The BEST episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2019
Every episode of BBC Documentaries season 2019, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2019!
Documentaries produced by or for the BBC.
#1 - The Trouble with Naipaul
Season 2019 - Episode 266 - Aired 11/26/2019
Shahidha Bari examines the life and work of controversial Booker Prize winner Sir VS Naipaul. Is his legacy compromised by his self-confessed violence towards women and views on race?
#2 - The Rise and Fall of Timex Dundee
Season 2019 - Episode 217 - Aired 10/15/2019
1993 - Scotland’s last full-blooded strike. Thousands of protestors, police and press outside the Timex Camperdown Factory. The furious death throes of an industry that had employed generations of Dundonians - the vast majority women. For most, working for Timex had been a source of pride, good pay and conditions. It would all end in betrayal and bitter disappointment.
#3 - How to See a Black Hole: The Universe's Greatest Mystery
Season 2019 - Episode 59 - Aired 4/10/2019
For two years BBC cameras have followed, Dr Sheperd Doeleman of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the work of the Event Horizon Telescope project team, a collective of the top scientific minds from around the world. The project combines radio observatories and telescope facilities from around the world to make up a virtual telescope with a diameter spanning the entire planet. This mega-telescope’s ultimate mission is to capture the first image ever of a black hole. Although the concept of black holes has been long assumed to be fact, the Event Horizon Telescope’s success would definitively prove the existence of this scientific phenomena for the first time – and provide clear visual evidence. The programme brings viewers into the laboratories, behind the computer screens and beside the telescopes of what may prove to be one of the great astrophysical achievements in human history.
#4 - Fleetwood Mac's Songbird - Christine McVie
Season 2019 - Episode 201 - Aired 9/20/2019
Christine McVie is undoubtedly the longest-serving female band member of any of the enduring rock ‘n’ roll acts that emerged from the 1960s. While she has never fronted Fleetwood Mac, preferring to align herself with ‘the boys’ in the rhythm section whom she first joined 50 years ago, Christine is their most successful singer-songwriter. Her hits include ‘Over My Head’, ‘Don’t Stop’ and ‘Everywhere’. After massive global success in both the late 1970s and mid-1980s, Christine left the band in the late 1990s, quitting California and living in semi-retirement in Kent, only to rejoin the band in 2013. In this 90-minute film, this most English of singers finally gets to take centre-stage and tell both her story and the saga of Fleetwood Mac from her point of view.
#5 - Scuffles, Swagger and Shakespeare: The Hidden Story of English
Season 2019 - Episode 240 - Aired 11/12/2019
The man often given credit for the global triumph of English, and the invention of many of our modern words, is William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's plays first hit the stage four centuries ago, as the explorers of Elizabethan England were laying the foundations for the British empire. It was this empire that would carry English around the world. Language historian Dr John Gallagher asks whether the real story of how English became a global linguistic superpower is more complex. If you had stopped an Elizabethan on the streets and told them their language was going to become the most powerful one in the world, they would have laughed in your face. At the time the English language was obscure and England an isolated country. John's quest to find out how English became a global language sees him investigate everything from what it was like to be an immigrant in Elizabethan Britain to how new technology is transforming our understanding of Shakespeare.
#6 - Pappano's Greatest Arias
Season 2019 - Episode 30 - Aired 2/24/2019
Nothing pulls harder at the heartstrings than an opera aria – that key moment when the action stops and the character draws us right in to the heart of the drama, revealing his or her innermost feelings and thoughts. These are chances for the singers to really show off, to wow an audience with some of the most famous music in opera. In this film, charismatic conductor and music director of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano, shares his personal selection of some of opera’s greatest arias. Pappano’s choices stretch across the full 400-year operatic canvas and feature some of the most ravishing and famous arias in the repertoire - from show-stopping Baroque to heart-stopping Mozart, the full-blooded Romantics to blood-curdling Verismo via Bel Canto pyrotechnics and new 20th-century techniques. Along the way he identifies the various functions that arias perform in opera – from entrance arias, soliloquies and arias born of crisis to breathless declarations of undying love. Combining hands-on workshops featuring today’s international stars - such as Joyce DiDonato, Lucy Crowe, Bryan Hymel and Lawrence Brownlee - along with glorious archive of operatic legends including Placido Domingo, Gundula Janowitz and Piero Cappuccilli, Pappano shines a fresh new light on the precise characteristics – vocal, musical, psychological and dramatic – that transform these great theatrical moments into timeless masterpieces.
#7 - Mother Tuckers: Drag Queens of Glasgow
Season 2019 - Episode 64 - Aired 4/16/2019
Just 40 years ago it was illegal to be gay in Scotland, now the country is a leader in LGBTQ+ rights – and Glasgow is home to a thriving drag scene. This documentary takes a glimpse behind the make-up, wigs and corsets to find out what it takes to live a life in drag, why people do it and the daily battles drag queens still face, following three queens at different stages in their drag careers. Barbara La Bush, the self-proclaimed ‘oldest queen in Glasgow’, represents traditional end-of-the-pier drag. She must come to terms with ailing health and the insecurity of a working life spent on the clubs and pubs circuit. Lawrence Chaney, part of the Instagram generation of highly looks-focused performers, seeks approval from a mainstream culture that is out of her comfort zone. And new queen Voss must battle the prejudices of a job in the merchant navy as well as gain parental acceptance.
#8 - Searching for Sam: Adrian Dunbar on Samuel Beckett
Season 2019 - Episode 285 - Aired 12/22/2019
Samuel Beckett has fascinated Adrian Dunbar since he was a young student. Now, 30 years after Beckett's death in Paris, Dunbar explores what made the man who made Waiting for Godot.
#9 - Palace For The People
Season 2019 - Episode 238 - Aired 11/10/2019
A documentary that showcases five of Soviet Europe's most grandiose architectural enterprises. Created to embody the 'collective good', the buildings, made with courage and a bit of lunacy, were used to remind the people of the power and brighter future that awaited them. Each building was designed to be either the tallest or the largest, or to have the biggest clock on earth or the most advanced technology of its time. Now that socialism is over, film-makers Missirkov and Bogdanov revisit five of communism's most splendid palaces to reveal their hidden secrets through the eyes of the people who designed, built and worked in them. Featuring the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Moscow State University, the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade and the Palace of the Republic in Berlin.
#10 - Grace Jones - Bloodlight and Bami
Season 2019 - Episode 125 - Aired 6/22/2019
Documentary film-maker Sophie Fiennes follows the star Grace Jones behind the scenes - in the recording studio, backstage and at home with her extended family in Jamaica - and intersperses this candid, revealing footage with live performances by Jones. Still an iconic, uncompromising performer, Jones uses all her legendary stagecraft to perform classic hits like Pull Up to the Bumper and Slave to the Rhythm, alongside newer material like Williams Blood. Alongside the intimate scenes of Jones backstage and discussing her past with her family, the film gives a real sense of what made her the artist and performer she is.
#11 - The Brexit Storm: Laura Kuenssberg's Inside Story
Season 2019 - Episode 54 - Aired 4/1/2019
Over nine tumultuous months, BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg takes us inside the most extraordinary political story of our time – Brexit.
#12 - Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes
Season 2019 - Episode 212 - Aired 10/11/2019
A treasure trove of tapes from the golden age of reggae has been salvaged and provides the soundtrack to the compelling story of the family behind the legendary Randy's Studio 17.
#13 - Who are the Flat Earthers?
Season 2019 - Episode 194 - Aired 9/10/2019
Film-maker Conor Reilly is given rare access to the Scottish flat earth community, setting into motion a chain of events that will introduce him to people that are making it their mission to spread the word of flat earth and why they believe in this so passionately. His journey takes him across Scotland, where he meets believers using social media to spread the message of 'waking up to the lies' and those who are taking to the streets with banners and flyers speaking to the public face to face. Finding a small but growing community of Scots leads him to Colorado, USA, and to the second International Flat Earth Conference, where he gets an insight into the movement on an entirely new level. Is this where Scotland is heading?
#14 - Million Dollar Wedding Planner
Season 2019 - Episode 211 - Aired 10/10/2019
With Asia now home to more billionaires than the USA or Europe, this film follows Lelian Chew, who organises nuptials for the super-rich in the Far East, taking on ten just ceremonies a year at an average cost of $1million each. Bespoke Cartier jewellery, hundreds of thousands of dollars of flowers and multiple designer wedding dresses are nothing out of the ordinary. But Lelian's job also involves navigating the clash between age-old Chinese marriage customs and the desires of the young, often with outlandish solutions - multiple weddings are becoming the norm for the Chinese super-rich.
#15 - Van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled the Nazis
Season 2019 - Episode 210 - Aired 10/9/2019
Andrew Graham-Dixon investigates the story of the 20th century's greatest art forger, Han van Meegeren, who made millions during World War II selling fake Vermeers in Nazi-occupied Holland. Following a trail of evidence across Europe, Graham-Dixon pieces together how van Meegeren fooled the art establishment - and even swindled Hermann Göring, selling him what was then one of the most expensive paintings in the world. Looking at this tale of intrigue and double-dealing against the backdrop of Europe’s darkest hour, Graham-Dixon tries to uncover the motives of the master forger. Was he a Dutch folk hero, outwitting the Nazi occupiers? A cynical opportunist? Or even ruthless collaborator? As Andrew Graham-Dixon discovers, this is a tale about much more than simply art forgery: a twisted, timely morality tale about the blurred lines between truth and fiction that poses uncomfortable questions about deception - and collusion. About what happens when we want to believe something a little too much, even when the evidence of fakery is before our eyes.
#16 - Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History
Season 2019 - Episode 209 - Aired 10/7/2019
Ian Hislop's sharp, provocative take on 200 years of fake news and its consequences - from Victorians on the moon to 21st-century deepfake, and Hislop as never seen before.
#17 - Upstream
Season 2019 - Episode 207 - Aired 9/29/2019
Upstream is a new film by the writer Robert Macfarlane and the director Rob Petit. The film, which is shot entirely from the air, follows the course of the River Dee in Scotland all the way to its source in the Cairngorm mountains, the highest of any river in Britain. With a prose poem written especially for the film by Macfarlane (voiced by Julie Fowlis) and an original score by the Oscar-nominated composer Hauschka, the film takes as it epigraph the words of the Scottish writer Nan Shepherd (1893-1981): "One cannot know the rivers till one has seen them at their sources", wrote Shepherd, "but this journey to sources is not to be undertaken lightly." (The Living Mountain, 1977). Eerie, hypnotic and experimental, this groundbreaking polyphonic film weaves together field-recordings of the river, and the birds and creatures which live along it, the place-names and stories - dark and light - of the Cairngorms, creating a 'songline' that draws the viewer up, against the flow, into wildness, winter and strangeness.
#18 - Betty Davis: Godmother of Funk
Season 2019 - Episode 206 - Aired 10/4/2019
Funk Queen Betty Davis changed the landscape for female artists in America. She 'was the first', as former husband Miles Davis said. 'Madonna before Madonna, Prince before Prince'. An aspiring songwriter from a small steel town, Betty arrived on the 70s scene to break boundaries for women with her daring personality, iconic fashion and outrageous funk music. She befriended Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, wrote songs for the Chambers Brothers and the Commodores, and married Miles – startlingly turning him from jazz to funk on the album she named 'Bitches Brew'. She then, despite being banned and boycotted, went on to become the first black woman to perform, write and manage herself. Betty was a feminist pioneer, inspiring and intimidating in a manner like no woman before. Then suddenly - she just vanished. Betty Mabry Davis is a global icon whose mysterious life story has until now, never been told. Creatively blending documentary and animation, this movie traces the path of Betty’s life, how she grew from humble upbringings to become a fully self-realized black female pioneer the world failed to understand or appreciate, revealing the mystery of her 35-year disappearance and her battle with mental illness and poverty. After years of trying, the elusive Betty finally allowed the film-makers to creatively tell her story based on their conversations.
#19 - The Dynamic Duo
Season 2019 - Episode 204 - Aired 10/10/2019
Meet Tony Flatman and Julian Meek, Wales's two most unlikely press barons. Four years ago they launched the Abertillery Dynamic, a free local newspaper, with the aim of holding power to account. Combining opinion pieces with regular features such as 'Sheep of the Week’ and 'The Pub Review’, this is no ordinary paper. After 36 editions, worn out and broke, they were forced to close down. But now they are back and ready to relaunch. This wry, warm-hearted documentary celebrates these two lovable characters, as their old-fashioned approach to local journalism collides with the modern world.
#20 - Undercover with the Clerics: Iraq's Secret Sex Trade
Season 2019 - Episode 205 - Aired 10/3/2019
In this undercover investigation, Nawal Al Maghafi exposes a secret world of sexual exploitation in Iraq. Some Shia clerics are using a controversial practice called 'pleasure marriage' to groom vulnerable girls and young women and pimp them out.
#21 - Joan Armatrading: Me Myself I
Season 2019 - Episode 203 - Aired 9/27/2019
Granting unprecedented access, Joan Armatrading tells her life story, both as a songwriter and as a performer. Features key performances from Joan and many of the musicians she has influenced.
#22 - Rock and Roma
Season 2019 - Episode 208 - Aired 9/17/2019
21-year-old Roma woman Rahela and 35-year-old Scottish man Neil are both residents of Govanhill, Glasgow. But even though they live in the same neighbourhood, their lives could not be more different. Rahela takes this opportunity to introduce Neil to her culture and people, and Neil confronts her about issues in their community that the majority of residents are not happy about.
#23 - Addicted: America's Opioid Crisis
Season 2019 - Episode 202 - Aired 10/2/2019
A compelling insight into the growth of America's devastating relationship with opioids that has destroyed millions of lives.
#24 - Churchill and the Movie Mogul
Season 2019 - Episode 200 - Aired 9/25/2019
Documentary about the extraordinary friendship and collaboration between Winston Churchill and film producer Alexander Korda that helped to bring America into the Second World War.
#25 - Gareth Thomas: HIV and Me
Season 2019 - Episode 199 - Aired 9/18/2019
Rugby legend Gareth Thomas lifts the lid on living with HIV. In an emotional and hard-hitting documentary he finally goes public about his condition and reveals how hiding the truth about his health left him feeling depressed and contemplating taking his own life. Now he is on a journey to change perceptions about HIV by raising awareness, fighting prejudice and taking on the biggest physical challenge of his career - running the world’s toughest Iron Man. With the help of family, friends, medical experts and others with HIV, he sets about tackling the stigmas, myths and misunderstandings surrounding the condition. Modern medicine may have made the virus treatable and non-transmittable, but old ideas about HIV still persist and Gareth is on a mission to smash the stereotypes and show that 'he has HIV and it’s OK'.