Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

The film is made by the founders of the animal rights organisation Surge: In 2005, a film called Earthlings became the most pivotal documentary of the animal rights movement. Here in the UK however, we found the phrase 'that doesn't happen in our country' coming up far too much. We wanted to set the record straight. Through Land of Hope and Glory we aim to show the truth behind UK land animal farming by featuring the most up to date investigations as well as never before seen undercover footage, with a total of approximately 100 UK facilities featured throughout the film.

Told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice, Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the Ferguson uprising. When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of St. Louis, Missouri.
Grief, long-standing racial tensions and renewed anger bring residents together to hold vigil and protest this latest tragedy. Empowered parents, artists, and teachers from around the country come together as freedom fighters. As the national guard descends on Ferguson with military grade weaponry, these young community members become the torchbearers of a new resistance. Whose Streets? is a powerful battle cry from a generation fighting, not for their civil rights, but for the right to live.

Click CC for subtitles. Oscar-nominated director Petra Costa presents a gripping investigation into the rise of evangelical power in Brazil, revealing how religious leaders have gained unprecedented political influence. With extraordinary access to President Lula, former President Bolsonaro, and Silas Malafaia, the country’s most powerful televangelist, the film uncovers a dramatic power struggle where apocalyptic faith becomes a political force. What emerges is a haunting portrait of a nation at a crossroads, where spiritual warfare is not just metaphor — it’s policy.

Ewan, Charley, and the team land in Ushuaia, the southernmost tip of South America, but tensions arise due to snow and mechanical issues. Traveling 13000 miles over 100 days on electric bikes is hard to imagine. Ewan McGregor and Charles Boorman find out how challenging their mission is as they embark on a journey on prototype Harley Davidsons and the Rivian trucks. The first obstacle is electricity. While parts of the city have no problems with charging the bikes and the trucks, the countryside is where the duo face issues.

Art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the incredible story of Russian art, its mystery and magnificence and until now a story untold. He explores the origins of the Russian icon from its roots in Byzantium and the first great Russian icon, Our Lady of Vladimir to the masterpieces of the country's most famous icon painter, Andrei Rublev. Both epic and awe-inspiring, and producing brilliant art", nevertheless medieval Russia could be a terrifying place. Criss-crossing the epic landscape, Andrew visits the monastery founded by Ivan the Terrible, where his favourite forms of torture found inspiration in religious art. One man would shine a light into Russia's 'dark' ages - Peter the Great who, surprisingly, took as his inspiration Deptford in South London.

Between 1850 and 1950, three cataclysmic revolutions shook China to the core, but out of them, today's China emerged. The film begins in Canton with the meeting of a US missionary and a Chinese student. Inspired by the Christian story and calling himself God's second son, Hong unleashed the bloodiest war of the 19th century, the Taiping Rebellion.
As imperial China weakened, foreign influence grew. Treaty ports expanded, bringing growth and wealth, trams, railways and western sensibilities. But this provoked another surge of violence, the Boxer Rebellion, an attack against the foreigners, which was crushed by those same foreigners, who extorted a huge indemnity - $60 billion in today's money.
Then in 1912, the empire fell, and many groups contested China's future. In World War I, China sent 100,000 men to the western front, only to be humiliated at Versailles when German colonies in China were handed to Japan. Between the two world wars, the disparity between rich and poor, city and countryside increased. We visit Hong Kong's Peninsular Hotel in the jazz age and then follow Mao on the Long March to Yan'an, the heartland of revolution.
World War II came to China two years earlier than it did in the west. Wood talks to a survivor of the Japanese massacre of Nanjing in 1937 and then charts the triumph of the communists, before ending the story with Mao's death and the boom time of the last 30 years. The series ends with the warmth of the Chinese family and, at Beijing's Altar of Heaven, a final haunting glimpse of eternal China.