Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

A look at two missions attempting one of the most difficult feats of space exploration - to collect a rock from another world. The film checks in on the US and Japanese attempts to bring a piece of an asteroid back to Earth. The missions have taken decades of planning, but the results will be worth it. We find out how studying these space rocks can teach us about the origins of our solar system and may one day help save Earth from a catastrophic collision.

David Attenborough reveals the fascinating lives of snakes, the most misunderstood group of reptiles. A CCTV stakeout of wild rattlesnakes hunting shows, for the first time, what sophisticated predators they truly are. Attenborough is also on the receiving end of a spitting cobra's chemical weapons system, while the surprisingly beautiful and tender side of snakes is displayed in the sinuous courtship of kingsnakes, and the water birth of 15 beautiful yellow anaconda babies.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili looks at how we have created machines that can simulate, augment, and even outperform the human mind - and why we shouldn't let this spook us. He reveals the story of the pursuit of AI, the emergence of machine learning and the recent breakthroughs brought about by artificial neural networks. He shows how AI is not only changing our world but also challenging our very ideas of intelligence and consciousness.
Along the way, we'll investigate spam filters, meet a cutting-edge chatbot, look at why a few altered pixels makes a computer think it's looking at a trombone rather than a dog and talk to Demis Hassabis, who heads DeepMind and whose stated mission is to 'solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else'. Stephen Hawking remarked 'AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation. Or the worst'. Jim argues that AI is a potent new tool that should enhance our lives, not replace us.

Their quest is to discover whether the items we throw away today have any value for tomorrow's world. In a unique science experiment, Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin chronicle the history of rubbish and explore how what we throw away tells us about the way we live our lives. With unprecedented access to one of the UK's largest landfill sites, the team of experts spend three days carrying out tests all over the site, revealing the secret world of rubbish. They also carry out three other 'archaeological' digs into historic landfills to chart the evolution of our throwaway society.
Is mining trash for something valuable really viable? McGavin concluded: 'The idea of landfill mining is a pretty compelling vision of the future.'

David Attenborough reveals the surprising truth about the cold-blooded lives of reptiles and amphibians. These animals are as dramatic in combat, as colourful in their communication and as tender in their parental care as any other animals. Join giant courting crocodiles, jousting tortoises and bright red sumo-wrestling frogs in their sophisticated, solar-powered lives.

In this ground-breaking film, Sir David Attenborough takes us on a journey through the world-famous Natural History Museum in London in a captivating tale of discovery, adventure, and magic, where state-of-the-art CGI, science, and research combine to bring the museum's now long-extinct inhabitants to life to discover how these animals once roamed the planet. As the doors are locked and night falls, Attenborough stays behind and meets some of the most fascinating extinct creatures which come alive in front of his eyes; dinosaurs, ice age beasts, and giant reptiles.
The film fulfils a lifelong dream of him, who said: 'I have been coming to the Natural History Museum since I was a boy. It's one of the great places to come to learn about natural history. In this film we have the technology to bring back to life some of the most romantic and extraordinary extinct creatures that can be conceived; some are relatively recent animals like the dodo, others older like the dinosaurs, and some we only know through fossil evidence. Using our current scientific knowledge, this film brings these creatures alive, allowing me to look at some of the biggest questions surrounding them.'