Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Through exclusive interviews with actors, family, and the filmmaker himself, this unprecedented documentary pulls back the curtain on the remarkable career of Steven Spielberg. Featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, Liam Neeson, and many more.

An astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world. Over the course of one single day, we track the sun from the highest mountains to the remotest islands, from exotic jungles to urban jungles. Breakthroughs in filmmaking technology bring you up close with a cast of unforgettable characters: a baby zebra desperate to cross a swollen river, a penguin who heroically undertakes a death-defying daily commute to feed his family, a family of sperm whales who like to snooze vertically, and a sloth on the hunt for love.
Told with humour, intimacy and a jaw-dropping sense of cinematic splendour, Earth: One Amazing Day highlights how every day is filled with more wonders than you can possibly imagine- until now.

Lucy Worsley travels to Russia to tell the extraordinary story of the dynasty that ruled the country for more than three centuries. It's an epic tale that includes giant figures such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, the devastating struggle against Napoleon in 1812, and the political murders of Nicholas II and his family in 1918 which brought the dynasty to a brutal end.
In this first episode, Lucy investigates the beginning of the Romanovs' 300-year reign in Russia. In 1613, when Russia was leaderless, 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov was plucked from obscurity and offered the crown of Russia. Lucy also charts the story of Peter the Great, the ruthless and ambitious tsar who was determined to modernise Russia at the end of the 17th century.

The inspirational documentary account of one man’s pioneering spirit, unswerving tenacity and endless passion, McLaren is the untold story of a motor racing icon. Born in New Zealand in 1937, Bruce McLaren’s determination to make it to the summit of global motor racing circles saw his name become synonymous with the sport; displaying an incomparable will to succeed and desire to better both himself and his burgeoning super brand.
In following a singular dream, McLaren elicited the loyalty, determination and love of family, friends and colleagues to create a dynasty that lives on to this day. Revealing the challenges and adversities faced along the way, including a childhood illness which threatened to alter the path of his life, McLaren is the story of one man’s unfaltering commitment to his vision which will inspire generations of sporting fans.

Filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent 3 years collecting real-life emotional stories from more than 2,000 women and men in 60 countries. Those emotions, those tears and smiles, those struggles and those laughs are the ones uniting us all. A combination of testimonies and exclusive aerial images, HUMAN is a unique documentary. This sensitive experience is an introspection into whom we are today as a community but also and most importantly as an individual. Through wars, inequalities, discriminations, HUMAN confronts us with the realities and the diversity of our human conditions. Beyond this darker side, testimonies show the empathy and the solidarities which we are capable of. All these contradictions are ours and HUMAN leads us to reflect about the future we wish to give to people and the planet today.

Alice Roberts explores the latest discoveries in the study of human origins, revealing the transformation that has been brought about in this field by genetics. Traditional Palaeoanthropology, based on fossils, is being transformed by advanced genome sequencing techniques. We now know that there were at least four other distinct species of human on the planet at the same time as us - some of them identified from astonishingly well-preserved DNA extracted from 50,000-year-old bones, others hinted at by archaic sections of DNA hidden in our modern genome. What's more, we now know that our ancestors met and interacted with these other humans, in ways that still have ramifications today. Alice uses these revelations to update our picture of the human family tree.