Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Egypt on the Brink: Arab Spring climaxed in the overthrow of President Mubarak in Egypt. But for many Egyptians, the situation has actually gotten worse. China's Ghost Towns: Fifteen years ago, China changed its policy so people could buy their own homes. Real-estate investments boomed, and new cities began popping up. The problem is: people don't live in what have become 'ghost cities.'

A majestic presence, towering over Paris for more than 130 years, the Eiffel Tower is an iconic symbol of 19th-century progress and grandeur. When it was built for the 1889 Paris world’s fair, its creator, Gustave Eiffel, was at the height of his fame and ready to take on the dream of every engineer and architect - to build the world’s tallest man-made structure. He had just two years, two months and five days to erect his 300-metre iron colossus. Drawing on three decades of civil engineering innovation and works across the globe, Eiffel, a magician of iron building, was perfectly poised for this extraordinary feat.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili investigates the most accurate and yet perplexing scientific theory ever - quantum physics. At the beginning of the 20th century scientists were led into the hidden workings of matter, into the sub-atomic building blocks of the world around us. They discovered phenomena unlike any encountered before - a realm where things can be in many places at once, where chance and probability call the shots and where reality appears to only truly exist when we observe it. Albert Einstein hated the idea that nature, at its most fundamental level, is governed by chance. Jim reveals how, in the 1930s, Einstein thought he'd found a fatal flaw in quantum physics because it implies that sub-atomic particles can communicate faster than light in defiance of the theory of relativity. In the 1960s the scientist John Bell showed there was a way to test if Einstein was right and quantum mechanics was actually mistaken. Jim repeats this critical experiment - with shocking results.

The film offers an unprecedented exploration into the life of Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood's quintessential star. With extraordinary access to Taylor's personal archives and 40 hours of newly unearthed, intimate audio interviews with journalist Richard Meryman, audiences are invited to rediscover, not just a mega star of Hollywood's Golden Age, but a complex woman who navigated lifelong fame, personal identity, and public scrutiny on a global stage from early childhood.
These candid conversations peel back the layers of one of cinema's most enduring icons, revealing a woman at odds with her public image, yearning for respect and agency. The film follows the life of an actress who defied the era's expectations by portraying strong-willed women on-screen, offering a nuanced portrait of the intersection of vulnerability and strength.

The second part of this series begins with his return home after his discharge from the army, and how he dealt with a rapidly changing pop scene.
The picture is more complicated than even a fairly serious Elvis fan may understand. Priscilla Presley, who made some appearances in the first part, offers much more here, helping us understand how being forced into making a string of lousy movies was one kind of artistic prison, and then being ensconced in casino hotels for his famous Las Vegas residency was another. The man who had so carefully created his original persona was now stuck in the shallow roles others forced him to play.

In this visually stunning exploration, Herzog travels to the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station, headquarters of the National Science Foundation and home to 1,100 people during the austral summer (Oct-Feb). Over the course of his journey, Herzog examines human nature and Mother nature, juxtaposing breath taking locations with the profound, surreal, and sometimes absurd experiences of the marine biologists, physicists, plumbers, and truck drivers who choose to form a society as far away from society as one can get.