Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, with the help of the world’s most powerful telescope, ventures through the Milky Way and into the universe beyond, on the hunt for alien worlds.
S1E3 • Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Is There Life Beyond Earth? • 2025 • Astronomy
Space scientist Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock continues her search for alien life with a grand tour of our solar system. Could any other planets or moons out there be habitable?
S1E2 • Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Is There Life Beyond Earth? • 2025 • Astronomy
Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock begins her search for extraterrestrial life with an exploration of our nearest neighbour, and her favourite space rock, the moon.
S1E1 • Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Is There Life Beyond Earth? • 2025 • Astronomy
Sir David Attenborough explores the wildlife of his London hometown, from urban deer to rooftop peregrines and many others, revealing how nature thrives in the world’s greenest major city.
2026 • Nature
Dan Cruickshank presents a documentary revealing the story of the Dalai Lama, his secret Himalayan kingdom and the story of his exile, using eyewitness accounts from Tibetans including the Dalai Lama himself and colour archive footage of Tibet from the 1930s to 50s.
2008 • History
This episode examines how people can work with nature to make this world thrive.
S1E4 • The Future of Nature • 2025 • Nature
A look at how forest ecosystems reduce global carbon levels and effect climate, meeting the people working to improve biodiversity, saving keystone species and using Indigenous wisdom to rebuild and restore our forests.
S1E3 • The Future of Nature • 2025 • Nature
Glimpse into grasslands where the biggest animal numbers are found, and see how animal life helps to draw down carbon.
S1E2 • The Future of Nature • 2025 • Nature
How oceans and organisms within them play a fundamental role in removing carbon from the atmosphere.
S1E1 • The Future of Nature • 2025 • Nature
It's not as crazy as it sounds: life on Earth could be descended from space-faring microbes from Mars, or even further beyond, riding here on an interplanetary highway of asteroids. Extremophile bacteria may be resilient enough to survive the intense 3-stage journey, by repairing their own damaged DNA or hibernating for the long and deadly journey through space.
melodysheep • 2026 • Astronomy
A Madagascan chameleon and a Scottish water vole travel to secure their bloodline.
S1E3 • Big Little Journeys • 2023 • Nature
A Taiwanese pangolin and a Brazilian lion tamarin family travel to a strange new world.
S1E2 • Big Little Journeys • 2023 • Nature
Professor Alice Roberts explores the story of human evolution, revealing how a humble African ape became a successful global species. With daring parkour athletes and life-size primate animatronics, Alice explores the greatest leaps in our evolution by conjuring fire and re-enacting how we spread across the globe.
S1E2 • Who Am I (Royal Institution Christmas Lectures) • 2018 • Nature
This episode shows the ways in which plants defend themselves against animals, and grow in search of sunlight, nutrients and water, all the elements needed to survive.
S1E2 • Private Life of Plants • 1995 • Nature
Maverick doctors supercharge killer T cells, creating a breakthrough treatment for cancer.
S2E3 • Breakthrough National Geographic • 2017 • Health
How oceans and organisms within them play a fundamental role in removing carbon from the atmosphere.
S1E1 • The Future of Nature • 2025 • Nature
Dawkins discusses his book, the Selfish Gene, which divided the scientific community and made him the most influential evolutionary biologist of his time. Professor Richard Dawkins is one of the most well-known and controversial scientists in Britain. A passionate atheist he believes science rather than religion offers us the best way to appreciate the wonders of the Universe we live in. In the last 10 years he has become notorious for his outspoken views on religion, but at the heart of his success is his explosive first book -- The Selfish Gene -- which put forward a radical rewriting of evolutionary theory and divided the scientific community. Much of the controversy comes from its provocative title.
S2E3 • Beautiful Minds • 2012 • People
Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from 2008 and asking why climate change wasn't stopped before it was too late.
Storyville • 2009 • Environment
Will Smith discovers a whole new world of sound inside a live volcano.
S1E1 • Welcome to Earth • 2021 • Environment
Every minute of every day, a truckload of plastic enters our oceans. It destroys because it endures, breaking down into smaller pieces and particles.
S1E1 • War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita • 2019 • Environment
65 Million Years ago, an asteroid impact caused a cascade of catastrophes that led to the downfall of the dinosaurs, but what would happen if the same size space rock struck near the same spot again?
S1E1 • Doomsday: 10 Ways the World Will End • 2016 • Environment
From crunchy crickets to nutty fly grubs, NOVA takes a tasty look at insect foods and how they could benefit our health and our warming planet. From Thailand to Texas, insect farmers are showing how the tiny critters stack up as an environmentally friendly alternative to beef protein and can, pound for pound, deliver better nutritional value than the finest steak. But will Americans overcome the “ick” factor and share the appetite of many cultures around the world for insect feasts?
NOVA PBS • 2021 • Environment
Join experts as they uncover the truth behind the find of the century; an alleged proof copy of Galileo’s “Sidereus Nuncius” with the astronomer’s signature and seemingly original watercolor paintings that changed our understanding of the cosmos.
Secrets of the Dead • 2019 • People
Richard Turner is renowned as one of the world's greatest card magicians, yet he is completely blind. This is an in-depth look at a complex character who is one of magic's greatest hidden treasures.
2017 • People
Bettany Hughes investigates the revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx. Born to an affluent Prussian family, Marx became an angry, idealistic radical, constantly on the run for his political agitating and incendiary writing. In Paris he first formulated his explosive analysis of capitalism and its corrosive effects on human nature. In Brussels he co-authored the Communist Manifesto with Frederick Engels. In London his obsessive theorizing dragged his family into poverty and tragedy. Marx's masterpiece Das Capital was largely overlooked in his lifetime, and only 11 people attended his funeral. Yet his ideas would generate one of the most influential, and divisive, ideologies in history. Drawing on expert opinion and new evidence, Bettany reveals the flesh-and-blood man and his groundbreaking ideas.
Part 1 • Genius of the Modern World • 2016 • People
After finding a broken surfboard on his local beach, Jhonny Guerrero, a teenager from one of Peru's toughest barrios, sets his heart on becoming a professional surfer. With his father in prison for armed robbery and a mother struggling to feed and clothe his younger brother, the sea is his escape. When Jhonny is spotted by Peru's most successful surf champion, Sofia Mulanovich, he is taken under her wing and given a chance to succeed. Yet the pressure to do so weighs hard. Without his dad around, the lure of his friends and the risks of life in the barrios threaten to jeopardise everything he has worked for. When he's injured outside a nightclub in a drive-by shooting, Jhonny is forced to decide once and for all which path to take. AKA En La Tormenta.
2021 • People
Many technologies have promised to revolutionize education, but so far none has. With that in mind, what could revolutionize education?
Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy in October 1922, after his March on Rome. He would hold it in his grasp until his death in 1945, establishing a dictatorship that lasted more than two decades. Long considered a buffoon and a second-rate dictator, Il Duce invented fascism that was imitated by Adolf Hitler, who viewed the Italian as his political master. Mussolini wanted to transform his country into a warrior nation and promised Italians a return to the grandeur of the Roman Empire. He governed by violence and trickery and was one of the first populist leaders of modern times, leading his country into the catastrophe of the Second World War. But who was Benito Mussolini, this former teacher who came from the extreme left to become a newspaper editor and creator of the Italian Fascist Party? Why did he ally himself with Adolf Hitler? Were the Italian people really behind him? With rare archives, some of which have been colorized, and interviews with the last-surviving witnesses of the era, along with perspectives from historian Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci, this portrait takes a look back at one of the most notorious dictators of the 20th century.
2022 • People
On December 7 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, who killed more than 2,000 Americans. It soon became evident the US continue could no longer remain neutral in the Second World War.
S1E2 • World War II: Race to Victory • 2020 • History
By telling the story of our organs, this documentary makes us aware of an evolutionary timeline. Our nose is 40 million years old, our coccyx 25 million, our fingers 370 million, while our chin is only 200,000 years old!
S1E2 • The Secret History of our Evolution • 2018 • Nature
How Britain planned for a Nazi invasion - from tank traps and sticky bombs, to the Home Guard and tragic story of heroism. Alice Roberts looks for visible traces of Britain's rearmament in preparation for a German invasion. How did the Home Guard come about and what was the role of women in the offensive defense? We meet Indian-American Noor Inayat Khan, a special agent who worked with sabotage activities in German-occupied France, and hear her tragic story as one of the war's forgotten heroines. Alice learns about the deployment of the Home Guard, and Danielle travels to the Channel Islands, the only part of the British Isles under German control, to visit the only concentration camp built on British soil in Alderney. She explores life under occupation and visits the underground hospital Festung Guernsey.
S1E2 • Fortress Britain • 2022 • History
In the non-coding 98% of our DNA, we have countless switches to promote or suppress the physiological reactions of our bodies. Interestingly, we can change the states of these switches through our own efforts and even can affect the DNA conditions of our offspring before their birth.
S1E2 • Dynamic Genomes • 2019 • Science
In Dagestan - which the Foreign Office warns against visiting - Levison experiences warrior clans' hospitality, stunning beauty and ancient cities. Then it's on to country-of-contrasts Azerbaijan.
S1E2 • From Russia to Iran: Crossing the Wild Frontier with Levison Wood • 2017 • Travel
Hop along with a mob of kangaroos as they search for food while keeping a vigilant eye out for predators.
S1E1 • Secret Life of the Kangaroo • 2016 • Nature