Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

The Search for Freedom is the story of a cultural revolution fueled by the human desire to live in the moment and do what makes you feel the most alive. DIrector Jon Long presents this visceral look at the pioneers of extreme sports, including skateboarder Danny Way and motobiker Robbie Madison, and the human stories behind their search for thrills.

Episode 7 focuses specifically on first contact and the search for intelligent life in the vastness of the cosmos. Are humans ready to make first contact with other intelligent beings? Is our technology even sophisticated enough to detect communication signals from another world? Who are we to search for alien intelligence when we can't even recognize or respect the consciousness all around us, or even beneath our feet.
Neil deGrasse Tyson reveals the hidden underground network that is a collaboration of four kingdoms of life, and a true first contact story between humans and beings who communicate in a symbolic language and have maintained a representative democracy for many tens of millions of years.

Did Marco Polo, the most illustrious traveller in history, ever go to China? To this day doubt lingers, among some scholars, as to whether the Venetian’s book is a personal account of China’s 13th-century Middle Kingdom and its marvels. Scientists, western scholars and Chinese historians have uncovered striking new evidence that the son of Venetian merchants actually had been to China. Explore the mysteries of the historical figure in this featured documentary.

Their quest is to discover whether the items we throw away today have any value for tomorrow's world. In a unique science experiment, Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin chronicle the history of rubbish and explore how what we throw away tells us about the way we live our lives. With unprecedented access to one of the UK's largest landfill sites, the team of experts spend three days carrying out tests all over the site, revealing the secret world of rubbish. They also carry out three other 'archaeological' digs into historic landfills to chart the evolution of our throwaway society.
Is mining trash for something valuable really viable? McGavin concluded: 'The idea of landfill mining is a pretty compelling vision of the future.'

We are familiar with images of the hearings at the Nuremberg trials. But to this day, no one has taken us into the cells and minds of the accused. Leon Goldensohn, a 34-year-old American Jewish psychiatrist, spent six months visiting the 4 main Nazi war criminals.
Based on these unique and recently uncovered documents and reconstitutions of the main events, this film discloses for the first time the personal thoughts of the Nazis: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Hans Franck and Julius Streicher. These interviews raise serious questions concerning the psychic mechanisms and mysteries that set off acts of barbarity.

It's a timeless classic of children's literature and the third most-quoted book in English after the Bible and Shakespeare. But what lies behind the extraordinary appeal of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to generations of adults and children alike? To mark the 150th anniversary of its publication, this documentary explores the life and imagination of the man who wrote it, the Reverend Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll." Broadcaster and journalist Martha Kearney delves into the biographies of both Carroll himself and of the young girl, Alice Liddell, who inspired his most famous creation. Kearney's lifelong passion for Carroll's work began as a young girl, when she starred as Carroll's heroine Alice in her local village play. She discusses the book with a range of experts, biographers and distinguished cultural figures - from the actor Richard E Grant to children's author Philip Pullman - and explores with them the mystery of how a retiring, buttoned-up and meticulous mathematics don, who spent almost his entire life within the cloistered confines of Christ Church Oxford, was able to capture the world of childhood in such a captivating way