanity' or 'madness' and seeing them as something to be quashed and even frightened of. But today, new scientific and psychological insights into how the brain works are leading to a radical rethink on what such experiences are - and how they should be treated. Horizon follows three people living with voices, hallucinations and paranoia, to explore what causes this kind of phenomena. Providing a rare first-hand insight into these experiences, they reveal just what it is like to live with them day to day. They examine the impact of social, biological and environmental influences on conditions traditionally associated with insanity, such as schizophrenia and psychosis, and within the film they look at how new ways of understanding the brain are leading to a dramatic change in treatments and approaches, and examine whether targeting the root causes of psychosis can lead to recovery. Above all, they try to uncover why it happened to them - and whether it could happen to you.

Horizon • 2017 • Health

Brain Documentaries

more Brain documentaries
Born Genius

Marc Yu is only seven years old but at the age of three he could play Beethoven on the piano. Could he have been born with a brilliant brain making him a true child genius?

S1E3My Brilliant Brain • 2007 • Brain

The Myth of Responsibility

Are we wholly responsible for our actions? We don’t choose our brains, our genetic inheritance, our circumstances, our milieu – so how much control do we really have over our lives? Philosopher Raoul Martinez argues that no one is truly blameworthy. Our most visionary scientists, psychologists and philosophers have agreed that we have far less free will than we think, and yet most of society’s systems are structured around the opposite principle – that we are all on a level playing field, and we all get what we deserve.

RSA Shorts • 2017 • Brain

The Greater Good

Would you reroute a train to run over one person to prevent it from running over five others? In the classic “Trolley Problem” survey, most people say they would. But I wanted to test what people would actually do in a real-life situation. In the world’s first realistic simulation of this controversial moral dilemma, unsuspecting subjects will be forced to make what they believe is a life-or-death decision.

S2E1Mind Field • 2017 • Brain

Perspective Games

Professor Shapiro reaches back into history to show that artists, architects and mathematicians have also employed visual “tricks” to baffle and entertain us by manipulating perspective and challenging our ideas of what is real and what is fake.

S1E8Illusions • 2017 • Brain

How to Talk to Aliens

Are we alone in the universe? Even if we could contact aliens, what would we say? How would we say it? And, most importantly, should we even be trying to make contact at all? This episode takes me on a journey to compose and send my own personal message into outer space.

S3E6Mind Field • 2019 • Brain

The Psychedelic Experience

Do psychedelic drugs really bring about self-healing and personal enlightenment? New research says they may. In this episode, I travel to the Amazonian jungle of Peru to experience the mind-expanding effects of the psychedelic brew Ayahuasca.

S2E2Mind Field • 2017 • Brain

Randoms! Documentaries

more Randoms! documentaries
Part 2

Will Millard returns to Korowai to spend more time with two old men in the forest.

S1E2My Year With the Tribe • 2018 • People

Island Feast

Despite the scorching heat, a cold upwelling of nutrients in the Gulf of Oman creates favorable conditions for a host of marine migrants. The behemoth whale shark, hawksbill turtle, and millions of tiny, exotic fish settle in to feast. Take a plunge into the algae-cloaked coral reefs of this underwater tapestry.

S1E3Arabian Seas • 2018 • Nature

Secrets in our DNA

Some 30 million Americans have sent their DNA to be analyzed by companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA. But what happens once the sample is in the hands of testing companies, and how accurate are their results? NOVA explores the power of genetic data to reveal family connections, ancestry, and health risks—and even solve criminal cold cases.

NOVA PBS • 2021 • Science

Survival of the Fabulous

Are gay men actually born gay? If so, what causes this and how could homosexuality have survived the evolutionary process? Ever since openly gay filmmaker Bryce Sage came out of the closet, he has struggled to answer these fundamental questions. Bryce sets out on a cross-country and around the world journey to ferret out the answers. Along the way, he confronts his own homosexuality and family history, exploring the nature vs. nurture side of the issue. He’ll bombard his brainwaves with gay and straight erotica to determine just how fundamentally gay his brain really is and he’ll talk to animal biologists about their studies of homosexuality in other species. There is documented evidence of homosexuality in over two hundred. Bryce becomes an amateur detective, trying to crack the code of his genes. He discovers that in Samoa every family has a male member who is either gay or is encouraged to become more feminine to support familial needs.

S53E08The Nature of Things • 2013 • People

Light Falls: Space, Time, and an Obsession of Einstein

Take a theatrical journey with physicist Brian Greene to uncover how Albert Einstein developed his theory of relativity. In this vivid play, science is illuminated on stage and screen through innovative projections and an original score.

2019 • Physics

Part 1

Adolf Hitler is infamous today as a war criminal - arguably one of the worst war criminals in history. Yet during the 1930s he was loved by millions of Germans. How was this possible? In this fascinating series, award-winning historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees examines the background to Hitler's 'charismatic' rule.

S1E1The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler • 2012 • People