Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

The way that wars are fought is constantly evolving. In the warfare of today and the future, it's the push of a button rather than the pull of a trigger, bringing disorder without a single soldier setting foot on the ground. The real-world battlefield has morphed from the bloody trenches of the front line into an age of cyber warfare. From collapsing all the infrastructure of a country to changing minds for elections, any threat you can imagine can be done.

Thanks to stunning reconstitutions with computer-generated images, this documentary retraces the manufacturing secrets of the largest and most exceptional city of Antiquity: Rome, the capital of the Mediterranean world. Three of its most emblematic monuments come to life. The Pantheon and its majestic dome, the sumptuous palace of Nero which covered a quarter of the city, and finally the legendary Colosseum, the largest Roman amphitheater ever built.

The Namib Desert is one of the oldest deserts and also one of the most diverse. With 50ºC (120ºF) temperatures and half a millimetre of rainfall annually, we see how this is possible. Half the size of Oklahoma, from its Skeleton Coast through the sea of sand to the haze of distant mountains this apparently forbidding desert hides secret water sources.

Stars helped create us, building and spreading the ingredients for life to develop. But there will definitely be a point in the future when, in the future when, you look up, you will no longer be able to see stars.
For billions of years, stars brought life to the universe. Now, they're dying out in a star apocalypse. What's causing the die-off, and what happens to life when the lights go out?

The 80s was also an age of innovators and icons, of style and substance. In this chapter, Dylan Jones celebrates some of the stars who created the timeless legacy of the 1980s. From stellar BBC archive performances from the likes of Madonna, Depeche Mode, Sade, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys and Tina Turner to iconic MTV-era gems from Billy Idol, Eurythmics, U2, Janet Jackson, Prince and many more.
It also features rarely seen archive television footage from the BBC vaults, including Terry Wogan interviewing Grace Jones, Bruce Springsteen on the Old Grey Whistle Test and Adam Ant performing his own stunts in a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Prince Charming video.

Ludo Lefebvre apprenticed under – and learned from – some of France’s most esteemed chefs, but it took a move to Los Angeles, starting a family and a rough restaurant review for him to figure out what he really wanted to do with his culinary future.
This episode examines the ties between artists and their education, and how childlike wonder can, in fact, translate into a career. The question Ludo poses is whether an artist follows instinct, training or intuition… or perhaps all three.