Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Nick Yarris, a convicted murderer who has spent 23 years on Death Row and was released in 2004 when DNA evidence proved he was innocent of the crime, tells his story. In a non-linear structure, he reveals his early life, youthful transgressions, arrest, and time on death row, with several twists and turns. This gripping documentary reels you in, closer and closer, finally playing its hand in the closing moments.

To recruit actors for his rehearsals, Nathan opens an acting studio in Los Angeles, teaching 'the Fielder Method', which involves covertly observing and imitating unaware subjects. Feeling insecure about his own performance, Nathan reenacts the class with actors and a fake Nathan as the teacher while the real Nathan plays the role of Thomas, a student. Nathan makes his students immerse themselves in other people's lives while he immerses himself in Thomas's life, even living in Thomas's home.
Nathan returns to Oregon, where his 'son', Adam, is now a teenager. Nathan and Joshua, the actor playing Adam, decide that Adam should lash out due to resentment of his absentee father and develop a drug problem, a situation that mirrors Angela's own past. Adam suffers an overdose and is tended to by emergency responders played by Thomas and another Fielder Method graduate. After he runs away from home, the 15-year-old Adam reverts to a 6-year-old since Nathan plans to relive his son's earlier years.

Morgan Freeman travels the world to study the cycles of war and peace. From the ritualized combat of the sacred Tinku festival in Bolivia to Rwanda's post-genocide reconciliation program, this episode deals with humanity's enormous capacity for violence and the endless pursuit of harmony. Conflict can drive innovation, but is war necessary?

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch - one of the world's leading historians - reveals the origins of Christianity and explores what it means to be a Christian. In the first episode, he overturns the familiar story that it all began when the apostle Paul took Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome. Instead, he shows that the true origins of Christianity lie further east, and that at one point it was poised to triumph in Asia, maybe even in China. The headquarters of Christianity might well have been Baghdad not Rome, and if that had happened then Western Christianity would have been very different.

The second episode of the series immerses the viewer in a fascinating journey through the history of life on our planet, focusing on the evolution and adaptation of life in the seas. It begins billions of years ago, when the Earth was an inhospitable place and life was impossible on the surface due to a hostile environment. The documentary highlights how, beneath the waves, life began to flourish, protected from storms and other elements of nature. It addresses the development of photosynthesis by plankton and how this led to a significant change in the Earth's atmosphere, allowing the emergence of animal life.
This visually stunning narrative chronicles the evolution of various forms of marine life, from the earliest complex life forms to the appearance of the first fish and cephalopods. The documentary shows how marine life has influenced terrestrial life, emphasizing the impact of the 'greening' of planet Earth.

The second episode takes a look at how humans have always been voyagers and explorers, leaving the comfort of native shores to explore. Neil DeGrasse Tyson will show us a long-term vision of humanity's future worlds.