The BEST episodes of Panorama

Every episode of Panorama ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Panorama!

Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme. First broadcast in 1953, it is the world's longest-running public affairs television programme.

Last Updated: 3/23/2024Network: BBC OneStatus: Continuing
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Are the Net Police Coming for You?
star
10.00
29 votes

#1 - Are the Net Police Coming for You?

Season 2010 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/15/2010

Jo Whiley looks at how a proposed new law could end up disconnecting the millions of internet users who unlawfully download free music, films and TV.

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White Fright
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10.00
1 votes

#2 - White Fright

Season 2007 - Episode 17 - Aired 5/7/2007

The show looks at several communities which have been split by colour and religion.

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Aftershock: The Turkey-Syria Earthquake
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10.00
1 votes

#3 - Aftershock: The Turkey-Syria Earthquake

Season 2023 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/13/2023

More than 30,000 people are known to have been killed in the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria last week, and the death toll is expected to increase. With the help of teams from BBC Turkish and BBC Arabic, Panorama follows survivors and rescue workers from both sides of the border, and asks if more could have been done to save lives.

Violent Women
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10.00
1 votes

#4 - Violent Women

Season 1996 - Episode 33 - Aired 11/4/1996

Statistics show that British women are committing more and more violent crimes. Panorama investigates the shift in the traditional role of women as victims or accessories to crime to the aggressor. Su Pennington talks to women who get a thrill from their own brutality, and to some victims of the disturbing trend.

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The Operation that Ruined My Life
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10.00
1 votes

#5 - The Operation that Ruined My Life

Season 2017 - Episode 47 - Aired 12/11/2017

Women across the UK are suffering after an operation they were told would transform their lives. Instead, some of them say their lives have been ruined. For years women have been fitted with mesh-like devicesto treat prolapse or incontinence - often caused by childbirth. Although it's been a successful treatment for many of them, thousands of women in the US, the UK and Australia are now suing, after finding themselves in agony or suffering other serious complications. Reporter Lucy Adams meets women living with constant pain. She investigates how and why these devices were approved for use in the first place and asks whether manufacturers and regulators should have acted sooner to take some of them off the market.

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Iraq: The Final Judgement
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10.00
1 votes

#6 - Iraq: The Final Judgement

Season 2016 - Episode 20 - Aired 6/29/2016

As the country awaits next week's verdict from the long-delayed Iraq Inquiry into why we went to war and what the lessons should be, Jane Corbin returns to southern Iraq. With her are parents who lost a son, a soldier, there and the general who led British troops into battle. Why did it all go so wrong?

Emergency in A&E
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10.00
1 votes

#7 - Emergency in A&E

Season 2015 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/2/2015

Panorama reports on a week spent in the accident and emergency department of the University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton, as this vital part of the NHS faces unprecedented pressure. It is the second programme Panorama has made in this hospital. One year on, why have things changed so much? There are more patients who are more ill, others who should never have come to A&E in the first place, and the hospital's 'regulars' - one has come in over 100 times. Panorama talks to patients and to stressed and overstretched staff, the front line troops of the NHS.

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Educating North Korea
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10.00
1 votes

#8 - Educating North Korea

Season 2014 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/3/2014

It's one of the most closed and repressive societies on earth. Its ruthless young leader Kim Jong-un has threatened nuclear war against America and recently executed his own uncle. Yet in the heart of North Korea's absolute dictatorship, a remarkable university - paid for by the west - is attempting to open the minds of the secretive state's future elite. Panorama has gained unprecedented access to this most unusual of academic institutions - which is educating the sons of the brutal regime. Reporter Chris Rogers lives with them on campus and asks: can the class of 2014 help to bring the hermit nation in from the cold?

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Drivers Who Kill
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10.00
1 votes

#9 - Drivers Who Kill

Season 2014 - Episode 28 - Aired 7/21/2014

Every day five people die on Britain's roads - but they seldom make headlines. Is this complacency leading to a lack of justice for victims and their families? Tonight's Panorama investigates whether a change to the driving laws has seen our justice system go soft on dangerous driving and questions whether in car technology is driving us to distraction behind the wheel.

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Poor America
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10.00
29 votes

#10 - Poor America

Season 2012 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/13/2012

Panorama's Hilary Andersson comes face to face with the reality of poverty in America and finds that, for some, the last resort has become life in a tented encampment. Just off the side of a motorway on the fringes of the picturesque town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mismatched collection of 30 tents tucked in the woods has become home - home to those who are either unemployed, or whose wages are so low that they can no longer afford to pay rent. Conditions are unhygienic. There are no toilets and electricity is only available in the one communal tent where the campers huddle around a wood stove for warmth in the heart of winter. Ice weighs down the roofs of tents, and rain regularly drips onto the sleeping campers' faces. Tent cities have sprung up in and around at least 55 American cities - they represent the bleak reality of America's poverty crisis.

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England's Shame
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10.00
1 votes

#11 - England's Shame

Season 2000 - Episode 20 - Aired 6/20/2000

In a special investigation, Panorama goes undercover with English supporters at Euro 2000.

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Towards the Zero Hour
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10.00
1 votes

#12 - Towards the Zero Hour

Season 2001 - Episode 33 - Aired 12/12/2001

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Murdoch's TV Pirates
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9.88
32 votes

#13 - Murdoch's TV Pirates

Season 2012 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/26/2012

As Rupert Murdoch faces accusations of law-breaking and corruption at his British tabloid newspapers, Panorama reveals fresh hacking allegations striking at the heart of News Corporation's pay-TV empire. The investigation examines the role of former senior police officers in recruiting people to break the law - in order to bring down Murdoch's commercial rival. Vivian White reveals fresh allegations of hacking at the heart of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, this time involving its pay-TV services. The investigation examines the alleged role of former senior police officers in recruiting people to break the law in order to bring down one of the media mogul's commercial rivals. Postponed from Monday March 12.

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Ukraine's War Diaries
star
9.75
4 votes

#14 - Ukraine's War Diaries

Season 2023 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/21/2023

When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Panorama asked five Ukrainians to start filming their lives. The result is a powerful documentary marking the first anniversary of the war.

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Obesity: Who Cares If I'm Bigger?
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9.50
2 votes

#15 - Obesity: Who Cares If I'm Bigger?

Season 2022 - Episode 16 - Aired 4/20/2022

Eighteen months after the prime minister launched his strategy to help the nation lose weight, EastEnders actress Clair Norris, who is overweight herself, wants to know if it is working.

The Drug Wars That Killed Olivia
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9.50
2 votes

#16 - The Drug Wars That Killed Olivia

Season 2023 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/3/2023

When Olivia Pratt-Korbel was shot dead in her home, the nine-year-old became the youngest victim of Liverpool's drug wars. There have been dozens of deaths in the city as rival gangs fight for control of the lucrative drug trade. Reporter Bronagh Munro investigates how the city came to dominate the UK drug market and how organised crime brought death to Olivia’s door.

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Profits before Pupils? The Academies Scandal
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9.00
1 votes

#17 - Profits before Pupils? The Academies Scandal

Season 2018 - Episode 30 - Aired 9/10/2018

More than 7,000 schools in England have been turned into academies and are now run by private trusts. The people in charge are not supposed to profit from children's education, but what's to stop them from cashing in? Reporter Bronagh Munro investigates a businessman whose companies have been paid millions from school budgets and asks whether it's the pupils who are paying the price.

Ukraine's Resistance: Standing Up to Putin
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9.00
1 votes

#18 - Ukraine's Resistance: Standing Up to Putin

Season 2022 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/21/2022

For almost a month, Ukraine has fought off one of the world's super-powers. Can it repel Putin’s forces? Panorama's Paul Kenyon reports from the frontline in southern Ukraine.

Who's Protecting Our Kids?
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9.00
1 votes

#19 - Who's Protecting Our Kids?

Season 2021 - Episode 30 - Aired 9/6/2021

Mariella Frostrup meets teenage girls who say they have been abused, assaulted or raped by teenage boys, and asks whether we should be doing more to protect our children. With exclusive new data from police forces, she reveals how reports of abuse have risen sharply in the past four years, despite government promises to tackle the problem. She asks if social media and pornography could be to blame, and if schools could be handling the problem better.

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Trump Voters: One Year On
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9.00
5 votes

#20 - Trump Voters: One Year On

Season 2018 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/15/2018

Donald Trump has changed the face of American politics, but what do the people who voted for him make of his tumultuous first year in office? Filmed over a year in Michigan, Wyoming, Texas and Florida, this programme hears from Trump supporters who hoped that he would 'make America great again'. But with so much promised, Panorama asks whether his supporters are still happy and if they would vote for him again.

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Seb Coe and the Corruption Scandal
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9.00
1 votes

#21 - Seb Coe and the Corruption Scandal

Season 2016 - Episode 18 - Aired 6/16/2016

In his first year as president of world athletics, Lord Coe has had to deal with the fallout from the biggest corruption scandal the sport has ever seen. Mark Daly investigates what Lord Coe knew about the scandal and when, and also uncovers links between the IAAF president and the man at the centre of the corruption.

Edward Snowden: Spies and the Law
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9.00
4 votes

#22 - Edward Snowden: Spies and the Law

Season 2015 - Episode 37 - Aired 10/5/2015

Edward Snowden, the man responsible for the biggest leak of top secret intelligence files the world has ever seen, gives his first BBC interview to Panorama. Russia has given him sanctuary. America wants him back. With opinion sharply divided, Snowden is acknowledged to have raised the debate over privacy and national security to a new level - framing the agenda for this autumn's parliamentary debate over controversial new legislation previously criticised as 'the snoopers' charter'.

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Disaster on Everest
star
9.00
1 votes

#23 - Disaster on Everest

Season 2015 - Episode 23 - Aired 6/22/2015

BBC reporter Tom Martienssen was halfway up Mount Everest when an earthquake made the mountain shake. Tom and a team of British Army Gurkhas were trapped after a wall of rock and ice came crashing down around them. Their footage tells the story of an extraordinary rescue and of the people who lost their lives on Everest. After a second devastating quake, Tom returns to Nepal to find the men who were with him on the mountain and to discover how the country is coping amid continuing aftershocks.

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The Innocent Serial Killer?
star
9.00
1 votes

#24 - The Innocent Serial Killer?

Season 2014 - Episode 46 - Aired 12/15/2014

Panorama investigates whether an innocent man is in prison wrongly convicted as a serial killer. Scots nurse Colin Norris, dubbed the Angel of Death, is serving a minimum of 30 years in prison for the murder of four elderly patients and the attempted murder of a fifth. It was a case that captivated the nation. Reporter Mark Daly reveals new evidence that casts serious doubt on his convictions, and could pave the way for him to be set free. Drawing on new scientific research the programme critically examines the main components of the case against Norris, and asks whether the alleged victims actually died from natural causes. Is this the first case in British history of a wrongfully convicted serial killer?

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North Korea Undercover
star
9.00
29 votes

#25 - North Korea Undercover

Season 2013 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/15/2013

While North Korea's 'Supreme Commander' Kim Jong-Un has been threatening thermo-nuclear war against the United States, Panorama reporter John Sweeney spent eight days undercover inside the most rigidly-controlled nation on Earth. Travelling from the capital Pyongyang to the countryside beyond and to the de-Militarised Zone on the border with South Korea, Sweeney witnesses a landscape bleak beyond words, a people brainwashed for three generations and a regime happy to give the impression of marching towards Armageddon.

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