Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Fly across iridescent tropical reefs, brush through a cloud of a million jellyfish, visit an alien world where the closer you look, the more you see, where the tiniest creatures support the greatest predators... We think of reefs as exotic, distant places with little or no connection to our everyday world. Yet every reef is a living city beneath the sea with a parallel existence to ours, distant yet undeniably connected. Reefs are hotspots of biodiversity as vital to life on earth as the rain-forests. They have been shaping our shorelines, literally forming islands and mountains, for millions of years. The fossil record shows that given time they have recovered from all of earth's major extinction events. Even reefs pulverised by atomic blasts at Bikini Atoll have regenerated. Yet within our lifetime reefs have come to face their greatest threat...

Without us noticing, modern life has been taken over. Algorithms run everything from search engines on the internet to satnavs and credit card data security - they even help us travel the world, find love and save lives. Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms. By showing us some of the algorithms most essential to our lives, he reveals where these 2,000-year-old problem solvers came from, how they work, what they have achieved and how they are now so advanced they can even programme themselves.

The 24th July 2010... 80,000 Lives... 4,500 Hours of Footage... 2 Award winning Filmmakers... Now one incredible motion picture event. What began life as a startling cinematic experiment becomes the must see movie experience. Created entirely from footage uploaded by YouTube users, Life in a Day is a film first: exhilarating, moving and very, very funny. It is the story of our world. Told by us. Ridley Scott produced the film and edited the videos into a film with director Kevin Macdonald and film editor Joe Walker

Predictions underlie nearly every aspect of our lives, from sports, politics, and medical decisions to the morning commute. With the explosion of digital technology, the internet, and 'big data,' the science of forecasting is flourishing. But why do some predictions succeed spectacularly while others fail abysmally? And how can we find meaningful patterns amidst chaos and uncertainty? From the glitz of casinos and TV game shows to the life-and-death stakes of storm forecasts and the flaws of opinion polls that can swing an election, 'Prediction by the Numbers' explores stories of statistics in action. Yet advances in machine learning and big data models that increasingly rule our lives are also posing big, disturbing questions. How much should we trust predictions made by algorithms when we don't understand how they arrive at them? And how far ahead can we really forecast?

Filmed over four years, Our Planet is an eight-part series that combines the spectacular photography of Planet Earth with an unprecedented look at the planet's remaining wilderness areas and their animal inhabitants. With a cornucopia of visual wonder and environmental advocacy, the series explores more of this beautiful, blue marble while presenting an urgent call to action to its inhabitants. In the words of David Attenborough: 'This series will celebrate the natural wonders that remain, and reveal what we must preserve to ensure people and nature thrive'.
The first episode explores the planet's breathtaking diversity -- from seabirds carpet-bombing the ocean to wildebeests eluding the wild dogs of the Serengeti.

The rise of alternative rock in the USA. From its early underground days where bands like Black Flag drew inspiration from the DIY ethos of punk. We explore why the bands that emerged from the underground offered an alternative both to the established music industry and the prevailing politics. Bands like R.E.M., The Pixies and Husker Du, REM breaking into the mainstream charts with 'Losing My Religion', Seattle 'grunge' scene, culminating in the success of Nirvana's 'Nevermind'