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 Earth, the sun, the stars, and everything we can see, only comprise five percent of the universe. But what about the other 95 percent? Scientists are puzzling over dark matter and dark energy, the mysterious components that make up the rest.
The Economist • 2015 • Astronomy
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.
S1E1 • Who Am I (Royal Institution Christmas Lectures) • 2018 • Nature
Astronaut Mike Massimino explores the mysterious oceans of the solar system, where the latest discoveries provide new clues in the search for alien life.
S2E15 • The Planets (US) • 2017 • Astronomy
Horizon goes behind the scenes at Nasa to discover how it is preparing for its most ambitious and daring mission: to land men - and possibly women - on the surface of Mars.
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
Our journey begins with David at the North Pole, as the sun returns after six months of darkness. We follow a pair of courting polar bears, which reveal a surprisingly tender side. Next stop is the giant Greenland ice cap, where waterfalls plunge into the heart of the ice and a colossal iceberg carves into the sea. Humpback whales join the largest gathering of seabirds on earth to feast in rich Alaskan waters. Further south, the tree line marks the start of the Taiga forest, containing one third of all trees on earth. Here, 25 of the world's largest wolves take on formidable bison prey. At the other end of our planet, the Antarctic begins in the Southern Ocean where surfing penguins struggle to escape a hungry sea-lion and teams of orcas create giant waves to wash seals from ice floes -a filming first. Diving below the ice, we discover prehistoric giants, including terrifying sea spiders and woodlice the size of dinner plates. Above ground, crystal caverns ring the summit of Erebus, the most southerly volcano on earth. From here we retrace the routes of early explorers across the formidable Antarctic ice-cap - the largest expanse of ice on our planet. Finally, we rejoin David at the South Pole, exactly one hundred years after Amundsen then Scott were the first humans to stand there
S1E1 • Frozen Planet • 2011 • Nature
Why should you care about the well-being of people half a globe away?
In a Nutshell • 2018 • Economics
Jamie Bartlett uncovers the dark reality behind Silicon Valley's glittering promise to build a better world. The tech gods believe progress is powered by technology tearing up the world as it is - a process they call disruption. He visits Uber's lavish offices in San Francisco and hears how the company believes it is improving our cities. But in Hyderabad in India, Jamie sees for himself the human consequences of Uber's utopian vision - drivers driven to suicide over falling earnings. Riding shotgun in a truck as it drives itself for more than a hundred miles on a highway, Jamie asks what the next wave of Silicon Valley's global disruption - the automation of millions of jobs - will mean for all of us. In search of answers, he gets a warning from an artificial intelligence pioneer who is replacing doctors with software - an economic shock is coming, faster than any of us have realized. Jamie's journey ends in the remote island hideout of a former Facebook executive who has armed himself with a gun because he fears this new industrial revolution could lead to social breakdown and the collapse of capitalism.
S1E1 • Secrets of Silicon Valley • 2017 • Economics
Part two explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses. Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires.
S1E2 • The Century of the Self • Economics
Watch part two of The Power of Big Oil, a three-episode FRONTLINE docuseries investigating the fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. This part chronicles how, as scientific evidence of human-caused climate change mounted in the 2000s, the industry continued to question the science, and went to new lengths to shape American politics and stall climate policy.
S1E2 • The Power of Big Oil • 2022 • Economics
Controversies, scandals and shocks in TV, film, music and politics, when a royal reunion proved divisive, Uri Geller demonstrated his fork-bending talents, and Cosmopolitan magazine was launched. A Clockwork Orange and Last Tango in Paris shocked cinema audiences, while did Jesus Christ Superstar did the same on stage.
S1E1 • Controversially: That Was the Year that Was • 2023 • Economics
Jeff sets out to investigate the multi-million billion dollar industry of sneakers. His journey includes the basketball court, the boardroom, the country's sneaker convention - Sneaker Con - and Adidas' high tech labs.
S1E1 • The World According to Jeff Goldblum • 2020 • Economics
The treasure map uncovers a mysterious pyramid complex that reveals clues of violent sacrifices; newly discovered cave systems reveal gruesome evidence of ancient Mayan rituals; Albert Lin dives deep beneath the surface of the Mayan spirit underworld.
S1E2 • Lost Treasures of the Maya • 2019 • History
Ottoman cannons reduce the city walls to rubble, and Venetian reinforcements arrive too late. Mehmed ushers in a new era for the Ottoman Empire.
S1E6 • Rise of Empires: Ottoman • 2020 • History
Alastair Sooke follows in the footsteps of Rome's mad, bad and dangerous emperors in the second part of his celebration of Roman art. He dons a wetsuit to explore the underwater remains of the Emperor Claudius's pleasure palace and ventures into the cave where Tiberius held wild parties. He finds their taste in art chimes perfectly with their obsession with sex and violence. The other side of the coin was the bombastic art the Romans are best remembered for - monumental arches and columns that boast about their conquests. Trajan's Column in Rome reads like the storyboard of a modern-day propaganda film. Sooke concludes with the remarkable legacy of the Emperor Hadrian. He gave the world the magnificent Pantheon in Rome - the eternal image of his lover Antinous, the most beautiful boy in the history of art - and a villa in Tivoli where he created one of the most ambitious art collections ever created.
S1E2 • Treasures of Ancient Rome • 2012 • History
The Soviet submarine K-129 disappears in 1968 and the U.S. Navy finds it sunk at the bottom of the Pacific. The CIA is launching an operation called Project Azorian to lift a sunken submarine out of the sea but hide the events from the world. In 1975, when information about the operation was leaked and reported, the Soviet Union was furious.
Part 2 • The Real Hunt for Red October • 2020 • History
Continuing his fascinating journey to rediscover the central role played by the Ottoman empire in Europe and the Middle East, Rageh Omaar explores the huge contrasts in the times of two very different Ottoman sultans. The most famous Suleiman the Magnificent in the golden age of the 16th century and the troubled reign of Abdul Hamid II in the 19th century when the Ottomans were dubbed 'the Sick Man of Europe'. Rageh examines the cultural legacy as well as the physical, religious and political architecture of Ottoman rule to find out what a Muslim world run from Europe was really like. It reveals the backdrop to the relationship between Islam and Europe today, how the Ottomans became central in the power politics of Europe and what could have happened had they succeeded in their successive bids to seize Vienna, then a key European capital.
S1E2 • The Ottomans: Europe's Muslim Emperors • 2013 • History
In this first episode we follow the Ottomans rise from obscure beginnings as a nomadic tribe in Anatolia to their game changing conquest of the famed Byzantine capitol of Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople. Julian’s journey begins in Bursa, the Ottomans first capitol city and one of Turkey’s historical gems, where he explores the wealth of early Ottoman architecture and examines the legends, cultural traditions and unique circumstances that helped give birth to an empire.
S1E1 • Ottomans Versus Christians: Battle for Europe • 2016 • History
A pioneering team of zoologists and botanists, in search of new creatures and plants, gets rare access to Brazil's highest and most isolated mountain, the Pico da Neblina.
2018 • Nature
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
Raising children is no easier in the air as it is on the ground, as bird parents care for, defend, and even kill their young.
S1E9 • The Life of Birds • 1998 • Nature
We each spend three years of our lives on the toilet, but how happy are we talking about this essential part of our lives? This film challenges that mindset by uncovering its role in our culture and exploring the social history of the toilet in Britain and abroad - as well as exploring many of our cultural toilet taboos. Starting in Merida, Spain with some of the the earliest surviving Roman toilets, we journey around the world - from the UK to China, Japan and Bangladesh - visiting toilets, ranging from the historically significant to the beautiful, from the functional and sometimes not-so-functional to the downright bizarre. Leading the journey is Everyman figure, Welsh poet and presenter Ifor ap Glyn, who has a passionate interest in the toilet, its history and how it has evolved over the centuries, right up to the development of the current design. Finally, there's a glimpse of the future and a possible solution to the global sanitation issues we now face.
2012 • Design
If you could decide today... how long do you want to live?
In a Nutshell • 2017 • Health
The latest developments in space technology continue to reveal the wonders of our solar system. With new moons recently spotted orbiting Saturn, the gas giant has taken the lead in our The Gas Giant has taken the lead in our cosmic neighbourhoods Moon Count
S4E7 • Breakthrough • 2021 • Astronomy