Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

With optional Hebrew subtitles. Simon Schama explores the history of the Jewish experience from ancient times to the present day. This programme begins the tale 3,000 years ago, with the emergence of a tribal people in a contested land and their extraordinary book, the Hebrew Bible, a chronicle of their stormy relationship with a faceless, formless, jealous God. It was loyalty to this 'God of Words' that defined the distinct identity of the ancient Jews and preserved it despite all that history could throw their way". The story unfolds with a dazzling cast of historical characters: Sigmund Freud dying in exile in London; Victorian evangelicals and explorers following 'in the footsteps' of Moses; Jewish mercenaries living, prospering and intermarrying in the pagan land of Egypt; Messianic Jews dreaming of the Apocalypse; and a Jewish historian, Josephus, who witnessed first-hand the moment when the apocalypse finally came and the Romans destroyed the Jewish High Temple in Jerusalem.

The Celts - one of the world's most mysterious ancient people. In Britain and Ireland, we are never far from our Celtic past but in this series Prof. Alice Roberts and archaeologist Neil Oliver travel much further afield, discovering the origins and beliefs of these Iron Age people in artefacts and human remains right across Europe, from Turkey to Portugal. What emerges is not a wild people on the western fringes of Europe, but a highly sophisticated tribal culture that influenced vast areas of the ancient world - and even Rome". Rich with vivid drama reconstruction, we recreate this pivotal time and meet some of our most famous ancient leaders - from Queen Boudicca to Julius Caesar - and relive the battles they fought for the heart and soul of Europe. Alice and Neil discover that these key battles between the Celts and the Romans over the best part of 500 years constituted a fight for two very different forms of civilisation - a fight that came to define the world we live in today. In the first episode, we see the origins of the Celts in the Alps of central Europe and relive the moment of first contact with the Romans in a pitched battle just north of Rome - a battle that the Celts won and that left the imperial city devastated.

A documentary-horror film exploring the phenomenon of 'Sleep Paralysis' through the eyes of eight very different people. These people often find themselves trapped between the sleeping and waking worlds, totally unable to move but aware of their surroundings while being subject to frequently disturbing sights and sounds. A strange element to these visions is that despite the fact that they know nothing of one another, many see similar ghostly 'shadow men.' This is one of many reasons many people insist this is more than just a sleep disorder". This documentary digs deep into not only the particulars of these eight people's uncanny experiences, but it also explores their search to understand what they've gone through and how it's changed their lives. Directed by Rodney Ascher, he chose to focus on sleep paralysis as it had happened to him in the past. The film's crew initially began approaching participants via message groups, videos and a half dozen books that had been written.

The digital era gives rise to unprecedented opportunity to exploit, and be exploited. Troves of child pornography are available at the click of a mouse. Who are these children - and who profits from their abuse? While facilitating the darker side of our impulses, technology is also being touted as a cure to rehabilitate predators. In this episode meet the children who are forced to perform sex acts on camera; people who use the same technology to protect kids and nab the perpetrators; plus, a pedophile who reveals the roots of his addiction.

A group of brave individuals risk their lives to save the last of the world's mountain gorillas; in the midst of renewed civil war and a scramble for Congo's natural resources." Virunga National Park in the Congo is a place of unique natural beauty. It is the home to a plethora of wonderful animals and vegetation but as is so often the way, it has several serious problems that threaten it. It's the location of human violence, corruption and exploitation. The disasters that specifically loom are two different groups, the M23 and SOCO International. The former are a violent rebel force who engages in an ongoing civil war with the Congolese government and the latter are a British energy company who specialise in oil exploration. Both M23 and SOCO invade the park in their own ways and neither seems very interested in the laws that have been set up to protect the flora and fauna that exist there, far less the people who live there. It seems hardly surprising in the case of M23, as they are a paramilitary organisation who can hardly be expected to be concerned with such things but it is the more legitimate big business SOCO who seem more worrying if anything. We discover in fact that they have been involved in a bribery campaign, utilising M23 as enforcers. It's a very murky situation where big money walks all over an impoverished nation and disregards a natural space that they can see no value in in their pursuit of financial profit.

A dynamic journey behind the scenes of the next step in the evolution of telescopes: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. A new generation has been inspired to design and build this massive instrument, which is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope and will be a veritable time machine, capable of looking back on the origins of our universe and identifying signatures of potential life on planets far outside our solar system". With unprecedented access to the people and technologies that power its creation, including astrophysicists, engineers at Northrop Grumman, and personnel from NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute, the operations center for Hubble and Webb, Telescope spotlights the high-stakes mission of building this massive new scientific instrument. The film is a comprehensive look at the dynamic history of 400 years of telescopes starting with Galileo in 1609. The Webb is the next great telescope in society's ongoing mission to see farther into the universe and answer fundamental questions that have haunted mankind from the beginning of time. Directed by Oscar nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn