Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Sir Roger Penrose is more than just a fan of MC Escher's mind-bending art. During the course of a long creative collaboration, the British mathematician and the Dutch artist exchanged ideas and inspirations. Some of Escher's most iconic images have their origin in Penrose's mathematical sketches - while the artist's work has served as a starting point for the professor's own explorations of new scientific ideas". To coincide with the first ever Escher retrospective in the UK, Penrose takes us on a personal journey through Escher's greatest masterpieces - marvelling at his intuitive brilliance and the penetrating light it still sheds on complex mathematical concepts.

The disappearance and fate of the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria is among the most momentous and tantalising of all the mysteries we have inherited from the ancient world. Generations of scholars and historians have succumbed to the allure of the quest.
Now archaeologist Pepi Papakosta is on a mission to find Alexander the Great's lost tomb. Excavating in a public garden in the center of Alexandria, Egypt, the city he founded 2,300 years ago, she has discovered a rare marble statue of Alexander, Greek treasures and secret tunnels. But Pepi's biggest find is an extraordinary discovery even she was not expecting.

One hundred years after Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean, Spanish Conquistadors and Priests, push into North America in search of gold and to spread Catholicism. With the arrival of the British in North America, the two colonial systems produce contrasting societies that come in conflict as Manifest Destiny pushes the U.S into the Mexican territories of the South West. As the Gold Rush floods California with settlers, complex and vital communities are overwhelmed. The elites, including Mariano Vallejo and Apolinaria Lorenzana lose their land. Mexicans and Mexican Americans are treated as second-class citizens, facing discrimination and racial violence. Resistance to this injustice appears in New Mexico as Las Gorras Blancas (The White Caps), burn Anglo ranches and cut through barbed wire to prevent Anglo encroachment. At the same time, New Mexicans manage to transform themselves through education, managing to preserve Hispano culture in New Mexico and their standing in the midst of an era of conquest and dispossession.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to discover whether nuclear power is safe. He begins in Japan, at the former Fukushima nuclear plant, where he meets some of the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated from the exclusion zone. He travels to an abandoned village just outside the zone to witness a nuclear clean-up operation. Jim draws on the latest scientific findings from Japan and from the previous explosion at Chernobyl to understand how dangerous the release of radiation is likely to be and what that means for our trust in nuclear power.

In Episodes 4 and 5, the war reaches a brutal turning point. As the Tet Offensive erupts, Hunter embeds with American and South Vietnamese troops caught completely off guard. What unfolds is raw, unfiltered chaos—urban combat in shattered cities, desperate ambushes in the jungle, and a shocking realization that the war is far from over. Through Hunter’s lens, we see not just the front lines, but the crumbling morale, the divided home front, and the faces of those questioning what they’re fighting for. These episodes pull you straight into the eye of the conflict—and what you’ll witness will stay with you forever.

Madinat al-Zahra was given its Arabic name, which means "The Shining City," by the 10th century caliph Abd al-Rahman III, who had it built. Nicknamed the "Versailles of Andalusia", Medina Azahara, located in Cordoba, Spain, is today one of the most important Islamic archaeological sites. This unique capital city, built four centuries before the Alhambra in the mid-10th century, is the object of a new excavation campaign.
Five years ago, a team of European archaeologists began a new excavation project at this World Heritage site. For over 100 years, excavations here have concentrated inside the Caliph's palace. This new excavation project is focused outside the palace walls, in areas of the city never before studied. A massive new building came to light, its function unknown. Beyond the mystery of this building, the very location of this city is an enigma in itself. Why was a Muslim city of such importance built in a then primarily Christian area? The site is a complete urban complex including infrastructure, buildings, decoration, and objects of daily use. By following this mission and revealing the mysteries of this lost city, this film traces the history of the golden age of al-Andalus.