The BEST episodes of BBC Documentaries
Every episode of BBC Documentaries ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of BBC Documentaries!
Documentaries produced by or for the BBC.
#1 - Bitter Lake
Season 2015 - Episode 28 - Aired 1/25/2015
Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events. But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis - leaving us bewildered and disorientated. Bitter Lake is a new, adventurous and epic film by Adam Curtis that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer. The narrative goes all over the world, America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia - but the country at the heart of it is Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan is the place that has confronted our politicians with the terrible truth - that they cannot understand what is going on any longer. The film reveals the forces that over the past thirty years rose up and undermined the confidence of politics to understand the world. And it shows the strange, dark role that Saudi Arabia has played in this. But Bitter Lake is also experimental. Curtis has taken the unedited rushes of everything that the BBC has ever shot in Afghanistan - and used them in new and radical ways. He has tried to build a different and more emotional way of depicting what really happened in Afghanistan. A counterpoint to the thin, narrow and increasingly destructive stories told by those in power today.
#2 - Gorillas Revisited with David Attenborough
Season 2006 - Episode 27 - Aired 4/16/2006
David Attenborough recounts his very personal experiences with the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. Ever since they were discovered over a century ago, these remarkable creatures have been threatened by loss of habitat, poaching, disease and political instability. But despite all odds their numbers have increased. David tells the extraordinary tale of how conservationists like Dian Fossey have battled to save the mountain gorilla from the brink of extinction.
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#3 - Russell Brand: From Addiction to Recovery
Season 2012 - Episode 161 - Aired 8/16/2012
The story of how Russell Brand battled to stay clean of drugs is at the heart of this honest, personal film in which he challenges how our society deals with addicts and addiction.
#4 - The Secret Life of Rockpools
Season 2013 - Episode 72 - Aired 4/16/2013
Paleontologist Professor Richard Fortey embarks on a quest to discover the extraordinary lives of rock pool creatures. To help explore this unusual environment he is joined by some of the UK's leading marine biologists in a dedicated laboratory at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. Here and on the beach in various locations around the UK, startling behaviour is revealed and new insights are given into how these animals cope with intertidal life. Many popular rock pool species have survived hundreds of millions of years of Earth's history, but humans may be their biggest challenge yet.
#5 - James Ravilious: A World in Photographs
Season 2007 - Episode 82 - Aired 11/15/2007
Alan Bennett narrates a documentary about James Ravilious, one of the great unknowns of British photography. Son of the renowned water-colourist and engraver Eric Ravilious, he dedicated his art to a small area of north Devon, where over a period of two decades he took more than 80,000 photographs. This collection has become one of the most comprehensive and poignant archives in the country, documenting an English world and way of life most people had thought long gone.
#6 - God's Composer
Season 2011 - Episode 278 - Aired 12/2/2011
Simon Russell Beale continues his Sacred Music journey in this special celebration marking the 400th anniversary of the death of the great Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria. In exploring the extraordinary world of this intensely spiritual man - musician, priest and mystic - Simon's travels take him to some of Spain's most stunning locations, from the ancient fortified city of Avila, with its medieval walls and glorious cathedral, to the magnificent El Escorial palace, where Philip II would listen to Victoria's music though a small door leading off his bedroom directly to the high altar of the Basilica. In Madrid, Simon explores the dramatic religious paintings of Victoria's contemporary El Greco in the Prado Museum and visits the convent of Las Descalzas Reales, named after the barefoot nuns who worshipped there and where Victoria spent the final three decades of his life as choirmaster and organist. The music is specially performed by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in the church of San Antonio de los Alemanes, a hidden baroque jewel built in Victoria's lifetime in the heart of Madrid.
#7 - Between Two Rivers
Season 1960 - Episode 1 - Aired 6/3/1960
After a brief tutelage with innovative BBC documentary producer Denis Mitchell, Dennis Potter teamed with producer Anthony de Lotbiniere to film a documentary (later described by David Niven as "absolutely wonderful"). Returning to the Berry Hill roots of his childhood, Potter used interviews with locals (including his parents) to show changes in the working-class traditions of the Forest of Dean, where "the green forest has a deep black heart beneath its sudden hills, pushing up slag heaps and grey little villages clustering around the coal."
#8 - Jumbo: The Plane that Changed the World
Season 2014 - Episode 35 - Aired 2/27/2014
Documentary about the development of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The 747 was a game changer; the airliner that revolutionised mass, cheap air travel. But the first, wide-bodied plane was (originally) intended as a stopgap to Boeing's now-abandoned supersonic jet. This is the remarkable, untold story of the jumbo, a billion-dollar gamble that pushed 1960s technology to the limits to create the world's most recognisable plane.
#9 - Genghis Khan
Season 2014 - Episode 98 - Aired 2/3/2014
He was a man who combined the savagery of a real-life Conan the Barbarian with the sheer tactical genius of Napoleon, a man from the outermost reaches of Asia whose armies ultimately stood poised to conquer Europe. His name was Genghis Khan. Today the name of Genghis Khan is synonymous with dark evil yet in his lifetime he was a heroic figure, a supreme strategist capable of eliciting total devotion from his warriors. He grew up in poverty on the harsh unforgiving steppe of Mongolia. From the murder of his father, the kidnap of his wife and the execution of his closest friend, he learned the lessons of life the hard way. So how did this outcast come to conquer an empire larger than the Roman Empire? And was Genghis Khan the brutal monster who ruthlessly slaughtered millions in his quest for power, or was he a brilliant visionary who transformed a rabble of warring tribes into a nation capable of world domination? Filmed entirely on location in Mongolia, the film tells the truth behind the legend that is Genghis Khan.
#10 - Art of Cornwall
Season 2010 - Episode 219 - Aired 7/11/2010
The art colony of St Ives in Cornwall became as important as Paris or London in the history of modernism during a golden creative period between the 1920s and 1960s. The dramatic lives and works of eight artists who most made this miracle possible, from Kit Wood and Alfred Wallis to Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, are featured in a documentary which offers an alternative history of the 20th century avant-garde as well as a vivid portrayal of the history and landscapes of Cornwall itself
#11 - Churchill: The Nation's Farewell
Season 2015 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/28/2015
On the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill's death, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of the send-off which Britain gave to the man who led the country to victory in the Second World War. More than a million people came to line the streets of London on the freezing day in late January to pay their respects as his coffin was taken from the lying-in-state at Westminster to St Paul's Cathedral. Millions more watched the state funeral on television. Churchill was the only commoner in the twentieth century to receive the honour of such a magnificent ceremony. In the programme, Jeremy explores whether Churchill's immense legacy still has relevance today and meets a wide range of people who were involved in the events of that day, from soldiers who bore the coffin, to members of Churchill's close family. He hears from Boris Johnson, author of a new book on Churchill, and from a London docker who remembers that some of the dock workers had misgivings about saluting the passing coffin with their cranes as it passed down the Thames on a launch after the ceremony at St Paul's - one of the most memorable moments of that extraordinary day. The funeral ended at the village churchyard of Bladon where Churchill was laid to rest alongside his father, Randolph. At the close of the film, Jeremy reflects that no statesman has come close to rivalling Winston Churchill in the half a century since our nation mourned his passing.
#12 - Touched by Auschwitz
Season 2015 - Episode 22 - Aired 1/27/2015
This feature-length documentary attempts to answer one of the most profound questions of the Holocaust - what was the human legacy of the crime? Producer and director Laurence Rees (The Nazis: A Warning from History, Auschwitz: The Nazis and The Final Solution) has travelled extensively in order to film six Auschwitz survivors along with their friends and families. Together, these sequences filmed in Jerusalem, Chicago, London, Bavaria, Krakow and Tel Aviv build into a compelling portrait of the problems, challenges and triumphs that six different individuals have experienced since the war as a result of their time in Auschwitz.
#13 - Shroud of Turin: Material Evidence
Season 2008 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/22/2008
This year sees the 20th anniversary of the Carbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin that deemed the most famous relic in Christendom a fake. But since then, despite many attempts, no one has been able to determine who the forger was or how the forgery might have been done. This documentary sets out to discover exactly what it is about the image on the Shroud of Turin that has defied imitation and explores new evidence that may challenge the Carbon 14 verdict.
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#14 - Monteverdi in Mantua - the Genius of the Vespers
Season 2015 - Episode 89 - Aired 4/4/2015
Simon Russell Beale travels to Italy to explore the story of the notorious Duke of Mantua and his long-suffering court composer Claudio Monteverdi during the turbulent times of the late Italian Renaissance. Out of the volatile relationship between the duke and the composer came Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, a major turning point in western music. The Sixteen, led by Harry Christophers, explore some of the radical and beautiful choral music in this dramatic composition.
#15 - Churchill: When Britain Said No
Season 2015 - Episode 125 - Aired 5/25/2015
A look at Winston Churchill’s battle to be elected Prime Minister just weeks after VE Day. The war leader was confident of victory, but ended up being humiliated at the polls with the Conservative party almost annihilated. Surprising revelations from first-hand witnesses, including Sir Max Hastings, Juliet Gardiner, Anthony Beevor and Dave Douglas, help to uncover whether Churchill’s rejection was a mark of ingratitude, or the most mature decision ever made by a democracy.
#16 - Haslar – Secrets of a War Hospital
Season 2015 - Episode 147 - Aired 6/24/2015
Rob Bell marks the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo by exploring the brutal world of battlefield medicine.
#17 - The Ugly Face of Disability Hate Crime
Season 2015 - Episode 169 - Aired 7/23/2015
Adam Pearson is on a mission to explore disability hate crime - to find out why it goes under-reported, under-recorded and under people's radar. In this documentary, Adam challenges people into questioning their attitudes towards disability and disfigurement, to uncover the roots of the issue. Adam has neurofibromatosis type 1, a condition that causes benign tumours to grow on nerve endings - in his case, on his face. He is disfigured and disabled and has experienced disability hate crime first-hand, like a number of his friends, some of whom he meets with in the film. Their stories may differ, but their disability as the motivating factor is constant. Just days into his investigation, Adam becomes the target of some grossly offensive online hate speech. While this isn't unusual for him, for the first time Adam decides to take action, reporting it to the police - with some unexpected outcomes. Undeterred, he looks to understand the laws specific to disability hate crime, and finds that a mixture of ignorance and inequalities mean that these crimes often don't make it to our courts, or are sentenced less severely than other hate crimes when they do. Adam looks to uncover what attitudes and influences may be causing people to commit disability hate crime in the first place, questioning whether the portrayal of disfigurement and disability in the media, for example, could be leading us to associate them with being 'the bad guys'. With help from Miles Hewstone, professor of social psychology at the University of Oxford, Adam conducts an experiment measuring peoples' innate prejudice towards disfigurement that gives some shocking results, and leads him to question if he alone can hope to affect a change - and if so, how?
#18 - Life Begins Now
Season 2015 - Episode 179 - Aired 8/4/2015
Documentary about the last few weeks of term at Derwen College in Shropshire for six students with learning difficulties, as they prepare to graduate and enter the real world.
#19 - Attenborough And The Giant Dinosaur
Season 2016 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/24/2016
David Attenborough tells the story of the discovery and reconstruction in Argentina of the world's largest-known dinosaur, a brand new species of titanosaur. Measuring 37m long - close to four London buses put end to end - and weighing 70 metric tons, it now holds the record as the biggest animal ever to walk the Earth. In 2014, a shepherd spotted the tip of a gigantic fossil bone sticking out of a rock in La Flecha Farm in the Chubut Province in the Argentinian desert. Palaeontologists soon uncovered a massive 2.4m long (femur) thigh bone, the largest ever found. By the end of the dig they had uncovered more than 220 bones. As the programme reveals, these all belong to a new species of the giant plant-eating titanosaur. Filmed over the next two years, the documentary follows the twists and turns of this forensic investigation. Attenborough witnesses the uncovering and examination of these stupendous fossils and the dramatic construction of the complete skeleton. And using state-of-the-art graphics, the film also reveals the internal secrets of this dinosaur and what it means to be a giant.
#20 - Attenborough at 90
Season 2016 - Episode 128 - Aired 5/8/2016
In celebration of his ninetieth birthday, Sir David Attenborough shares extraordinary highlights of his life and career with broadcaster Kirsty Young, including the inspiring people he has met, the extraordinary journeys he has made and the remarkable animal encounters he has had across the globe. Joined by colleagues and friends, including Michael Palin and Chris Packham, Sir David shares some of the unforgettable moments from his unparalleled career, from capturing unique animal behaviour for the first time to the fast-paced advances in wildlife filming technology, as well as stories of the wonder and fragility of the natural world - stories that Sir David has spent his life exploring and championing.
#21 - The Incredible Story of Marie Antoinette's Watch
Season 2016 - Episode 292 - Aired 10/6/2016
Nicholas Parsons, Just a Minute host, and stalwart of the entertainment world explores his life-long enthusiasm for clocks when he goes in search of the most valuable and famous watch in the world. The so called Marie Antoinette, once the target of one of the biggest museum heists in history, was the masterpiece made by 18th-century genius Nicholas Breguet, for that doomed queen. Tracing the enthralling story of Breguet's rise to fame, Parsons visits Paris and Versailles, and the vaults of today's multimillion-pound Breguet business. Exploring the innovative and dazzling work of the master watch maker, Parsons unravels the mystery behind the creation of his most precious and most brilliant work. Parsons heads to Irsael to discover how in the 1980s the world's most expensive watch was then stolen in a daring heist, and went missing for over 20 years. Revealing a little-known side of one of our favourite TV and radio hosts, the film offers a glimpse into Parsons's own private clock collection, whilst also telling an enthralling tale of scientific invention, doomed decadence and daring robbery.
#22 - The Passengers That Took on the Train Line
Season 2017 - Episode 149 - Aired 6/14/2017
In 2016, with the contract for Southeastern trains due to expire in six months, a group of dissatisfied but determined passengers come together to try to take a railway franchise into their own hands. Jacques Peretti follows the group as they set about executing their revolutionary plan. Is their dream far-fetched, or will the Department for Transport, looking for fresh ideas, see this new passenger-run company as a viable option for the franchise?
#23 - Secrets of the Masons
Season 2018 - Episode 53 - Aired 3/19/2018
In Secrets of the Masons, cameras for the first time go behind the doors of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Scotland, in Edinburgh, the home of freemasonry, and lift the veil on the inner secrets of this normally closed world. With exclusive access to its 400-year-old archive, its members around the country and its grand master, who presides over 1,000 lodges and 100,000 Scottish Freemasons worldwide, we film at lodge meetings, the selection of new candidates and the installation of grand masters. This documentary explores the truth about an organisation characterised by many for funny handshakes and rolled trouser legs, and by others as a dangerous, secret society, "the hidden hand that has shaped Scotland". We discover famous Scots whose careers have been "helped" by being masons, including Robert Burns and leading light in the Scottish Enlightenment, James Watt. Deputy Scottish Grandmaster Ramsay McGee, ex assistant chief constable of Northern Constabulary, remembers when, in the 1970s, 50 per cent of the force under him were masons. But he defends the close links between freemasonry and the police - "I could argue all policemen should be masons, it would make them much better men!" In the bomb-proof safes below the grand lodge in Edinburgh's George Street, archivist Robert Cooper, in white gloves, finds the original minutes of the first lodge meeting in 1598. We trace how this organisation grew from stonemasons to freemasons, became enshrined in America, where 40 per cent of presidents have been masons, was banned by the Pope and Hitler, and "done in", in Robert Cooper's words, by Dan Brown. And we ask if its lasting legacy is less its influence and more its secrecy.
#24 - Great Natural Wonders of the World
Season 2002 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/1/2002
Great Natural Wonders of the World focuses on natural landscapes rather than wildlife. This show spends an hour highlighting some of the greatest visions of the world ever seen. It is arranged by continent and specifically covers the following: * North America - Deserts, canyonlands, Death Valley, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Mesas, the Grand Canyon and Limestone Caves * South America - Amazon River, Angel Falls, the Andes and glaciers * Pacific Ocean - Hawaiian volcanos & Coral Atolls * Asia - Mt Fuji, Guilin & the Himalayas * Europe - Alps, Rivers, Ice Caves, the Northern Lights * Africa - Kilimanjaro, Serengeti, Ngorogoro, Rift Valley & the Negev Desert * Australasia - Olgas, Uluru, Deserts, 12 Apostles (before one fell over recently), Kimberleys, Great Barrier Reef, New Zealand's mountains and fjords * Antarctica
#25 - The Man Who Recorded America: Jac Holzman's Elektra Records
Season 2010 - Episode 94 - Aired 10/22/2010
In the 1960s, a small indie label would conquer American music. With artists like the Doors, Love, Tim Buckley, the Incredible String Band and the Stooges, Elektra Records was consistently on the cutting edge, having built its name initially with folk revival artists like Judy Collins and Tom Paxton, signed out of Greenwich Village. Elektra was run by suave visionary Jac Holzman and this is his story. Featuring contributions from Jackson Browne, Iggy Pop, Judy Collins and choice BBC archive.
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