The BEST episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2015
Every episode of BBC Documentaries season 2015, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2015!
Documentaries produced by or for the BBC.
#1 - Kraftwerk: Pop Art
Season 2015 - Episode 25 - Aired 1/30/2015
Documentary telling the amazing story of how a group of reclusive Rhineland experimentalists called Kraftwerk became one of the most influential pop groups of all time. It is a celebration of the band featuring exclusive live tracks filmed at their Tate Modern shows in London in February 2013, interwoven with expert analysis, archive footage of the group going back to 1970, newsreel of the era and newly shot cinematic evocations of their obsessions. With contributions from techno pioneer Derrick May, Can founder Holger Czukay, DJ and remixer Francois Kevorkian, graphic design guru Neville Brody, writer Paul Morley, band photographer Peter Boettcher, Tate Modern curator Caroline Wood and others. Kraftwerk are very much in the news at the moment as they are currently playing a week of concerts at the New National Gallery in Berlin (to follow other concert-events including those at the Tate, Sydney Opera House , New York's MOMA etc), the first international academic conference on the group, 'Industrielle Volksmusic for the C21', is to be held at Aston University on January 21st/22nd, and interest has been stirred by recent books exploring the group in the context of Krautrock such as David Stubbs's Future Days.
#2 - 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.
#3 - 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.
#4 - 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.
#5 - 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.
#6 - 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?
#7 - 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.
#8 - Meat Loaf: In and Out of Hell
Season 2015 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/9/2015
Since the release of the Bat Out of Hell album, Meat Loaf has possessed the kind of international status that few artists obtain. His larger-than-life persona and performances are fuelled by a passion for theatre and storytelling. This candid profile reveals the man and his music through his own testimony and from the accounts of those closest to him. Meat Loaf's life story is one of epic proportions - he survived a childhood of domestic violence only to face years of record company rejection before eventually finding global fame. Along the way he experienced bankruptcy, health scares, bust-ups and one of the greatest comebacks of all time. All this and more is explored in the film, which features behind-the-scenes footage of his recent Las Vegas residency, plus plans for a new album featuring songs by Jim Steinman. The film also revisits the Dallas of Meat Loaf's early years and includes insights from his high school friends, who reveal how Meat really got his famous moniker. After his mother died, Meat Loaf fled Texas for the bright lights of LA. He sang in itinerant rock bands, but no-one would give him a recording contract. By 1969 he was broke and disillusioned. His break would take the form of a musical. He was offered a part in Hair, having been invited to audition whilst working as a parking attendant outside the theatre. Shortly afterwards he met Jim Steinman and the road to success really began. Yet the Hair gig was the beginning of an enduring love affair with theatre that is reflected in his singing persona today. His first album, the now legendary Bat Out of Hell, was initially rejected by scores of record companies, yet went on to spend a staggering 485 weeks in the UK charts. The whole album is a masterwork of storytelling that Meat Loaf and Steinman worked on for four years and then battled to get heard. Meat Loaf and those who worked on the album - from Todd Rundgren to Ellen Foley - reflect on the songs, and celebrate the alchemy that resulted
#9 - Top of the Pops: The Story of 1980
Season 2015 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/2/2015
1980 was the year that both pop music and TOTP changed. A new generation of British pop arrived with Dexy's, Adam Ant, the Human League and OMD. The show changed as the veteran TOTP orchestra was laid off, the studio audience doubled in size, new sets were built and a range of celebrity co-hosts from Elton John to Kevin Keegan to Russ Abbott arrived. This documentary explores these dramatic changes in Top of the Pops, British pop and British society with a cast including Adam Ant, the Human League, OMD, Kevin Rowlands, Coronation Street actress Sally Lindsay (who appeared with St Winifred's School Choir), Kelly Marie, Ray Dorset, Johnny Logan, the Vapors, the Piranhas and Richard Skinner.
#10 - Super Cute Animals
Season 2015 - Episode 39 - Aired 2/15/2015
There are all sorts of incredible species of animal in the world, but there are a few that we think are special. We love them for their big eyes or furry faces but we also fall for the sounds they make and the way they move - who doesn't love a waddling penguin? These animals have become online celebrities, with millions of us finding and sharing videos every day - a tiny snoring hummingbird or a sneezing panda is just too cute not to share. Gordon Buchanan has dedicated his life to filming wildlife. He wants to understand why we have such a strong emotional response to these particular species. Why a baby panda makes us go all gooey or why a squeaking frog got over 11 million internet hits. Travelling to meet these super cute animals, he reveals the surprising science behind each of the animals we love so much, starting with one of the most iconic animals on the planet, the giant panda. The panda's beautiful markings set it apart, but it's that big round oversized head that makes it so unusual. Although we find the teddy bear look incredibly appealing, for the panda, the size of its head tells the story of millions of years of evolution and survival. Gordon also meets the fennec fox, with big ears that look sweet but are actually crucial to the fennec's survival out in the Sahara. He travels to Kenya to meet young elephants learning how to perfect their trunk skills and discovers the surprising secret behind a penguin's comic waddle. He hangs out with Eli, a five-year-old chimpanzee whose giggle can give us new information about our own evolution, and discovers just why snoring can help a tiny hummingbird conserve enough energy to make it through the night.
#11 - Premium Bond with Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet
Season 2015 - Episode 247 - Aired 10/28/2015
In impeccable evening dress, Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet ponder the Bonds we've seen on screen since Dr No in 1962. With the release of the 24th official James Bond film, Spectre, we ask - which 007 is the best? To date, six actors have portrayed British Secret Service agent James Bond. Was Sean Connery impossible to surpass? Was George Lazenby really that bad? Was Live and Let Die really a blaxploitation movie in disguise? Gatiss and Sweet consider these and many other questions, and raise a martini in honour of their premium Bond.
#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 - Michael Palin's Quest for Artemisia
Season 2015 - Episode 317 - Aired 12/28/2015
Curious about a powerful but violent painting that caught his eye, Michael Palin sets off on a quest to discover the astonishing story of the forgotten female artist who painted it over 400 years ago. Travelling to Italy in search of Artemisia Gentileschi's tale, Michael encounters her work in Florence, Rome and Naples. Michael unearths not only her paintings but a complex life which included her rape as a teenager and the ensuing indignity of a full trial, her life as a working mother and her ultimate success against all odds as one of the greatest painters of the Baroque age who transformed the way women were depicted in art and who was sought after in many courts across 17th-century Europe.
#14 - From Andy Pandy to Zebedee: The Golden Age of Children's Television
Season 2015 - Episode 308 - Aired 12/21/2015
Nigel Planer narrates the story of the struggle to make programmes for children in the days before everything went digital.
#15 - Star Wars at the BBC
Season 2015 - Episode 302 - Aired 12/18/2015
A long time ago in a TV studio not so far away, the stars of the original Star Wars film came to the BBC to promote their then-unknown movie. Want to see a Wookie on Blue Peter, or Luke Skywalker meet Michael Aspel? Then take a look through archive BBC footage – much of which has not been shown since the 70s – to see how UK viewers were introduced to the idea of ‘the force’, protocol droids and galactic princesses. Did Mark Hamill really appear on Coronation Street? Peter Serafinowicz, the voice of Darth Maul himself, will reveal the answer.
#16 - Inside Einstein's Mind: The Enigma of Space and Time
Season 2015 - Episode 299 - Aired 12/14/2015
The story of the most elegant and powerful theory in science - Albert Einstein's general relativity. When Einstein presented his formidable theory in November 1915, it turned our understanding of gravity, space and time completely on its head. Over the last 100 years, general relativity has enabled us to trace the origins of the universe to the Big Bang and to appreciate the enormous power of black holes. To mark the 100th anniversary of general relativity, this film takes us inside the head of Einstein to witness how his idea evolved, giving new insights into the birth of a masterpiece that has become a cornerstone of modern science. This is not as daunting as it sounds - because Einstein liked to think in pictures. The film is a magical visual journey that begins in Einstein's young mind, follows the thought experiments that gave him stunning insights about the physical world, and ultimately reaches the extremes of modern physics.
#17 - How Gay is Pakistan?
Season 2015 - Episode 237 - Aired 10/20/2015
Presenter Mawaan Rizwan sets out to discover what life is really like for gay people in Pakistan. Homosexuality is illegal in Pakistan, even considered to be a disease by some. In this revealing journey to the country of his birth, Mawaan meets some people who live their lives openly as LGBT, despite the constant fears of retribution. He also explores whether the fears of Pakistan’s gay community are justified. He discovers a fascinating world behind closed doors, where homosexuality is discussed and practised in private more than he ever thought. During his time in the country he’s also surprised to be offered a miracle herbal cure for his own homosexuality.
#18 - Pinewood: 80 Years of Movie Magic
Season 2015 - Episode 139 - Aired 6/6/2015
Jonathan Ross gains unprecedented access to Britain's famous film studio to reveal the magic behind some of the greatest movies ever made. He encounters legendary stars including Dame Joan Collins and Barbara Windsor, casts the spotlight upon the award-winning teams behind iconic heroes such as Superman and James Bond, and even risks life and limb attempting some daring and dangerous stunts of his own! Part of 2015's Genius of British Cinema series.
#19 - Wellington: The Iron Duke Unmasked
Season 2015 - Episode 114 - Aired 5/10/2015
The Duke of Wellington was the most famous Briton of the first half of the 19th century. His victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 altered the course of history. The hero of Waterloo became a towering figure in British history for both his achievements and for embodying our notions of Britishness - the stiff upper lip, unfussy straightforwardness and incorruptibility in office - he was the Iron Duke. This drama documentary looks behind the iron mask to focus on the intriguing complexities of the Duke of Wellington - his character, personality and relationships, told through his own words and the words of those who knew him best. General, politician, lover, outsider - the series discovers that the hero of Waterloo was far more complex than his public image. Drawing on his own vast private correspondence, as well as the diaries and memoirs of those around him, this biographical series uses dramatic reconstruction to create an intimate portrait of the Duke of Wellington, played by Richard E Grant (Withnail and I, The Iron Lady, Doctor Who).
#20 - Hole in the Road Inspectors
Season 2015 - Episode 94 - Aired 4/7/2015
This year, every motorist will spend several days worth of time sitting in traffic jams caused by roadworks. Thousands more will feel their wheels walloping through potholes which occasionally damage cars. In this film we meet the men whose job it is to control the carnage. In Leeds alone, there are 1,800 miles of roads with 29,000 sets of roadworks a year. Two-and-a-half billion miles are driven on the city's roads every year, contributing to 30,000 potholes a year. Dealing with this are men like Pat Griffin, who has worked for Leeds City Council Highways Department for 22 years. In this time, the department will have patched over half- a-million potholes. You'd think Pat would be sick of the sight of them. Not a bit of it: 'I've got a passion for it,' he says. 'I'm proud. We're on the front line and what we do make a difference.' Neil Carpenter has been a utilities inspector at Leeds highways for 11 years, his department inspecting over one hundred thousand utilities digs in that time. His job involves checking that the utilities digging up our roads have permits for their work and that they're not overstaying their welcome. It's a permanent cat and mouse utilities versus inspectors game on the city's streets. Roadworks and potholes are a favourite national moan, and in this film we hear the exasperated voice of motorists forever stuck at red lights - and we hear from the road crews on whom they frequently vent their ire.
#21 - Attenborough's Paradise Birds
Season 2015 - Episode 23 - Aired 1/29/2015
Birds of paradise are one of David Attenborough's lifelong passions. He was the first to film many of their beautiful and often bizarre displays, and over his lifetime he has tracked them all over the jungles of New Guinea. In this very personal film, he uncovers the remarkable story of how these 'birds from paradise' have captivated explorers, naturalists, artists, film-makers and even royalty. He explores the myths surrounding their discovery 500 years ago, the latest extraordinary behaviour captured on camera and reveals the scientific truth behind their beauty: the evolution of their spectacular appearance has in fact been driven by sex. And in a final contemporary twist to this story of obsession and royalty, he travels to the desert of Qatar, to a state-of-the-art facility which houses the largest breeding group of these birds in the world - a sheikh's very own private collection. There he has his closest ever encounter with a greater bird of paradise and its dramatic display, reliving the experience that captivated him in the forests of New Guinea more than 50 years ago. 'For me birds of paradise are the most romantic and glamorous birds in the world. And this is a film I have wanted to make for 40 years.' - Sir David Attenborough.
#22 - David Starkey's Magna Carta
Season 2015 - Episode 21 - Aired 1/26/2015
We take our liberties for granted. They seem absolute and untouchable. But they are the result of a series of violent struggles fought over 800 years that, at times, have threatened to tear our society apart. On the frontline was a document originally inked on animal skin - Magna Carta. Distinguished constitutional historian David Starkey looks at the origins of the Great Charter, created in 1215 to check the abuses of King John - and how it nearly died at birth. He explores its subsequent deployment, its contribution to making everyone - even the monarch - subject to the rule of law, and how this quintessentially English document migrated to the North American colonies and eventually became the foundation of the US constitution. Magna Carta has become a universal symbol of individual freedom against the tyranny of the state, but with ever-tightening government control on our lives, is it time to resurrect it? Starkey has a special encounter with an original Magna Carta manuscript at the British Library, one of only four from 1215 to survive. He also examines other unique medieval manuscripts that trace the tumultuous history of Magna Carta, the Article of the Barons listing their demands in June 1215, and the papal bull declaring Magna Carta null and void less than two months after it was sealed.
#23 - 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.
#24 - Snow Chick: A Penguin's Tale
Season 2015 - Episode 315 - Aired 12/23/2015
Kate Winslet tells the story of an emperor penguin chick's first precarious months of life as it grows up in the world's most extreme nursery. Emperor penguins are the only animals to breed in the Antarctic winter, and after months of blizzards and temperatures of -60C, male emperor penguins are watching and waiting for their chicks to hatch. Snow Chick is the last to emerge into this harsh, frozen world. As he takes his first steps, he tries to fit in with the baby penguin gang, but when you're so small it's hard to be accepted by the bigger chicks. Soon he ventures too far from his mother for comfort and gets lost in a storm. Later, he's chased by chick-snatching penguins and escapes a scavenging petrel by the fluff of his back - all the while slipping and skating on treacherous ice. With the arrival of the comical and pugnacious adelie penguin, colony life is turned upside down. But it signals a bigger change - the parents who braved long and treacherous journeys across the sea ice to bring back food eventually return no more. With his band of penguin brothers, Snow Chick has no choice but to make his own way to the sea. A few more adventures lie ahead before he gets tossed unceremoniously into the open ocean - his new home for the next four years. Filmed over a whole Antarctic year, the crew endured some of the toughest conditions on earth to capture these astonishing moments of intimate behaviour.
#25 - Brett A Life with No Arms
Season 2015 - Episode 238 - Aired 10/13/2015
Brett Nielsen has no arms because his mum took thalidomide. Film-maker Roger Graef's 1965 documentary One of Them is Brett was an extraordinary story about a spirited four-year old's fight for identity and survival. His parents sold up and moved from Australia to Britain to get Brett the medical help he couldn't get there. Fifty years later, whatever happened to him? Roger has tracked him down in this follow-up film which tells the story of Brett's life since he was a child. Brett's now a musician, record producer, businessman and a loving single dad with three ex-wives. And he's in love yet again. It's a film about passion, optimism and fun, a story of triumph over adversity. In the words of Brett, 'it doesn't matter what happens to you in your life, it matters how you deal with it.'.