Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Beneath the modern streets of Rome lies a city of breathtaking scale and ambition, once the heart of an empire that shaped the world. In this 15-part journey, archaeologist Dr. Darius Arya becomes your guide into a vivid time machine, where stunning CGI reconstructions resurrect the capital in all its glory. From the steamy elegance of vast bath complexes to the roar of chariot races, from awe-inspiring temples to political halls where history was forged, each episode reveals how engineering brilliance, artistic mastery, and human will transformed humble hills into the Eternal City. This is not just a tour of ruins—it’s Rome as its citizens once knew it.

Take an express journey to the edge of the universe as the filmmakers use computer-generated animation to build on images captures by the Hubble Telescope. The animation and story telling absolutely wonderful. Beginning on planet Earth, viewers are hurtled into the deepest reaches of space. There are no stops on this flight, and along the way the mysteries of the universe come alive as we examine the history and science of distant celestial.

In July 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) unveiled its first breathtaking images, offering an unprecedented level of detail of stars, galaxies, and planets. But for scientists, these images were just the start of an exciting journey to uncover the universe's secrets. This documentary follows Chris Lintott as he embarks on a road trip to meet the researchers who have been eagerly analyzing JWST's data, revealing groundbreaking discoveries about exoplanet atmospheres, the outer planets of our solar system, and the earliest galaxies in the cosmos.
To mark the second anniversary of JWST's first images, Chris, along with presenters Maggie Aderin-Pocock and George Dransfield, revisits these scientists to explore the telescope's successes and challenges. From new jet streams on Jupiter to quirks on Uranus and Neptune, and insights into the ancient universe, the documentary showcases the remarkable findings made possible by JWST. Additionally, resident astronomer Pete Lawrence guides viewers on how to observe the night sky's wonders, aligning their stargazing with the telescope's targets. This captivating journey into space science promises to inspire and intrigue.

The Sky at Night looks back at the last ten years of astronomy and ponders the most significant milestones and revelations. With the help of six distinguished astronomers, Chris and Maggie consider the state of astronomy in 2020 and wonder what new, exciting discoveries await us across the rest of the decade, as a host of new ground and space telescopes come online. Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees is among the guests to walk along the Astronomical Wall of Discovery in this one-hour special.

Jupiter is a turbulent world of monster magnetic fields and endless mega storms. Generations of astronomers have attempted to solve the mysteries of Jupiter, the most fierce and extreme planet in the Solar System. And now, NASA's Juno probe is revealing new evidence that could unlock the secrets of why this planet is so strange. With Juno, we're able to see Jupiter from the inside out and reach deep into its core to reveal how it grew.

This documentary journeys with the scientists into the heart of a giant. Juno is the Nasa mission designed to peer through Jupiter's swirling clouds and reveal the wonders within. By projecting a 70-foot-wide, life-size Juno on a Houston rooftop, Scott Bolton, head of Juno, shows us how its fragile electronics are encased in 200kg of titanium. As Scott puts it, 'we had to build an armoured tank to go there.' Professor Andrew Ingersoll, Juno's space weatherman, reveals they have seen lightning inside Jupiter, perhaps a thousand times more powerful than Earth's lightning. This might be evidence for huge quantities of water inside Jupiter.
Under the extreme conditions of Jupiter thousands of miles under the surface, hydrogen becomes a liquid metal. Juno is finding out how much liquid metallic hydrogen is inside Jupiter, and scientists hope to better understand how this flowing metal produces the most powerful aurora in the Solar System. But what is at Jupiter's heart? In Nice, Prof Tristan Guillot explains how Juno uses gravity to map the planet's centre. This can take scientists back to the earliest days of the solar system, because Jupiter is the oldest planet and it should contain clues to its own creation. By chalking out an outline of the Jupiter, Tristan reveals there is a huge rocky core - perhaps ten times the mass of Earth.