Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Richard Dawkins explores what science can tell us about death. It's a journey that takes him from Hindu funeral pyres in India to genetics labs in New York.Dawkins brings together the latest neuroscience, evolutionary and genetic theory to examine why we crave life after death, why we evolved to age and how the human genome is something like real immortality - traits inherited from our distant ancestors that we pass on to future generations.

We are the only species on earth that cooks its food - and we are also the cleverest species on the planet. The question is: do we cook because we're clever and imaginative, or are we clever and imaginative because our ancestors discovered cooking? Horizon examines the evidence that our ancestors' changing diet and their mastery of fire prompted anatomical and neurological changes that resulted in taking us out of the trees and into the kitchen.

At the heart of the film is a simple proposition: what is a good society, and what role does the widening income gap play in the deterioration of the nations's economic health? We are endeavoring for Inequality for All to be a paradigm-shifting, eye-opening experience for the public. We want to accurately show through a non-partisan perspective why extreme income inequality is such an important topic for our citizens today and for the future.

'In Search of Beethoven': takes a comprehensive look at the composer's life through historical research and Beethoven's biography and letters, but with the emphasis always on the performance -- and interpretation -- of Beethoven's music. From his early piano concertos through the "Moonlight Sonata," "Für Elise," and the immortal notes of the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, Beethoven's music remains as beloved, popular, and relevant as any work of art has ever been. "In Search of Beethoven" brings together the world's leading performers and experts on Beethoven to reveal new insights into this celebrated composer.

Odds are excellent that extraterrestrial life exists. So why haven’t we found aliens out in the galaxy? Are we looking in the wrong places? New research shows we should look closer to home, even inside our bodies. It turns out that a lot of our DNA is from a mysterious, nonhuman source. Theoretically, alien microbial life can make the journey to Earth from distant worlds, and scientists are finding some unearthly microbes in our upper atmosphere. Could it be from outer space? Could we be part alien? It’s even possible alien life is already here as digital life forms, hiding inside our technology.

Austrian director Michael Glawogger travels to five countries to focus on some of the worst jobs imaginable: Ukrainian miners crawl into tiny cracks in old coal pits to scratch out a few bags of winter fuel; Indonesian workers trudge long distances carrying baskets with hundreds of pounds of sulfur chunks extracted from a steaming mountain; Pakistanis risk explosions and burial under tons of scrap iron as they dismantle huge carrier ships. The visuals are everything here. Despite the hardships depicted, many sequences have a dreamlike beauty. In addition, the director has a bone-dry sense of irony; during the Ukraine scenes, he frequently cuts away to a statue of Stakhanov, the "hero" lauded by the Soviets for his superhuman work habits. He also shows us an old German smelting works that's been converted into a theme park.