Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Rothko is known for his abstract expressionism paintings, but he moved through more traditional styles in his early career, including Surrealist paintings in the 1940s. In 1947 he embarked on the first of his large abstract 'colour-field' paintings, formalising their structure further in the 1950s. Rothko had huge success with largescale solo shows, but committed suicide in 1970.

Join the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity for an awe-inspiring journey to the surface of the mysterious red planet. Through the eyes of these two intrepid, death-defying rovers, and with NASA scientists and engineers at your side, you’ll see Mars in a way no one ever has before. You’ll feel what it is like to stand on the startling surface of the planet that’s intrigued mankind for eons. And you’ll uncover its ultimate mystery: Is there life on Mars? Roving Mars – it’s the ride of a lifetime.

Episode three explores the mind of one of the most fanatical of all Nazis and the insight that gives into the psychology of dictatorship. Hess is brought to Nuremberg from the UK where he had flown 4 years earlier much to the bemusement of the British. Overy explains that they must have quickly realised he was not normal. In the intervening time Hess’s mental state has further deteriorated and when interviewed by Chief Interrogator Colonel John Amen proclaims amnesia. Chief Interpreter Richard Sonnenfeldt explains that they brought in Göring to confront Hess but that he too failed to make an impression.
Psychopathologist Prof. Edgar Jones proposes Hess’s behaviour patterns may be his way of escaping reality as he is forced to face the extent of the atrocities and choose between accepting his part of the blame or forsaking his Führer. However, as history Professor Robert Gellatel explains it is difficult to construct a case against Hess as he was imprisoned in England when the worst of the atrocities were carried out so British Prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones must argue a conspiracy charge linking the pre-1939 persecutions to the post-1939 atrocities and a crimes against peace charge proving the flight to Scotland was merely a ruse.

Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal. 'Ruling by the Book.' Janina begins her journey with the first Anglo-Saxon rulers to create a united England, encountering books in the British Library's Royal manuscripts collection which are over a thousand years old and a royal family tree which is five metres long.
Janina finds out about a king who had a reputation for chasing nuns and reads a book created as a wedding gift for a ten-year-old prince. She roams from Westminster Abbey to other ancient English spiritual sites such as Winchester, St Albans and Malmesbury, and sees for herself how animal skins can be transformed into the finest vellum.

Tim Whewell is in St Petersburg to meet the self-styled Russian nationalists and patriots who are volunteering to join the fighting in eastern Ukraine. He joins a group of volunteers as they undertake military training, and travels to Ukraine to see how the volunteer force is fighting on the ground.

Back one million years ago, South America was a continent of exotic oversized creatures found nowhere else on Earth - huge terror birds, giant ground sloths and spiky-tailed relatives of the armadillo as big as cars. The deadliest animal of them all was smilodon, the largest of the sabre-tooth cats, with canines like carving knives. The programme follows the fortunes of an individual male, Half Tooth. Ousted from his clan by a pair of rival males, his life suddenly becomes a struggle to survive in this alien world.