Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Andrew Graham-Dixon travels to Istanbul to immerse himself in the tumultuous world of the Byzantine Empire. He decodes the iconography of the art of the period and explains its continuing relevance.

Professor Richard Dawkins explain how his unique scientific perspectives have redefined how we think about the world around us and describe his big moment or discovery. Dawkins reveals how he came to write The Selfish Gene in 1976, an explosive book which divided the scientific community and made him the most influential evolutionary biologist of his generation, and how this made him an outspoken spokesman for atheism.

'What Makes Me?', explores the question of how the brain gives rise to our thoughts, emotions, our memories and personality. Philosophers and great thinkers have for millennia pondered the question of how physical stuff can give rise to mental processes. Last century, the new field of neuroscience joined the discussion, and Dr David Eagleman explains that to a neuroscientist, the answers to such questions lie in a deep understanding of the brain.

Embedding over the course of his seminar 'Date with Destiny', Joe Berlinger turns an unflinching eye on Tony Robbins powerful and uncompromising approach to achieving success, ensuring the attendees leave with new perspective on the forces, thoughts and feelings that motivate their behavior and help them better take control of their lives. The films pulls back the curtain on Tony Robbins, a man that traverses the globe and consults over 200,000 people annually, including world leaders, pundits and celebrities. An emotional tour de force that unveils the inner-workings of this mega event, the zealous participants and the man himself.

Bladderwort utricularia is a pond-dweller that is among the fastest known, its traps snapping shut in less than a millisecond. As the seasons change, David demonstrates how plants operate on a different time scale to us; how they modify their lives according to the time of year. We discover insects’ hidden links with plants, both as pests and pollinators. UV-sensitive 3D cameras reveal the invisible alter-ego of plants and their flowers’ mesmerizing patterns; a parallel-dimension of strange colours and stunning patterns through which plants communicate with them. With the aid of visual effects, David steps among the swirling vortices of plant scent; communication signals with which plants are inextricably plugged in to the natural world. And using a tuning fork, he demonstrates how plants and insects can even communicate with music. As autumn envelopes the Gardens, fungi reveal themselves not as the enemies of plants but their vital allies. In Kew’s atmospheric Fungarium, David discovers a specimen that has the power of mind control and another that lives underground where it has grown to be so big it can be counted as the largest single organism on the planet. It is 6 times bigger than Kew Gardens itself.

Enter the fascinating world of the coral reefs and experience breath taking flora and fauna up close. The multitude of marine species, commencing with glassy sweepers, blow and porcupine fish, goliath groupers, giant morays, sea turtles up to the largest shark on earth, the whale shark, as well as the play of colours and the biodiversity of the corals, stony star corals, soft corals, bubble-tip anemones and gorgonian corals. Let yourself fall into a rapture of the deep. All in glorious 3D