Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

This new feature-length biographical film tells the extraordinary and dramatic story of the planet's most famous living scientist, told for the first time in his own words and by those closest to him. Made with unique access to his private life, this is an intimate and moving journey into Stephen Hawking's past and present. Interviewees include Stephen Hawking's sister Mary, his ex-wife Jane, carers and students, as well as colleagues such as Roger Penrose, plus Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Jim Carrey, and Sir Richard Branson This inspirational portrait of an iconic figure relates Hawking's incredible personal journey from boyhood underachiever to scientific genius and multi-million-selling author. And it charts how he overcame being diagnosed with motor neurone disease - and being given just two years to live - to make amazing scientific discoveries and become a symbol of triumph over adversity. Born exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo, Hawking grew up in a family some regarded as eccentric. Always asking questions, he was nicknamed 'Einstein' at school. Hawking blossomed at Oxford, although he only spent an hour a day studying. He noticed that he was becoming clumsy and fell over for no apparent reason. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, but nevertheless started a family and embarked on his academic career, finding himself at the heart of a searing scientific debate about the origins of the universe. And as he lost the use of his body, Hawking had to find new ways to think. He went on to write the huge bestseller A Brief History of Time, and the film reveals the high and lows of his resulting fame and fortune.

Directed by Alex Gibney, it follows the life and work of ex-Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Gibney starts the doc by showing how much people around the world worship Steve Jobs as if he were an idol. He then provides you with a wealth of background information about Jobs' childhood, teenage and college years including how he formed Apple Inc. Fortunately, not all of the doc is hagiography because Gibney does briefly delve into the darker side of Jobs, particularly how selfish he was and mistreated those around him including his ex-wife. Jobs comes across as a charming, intelligent narcissist who knows how to captivate an audience whenever he speaks. In other words, like all great narcissists, he's a very good actor. Gibney certainly knows how to choose the right subject because Jobs' complexity makes him all the more captivating and worthy of a feature-length film. As is usually the case with Gibney's docs, this one is slickly-edited and has just the right amount of comic relief, mostly in the brief video of an young boy joyfully lists all of Apple's technological devices that Steve Jobs created. You'll catch a glimpse of what makes Jobs fallible, and find a little mildly provocative food for thought about the advancement of modern technology, i.e. how technology helps to connect us to one another yet alienates us at the same time.

A short kid from a Canadian army base becomes the international pop culture darling of the 1980s—only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. Follows the life of beloved actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, exploring his personal and professional triumphs and travails, and what happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease.

Over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December 1983, filmmaker Jonathan Demme joined creative forces with Jordan Cronenweth and Talking Heads... and miracles occurred. Following a staging concept by singer-guitarist David Byrne, this euphoric concert film transcends that all-too-limited genre to become the greatest film of its kind. A guaranteed cure for anyone's blues, it's a celebration of music that never grows old, fueled by the polyrhythmic pop-funk precision that was a Talking Heads trademark, and lit from within by the geeky supernova that is David Byrne.
This circus of musical pleasure defies the futility of reductive description; it begs to be experienced, felt in the heart, head, and bones, and held there the way we hold on to cherished memories. On those three nights in December 1983, Talking Heads gave love, life, and joy in generous amounts that years cannot erode, and Demme captured this act of creative goodwill on film with minimalist artistic perfection. Stop Making Sense is an invitation to pleasure that will never wear out its welcome.

Witness the secret powers of extraordinary animals, experience the world as they do and see the SUPER/NATURAL side of nature as never before. Executive produced by James Cameron and narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, this series uses the scientific innovations and leading-edge filmmaking technology to reveal the secret powers and super-senses of the world’s extraordinary animals. See flowers in bee-vision to eavesdropping on conversations between elephant seals to soaring the length of a football field with glow-in-the-dark squirrels.
They say in nature that only the strongest survive. But when cooperation and communication bring animals and plants together and superpowers combine even the most vulnerable can become unstoppable. If you think you know nature, think again.

In this programme, Mary descends into the city streets to discover the dirt, crime, sex and slum conditions in the world's first high-rise city. This Rome is not the marble Rome we know, but a vast, messy metropolis with little urban planning, where most Romans lived in high-rise apartment blocks with little space, light, or even sanitation. Forced outdoors into the city streets, she reveals where they went to hang out, get drunk, have sex and get clean. She looks at the Forum as a place of gamblers, dentists and thieves, and she explores the lustiness of Roman bar life and jokes. Finally, exploring law and order from the bottom up, Mary examines how this city really worked. She meets Ancarenus Nothus, an apartment dweller who lived in fear of the rent collector; Notorious Primus, who wrote about his three great pleasures in life - baths, wine and sex; and Unlucky Doris, a seven-year-old girl killed in one of Rome's many fires.