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
Russia invades Georgia and Ukraine, putting Putin under intense scrutiny. While disinformation thrives, threats of nuclear war persist.
S1E9 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
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.
S1E8 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • 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.
S1E7 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
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.
S1E6 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
With both sides planning for the worst-case scenario, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev find common ground. Tragedy strikes after a nuclear disaster.
S1E5 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
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.
S1E4 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
Preparing for war against the Soviet Union, the US starts to test thermonuclear weapons. The CIA forms and interferes with global politics.
S1E3 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
As communism takes off in Russia and China, Joseph Stalin begins his ruthless reign and the Soviet Union enters an era of terror.
S1E2 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
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.
S1E1 • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War • 2024 • History
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
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
The next programme explores the various sea-living invertebrates. In Morocco, the limestones are 600 million years old, and contain many invertebrate fossils. They fall broadly into three categories: shells, crinoids and segmented shells. The evolution of shelled creatures is demonstrated with the flatworm, which eventually changed its body shape when burrowing became a necessity for either food or safety. It then evolved shielded tentacles and the casings eventually enveloped the entire body: these creatures are the brachiopods. The most successful shelled animals are the molluscs, of which there are some 80,000 different species.
2/13 • Life on Earth • 1979 • Nature
For decades, scientists have dreamed of finding life on Mars. But despite their best efforts, no signs of life have been found. Could that be about to change? This is the story of the scientists and engineers behind Perseverance: the rover that could change our view of Mars forever.
In France, perfidy and treason plunge the French Kingdom into chaos. Behind new king Charles IX, Catherine de Medici rules in the background as master of the throne. However, she is unable to prevent a civil war.
S2E3 • The Real War of Thrones: The True History of Europe • 2018 • History
Since it explored Pluto in 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft has been zooming toward NASA's most distant target yet. Join the mission team as the probe attempts to fly by Ultima Thule, an object 4 billion miles from Earth.
The traditional narrative is that humans are selfish. If pushed, the story goes, we look after ourselves first and others later. In this episode, we see how modern neuroscience has blown that myth apart.
S1E2 • The Curious Mind • 2020 • Brain
Remote islands offer sanctuary for some of the planet's strangest and rarest creatures. The rare pygmy three-toed sloth enjoys a peaceful existence on an idyllic Caribbean island, while nesting albatross thrive in predator-free isolation. But island life always comes at a cost. On the Galapagos Islands, young marine iguana must escape an onslaught of deadly racer snakes the moment they hatch from the sand. On the sub-Antarctic island of Zavodovski, life gets more extreme still. Every day, one and a half million penguins risk being battered against the rocks by fierce waves as they try to get on and off the island.
S1E1 • Planet Earth II • 2016 • Nature
In standard notation, rhythm is indicated on a musical bar line. But there are other ways to visualize rhythm that can be more intuitive. John Varney describes the ‘wheel method’ of tracing rhythm and uses it to take us on a musical journey around the world.
Asif Kapadia's poignant and critically acclaimed documentary portrait of singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, the English soul, jazz and R 'n' B phenomenon who died tragically before her time. Kapadia traces her volatile life and artistic success over the 13 years preceding her death from alcohol poisoning on 23rd July 2011, aged just 27. The documentary tells Amy's story via her music and autobiographical song lyrics, video footage shot by her friends and family, archive clips from TV appearances, plus voiceover interviews with people who were personally and professionally close to her. But, as the film progresses, the hope and promise of her early career is steadily undermined by the self-destructive chaos of alcohol and drug addiction and the pressures of a life lived under the intense focus of global media attention.
2016 • Music
Ian Hislop and John Eliot Gardiner reveal the story behind Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Described as the 'greatest 'great' piece ever written,' its opening notes are among the most recognisable in history. But no one really knows what Beethoven was trying to express with this piece. The traditional wisdom is that he is railing against fate and his deafness. But John Eliot believes the music expresses Beethoven's belief in the French Revolution. This is turbulent music from a turbulent man living in a turbulent age. John Eliot and Ian Hislop bring to life the exciting and dangerous times that shaped Beethoven personally and creatively.
2016 • Music
Bob Marley's musical (and cultural) shadow is so large that the man clearly needed an authoritative documentary portrait--and Marley steps in with all the right stuff to fill the role. Working with official rights to the music and access to Marley's family and friends, Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September) creates a thorough account that hits the major points, not stinting on some of the less admirable aspects of Marley's life (including his brood of children fathered with women other than his patient wife, Rita, whose presence indicates just how much she puts Marley's legacy above his personal infidelities). Especially interesting is the sketch of Bob Marley's youth, as a mixed-race--and thus socially ostracized--kid from the village of Nine Mile who began to put together a reggae sound with a group of like-minded musicians in Jamaica in the late '50s and early '60s. That period comes to life, and the account of Marley's ascent, while familiar from such sagas, has its share of offbeat incidents. His death, at age 36 in 1981, does not dominate the movie, but Macdonald does a good job of getting that story laid out. In the meantime, the music and the concert footage are more than enough to justify the movie's existence, and Macdonald makes time to include thoughts about politics, ganja smoking, and Rastafarianism, too. If it's not the final word on Marley, it's an excellent start.
2012 • Music
Tracing the story of Ella Fitzgerald's life, this documentary film explores how her music became a soundtrack for a tumultuous century. From a 1934 talent contest at the Apollo theatre in Harlem, the film follows Ella's extraordinary journey across five decades as she reflects the passions and troubles of the times in her music and her life. Moving beyond conventional biopic, the film uses images and music to evoke the feel of those times, bringing to life the context of Ella's unique career, featuring interviews from Smokey Robinson, Jamie Cullum, Tony Bennett, Norma Miller and Laura Mvula.
2020 • Music
A journey into the BBC archives unearthing glorious performances and candid interviews from the golden age of jazz. Featuring some of the greatest names in American music, including the godfather of New Orleans jazz Louis Armstrong, the King of Swing Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald. Broadcasted as part of the Old Masters, Rising Stars: Jazz On BBC Four season, this film unlocks the BBC archives to explore the words and music of some of the greatest names in jazz. The BBC soon moved on from Lord Reith's proclamation, made in the 1930s, that jazz was "a filthy product of modernity", and invited some of the legends from the golden age of American jazz to perform and talk on British television. This film is a series of revealing portraits, from Louis Armstrong, jazz's first great soloist and global ambassador, to Duke Ellington, the ever-suave bandleader and composer who brought a new sophistication and ambition to the music. Count Basie is sheer swing, Dizzy Gillespie provoked a musical revolution with bebop, and Ella Fitzgerald is just incomparable. Through long-forgotten archive and specially shot interviews, Jazz Legends In Their Own Words tells the story of an art form that has been called "America's gift to the world".
2014 • Music
Diseases that were largely eradicated in the United States a generation ago—whooping cough, measles, mumps—are returning, in part because nervous parents are skipping their children’s shots. NOVA's "Vaccines—Calling the Shots" takes viewers around the world to track epidemics, explore the science behind vaccinations, hear from parents wrestling with vaccine-related questions, and shed light on the risks of opting out.
As winter sets in, US Rangers must capture Hill 400, a strategic peak on the German border.
S1E3 • Hitler's Last Stand • 2018 • Health
Thousands of chemicals are used in everyday products – in our water, our food and in the air we breathe. It’s the chemical soup of modern life and it’s virtually impossible to escape them. Is there adequate regulation and testing, or are we in the midst of an uncontrolled, human experiment?
2/10 • Catalyst: Season 1 • 2015 • Health
Everybody is talking about Measles – but what does the virus actually do in the body? Is it really so harmful that you need a vaccination? We go deep into the body of an infected person and see what Measles does and how the immune system reacts to it!
In a Nutshell • 2015 • Health
Biology is undergoing a revolution that is radically changing our conception of evolution. Our genes don’t control everything: they can be influenced by fascinating mechanisms recently brought to light by international research teams.
2016 • Health
In December 2019 the Chinese authorities notified the world that a virus was spreading through their communities. In the following months it spread to other countries, with cases doubling within days. This virus is the “Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2”, that causes the disease called COVID19, and that everyone simply calls Coronavirus.
In a Nutshell • 2020 • Health
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
Much of Australia consists of vast tracts of uninhabited land, a perfect hunting ground for the country's imperious birds of prey. From the brown falcons that feed on the country's deadliest snakes, to eagles that have been known to start fires on purpose so they can hunt fleeing animals, soar above the diverse habitats of this island continent in the company of its most accomplished aerial predators.
S1E3 • Wild Birds of Australia • 2018 • Nature
Becoming a central figure in Parisian life in the 1920's when in his early 30's, Le Corbusier was a writer, essayist, editor, painter, lecturer, but more than anything else, an architect of the Modern Era. His influence on architecture and design is incalculable.
3 • Behind the Artist • 2016 • Creativity
1917. People have had enough of the war. Behind the scenes, uprisings are brewing, like the one that toppled the Tsar in Russia; on the front soldiers begin to mutiny as they did at Chemin des Dames in France. German submarine attacks in the Atlantic will finally pull the Americans into the war, but they arrive too late to help prevent the carnage of the Battle of Passchendaele.
S1E4 • Apocalypse: World War 1 • 2014 • History
Cameras follow a family of gorillas, with Spy Grub and Spy Fruit testing their intelligence. Elsewhere in Brazil, Spy Jaguar Cub explores a beautiful gathering of water birds, capybara and caiman, and joins Spy Caiman to film a feeding frenzy.
S2E1 • Spy in the Wild • 2020 • Nature
In May 2016, BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes was expelled from North Korea for showing disrespect and 'distorting facts'. He now tells the full story of his visit to the country and explores what his detention and interrogation by senior Korean officials say about this secretive state. He investigates the apparent upturn in the North Korean economy and asks if the signs of improvement in the capital Pyongyang are real. He also examines whether the people there are genuinely loyal to their young leader or whether Kim Jong Un is ruling by reign of terror.
2016 • People