Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

A fifth of the land on our planet is covered by desert. Deserts may appear to be barren and empty, but they are of crucial importance to life. For those that can overcome their challenges they provide a vital refuge. The Grasslands are one of our planet's most productive landscapes. They support the greatest aggregations of large animals on Earth. Cameras follow desert elephants seeking sustenance, bison roaming North American grasslands and caterpillars living the good life underground.

Immense shoals of fish throng our shallow seas. Small fish, in turn, sustain bigger ones. The rich coastal seas are the fishing grounds of our planet and can provide an abundance of food for wildlife and humanity. The seas fringing land make up less than a tenth of the world's oceans but 90 percent of marine creatures live in coastal waters, from fearsome sharks to lowly urchins. Protecting these habitats is a battle humanity must win.

Drawing from over 100 hours of never-before-seen footage that has been tucked away in the National Geographic archives for over 50 years, award-winning director Brett Morgen tells the story of Jane Goodall, a woman whose chimpanzee research challenged the male-dominated scientific consensus of her time and revolutionized our understanding of the natural world.
Set to a rich orchestral score from legendary composer Philip Glass, the film offers an unprecedented, intimate portrait of Jane Goodall - a trailblazer who defied the odds to become one of the world's most admired conservationists, her early explorations and research in Tanzania, the relationship with her cameraman and husband Hugo Van Lawick, and the chimpanzees that were the subject of her study.

A rain forest is the richest habitat on Earth. Exactly how many species rain forests contain is unknown, but it runs into millions. And new ones are discovered every week. There are some, like the clouded leopard, we still know virtually nothing about. Although they cover just seven percent of the world's land area, jungles play a vital role in the health of the planet .
Jungles and rainforests are home to an incredible variety of species like preening birds, intelligent orangutans and remarkably ambitious ants.

A deep sea diver is stranded on the seabed with 5 minutes of oxygen and no hope of rescue. With access to amazing archive this is the story of one man's impossible fight for survival.
Chris Lemons were carrying out repairs 100m below the surface of the North Sea, supported by the vessel Bibby Topaz. The vessel's dynamic positioning system failed, causing it to snap the umbilical tether that provided Lemons oxygen, as well as hot water to heat his suit, power for his light, and a radio link to the surface. He was left with only the few minutes of breathable gas contained in the cylinders he wore on his back.
For reasons that are unclear, Lemons survived for around 30 minutes while he was located by a remote underwater vehicle and then by Yuasa, who was able to pull him back onboard the diving bell. The documentary uses genuine footage and audio recorded at the time of the accident on the divers' radios and body cameras, supplemented with interviews of several of the individuals involved, as well as some reconstructed footage, to tell the story of the accident.

The polar regions of our planet may seem beyond the reach of most of us, but they are not beyond our influence. We, unintentionally, are changing these frozen worlds, and these changes will not just affect the poles but the whole planet. On the unforgiving frontier of climate change, polar bears, walruses, seals and penguins find their icy Edens in peril.