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The Zelensky Story (2024) #1560
DOCUMENTARY
Main,Disk
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. With unique access to Volodymyr Zelensky and Olena Zelenska, this episode charts Zelensky’s extraordinary journey from aspiring comedian to president of his country. Ep 1: The Comedian and the Dictator. Opening with the collapse of the Soviet Union – an event which had a profound effect on Zelensky and Vladimir Putin in very different ways – to the Maidan Revolution sparking a political awakening in Zelensky, this episode explores his role as the Ukrainian president in the hit TV show Servant of the People and his decision to run for president in real life. Ep 2: President in the Real World. After the high of his election victory, Zelensky is forced to face political reality. Using in-depth interviews with Zelensky, his wife Olena Zelenska and their closest advisors, this episode puts viewers inside the room as Zelensky grapples with what it means to be the leader of a country. From Zelensky’s infamous phone call with Donald Trump to his only meeting with Vladimir Putin in Paris, the former comedian has a brutal initiation into the ruthless world of power politics. As Putin becomes increasingly belligerent and the drumbeat of war grows louder, Zelensky is under a huge amount of pressure. Is Ukraine prepared for war? Is Zelensky up to the job? Ep 3: War Leader. Opening in the first hours of the Russian invasion, this final episode follows explores how Zelensky used the skills he’d honed as an entertainer to galvanise people, as well as taking viewers inside Ukraine’s peace negotiations with Russia. And the Zelenskys reveal what happened in the first hours of the Russian invasion, and open up about the realities of living through war and the difficulty of making life and death decisions. |
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Bob Marley: One Love (2024) #1569
FILM
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1h 47m The story of how reggae icon Bob Marley overcame adversity, and the journey behind his revolutionary music. |
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Hannah Fry: Electric Cars (2023) #1488
DOCUMENTARY
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1 hour BBC. Electric Car The Secret Genius of Modern Life Series 1 Episode 4 of 6 Hannah Fry discovers why innovations in meat packing almost derailed the electric car revolution and how a breakthrough in camcorder batteries led to Elon Musk’s electric empire, as well as demonstrating how not to drive a multimillion dollar prototype car of the future. |
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Art That Made Us (2022) #1419
DOCUMENTARY
Special
8x1 hour episodes. BBC. An epic story of creativity. How works of art from Britain's past have shaped us. Some are surprising, others familiar - but all are at the heart of dramatic moments of change. Art that Made Us is a landmark eight-part series for BBC Two. Through 1500 years and eight dramatic turning points, the series presents an alternative history of the British Isles, told through art. Leading British creatives, including Simon Armitage, Anthony Gormley, Lubaina Himid, Maxine Peake and Michael Sheen join cultural historians to explore key cultural works that define each age. 1/8 Lights in the Darkness. Contemporary artists encounter artworks from a period once known as the 'dark' ages. 2/8 Revolution of the Dead. Literature, music and art find creative renewal in the aftermath of the Black Death. 3/8 Queens, Feuds and Faith. The religious revolution of the 16th century creates radical and surprising works of art. 4/8 To Kill a King.A splintering of politics and religion under the Stuarts leads to more questioning art. 5/8 Consumers and Conscience. In the 18th century, an age of exploitation stirs a growing social conscience. 6/8 Rise of the Cities. The industrial revolution forces artists to respond to upheaval in life and the landscape. 7/8 Wars and Peace. The savagery of the world wars changes British art forever. 8/8 Brilliant Isles. New and more diverse voices emerge after the 1960s, enriching British art. |
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Cunk on Earth (2022) #1447
COMEDY
Special
5x30 minute episodes. 1/5 In the Beginnings. Philomena Cunk ponders mankind’s first moments. 2/5 Faith/Off. Cunk explains how mankind got religion. 3/5 The Renaissance Will Not Be Televised. Cunk on revolutions, including the American one. 4/5 Rise of the Machines. Cunk on industrialisation and various classic wars. 5/5 War(s) of the World(s)?. Cunk takes us from 1945 to the present day. |
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The Colour Room (2021) #1384
FILM
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The Colour Room: Directed by Claire McCarthy. With Matthew Goode, Phoebe Dynevor, Rachel Shenton, David Morrissey. Clarice Cliff breaks the glass ceiling and revolutionizes the workplace at a pottery factory in 1920s England |
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Joker (2019) #1307
FILM
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Directed by Todd Phillips. With Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy. In Gotham City, mentally troubled comedian Arthur Fleck is disregarded and mistreated by society. He then embarks on a downward spiral of revolution and bloody crime. This path brings him face-to-face with his alter-ego: the Joker. |
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Einstein's Quantum Riddle (2019) #1321
DOCUMENTARY
Special
1 hour. BBC. Einstein’s Quantum Riddle tells the remarkable story of perhaps the strangest phenomenon in science – quantum entanglement. It’s a story of mind-bending concepts and brilliant experiments, which lead us to a profound new understanding of reality. At the start of the 20th century Albert Einstein helped usher in quantum mechanics - a revolutionary description of the behaviour of tiny particles. But he soon became uncomfortable with the counterintuitive ideas at the heart of the theory. He hunted for flaws in the equations and eventually discovered that they predicted a seemingly impossible situation. Quantum theory suggested you could have two particles, which had interacted in the past, and even if you separated them by millions of miles they would somehow act in unison. If you measured one, forcing it to take on one of many properties, the other would instantly take on a corresponding property. Like rolling two dice, millions of miles apart, and as you look at one to see what number it landed on, the other instantly shows the same number. This bizarre prediction of magically connected particles became known as quantum entanglement. Einstein felt it couldn’t possibly be real – it seemed to break the rules of space and time. In 1935, with two of his colleagues, he published a paper that argued that this bizarre phenomenon implied the equations of quantum theory must be incomplete. No-one could think of a way to test whether Einstein was right, until in 1964, John Bell, a physicist form Northern Ireland, published an astonishing paper. He’d found a key difference between Einstein’s ideas and those of quantum theory. It all boiled down to entanglement. As Professor David Kaiser puts it: ‘We now know this was one of the most significant articles in the history of physics. Not just the history of 20th-century physics; in the history of the field as a whole.’ In 1972 John Clauser and Stuart Freedman built an experiment based on John Bell’s work and found the first experimental evidence to suggest that quantum entanglement really is a part of the natural world. Today, a technological revolution is under way, with labs around the world harnessing entanglement to create powerful new technologies such as quantum computers. At Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, researcher Marissa Giustina describes their latest quantum-processing chip. And in Shanghai, at the University of Science and Technology, Professor Jian-Wei Pan explains that his team is working to send entangled particles from a satellite to a ground station to create totally secure communication links – a major step towards the creation of an unhackable ‘quantum internet’ of the future based on quantum entanglement. Yet despite this progress, questions still remain about our experimental proof of entanglement. There are possible loopholes that could mean that entanglement may be an illusion and that Einstein was right all along. At the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands, Professor Anton Zeilinger’s team is attempting a remarkable experiment to rule out the most challenging loophole. Their experiment uses two of Europe’s largest telescopes to collect light from two quasars, billions of light years away, to control intricate measurements of tiny quantum particles and put quantum entanglement to the ultimate test. |
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Art of France (2017) #976
DOCUMENTARY
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3x1 hour. BBC. Andrew Graham Dixon takes viewers on a stunning visual journey through French art history. 1/3 Plus Ca Change. French art's development up to the arrival of Classicism and the Age of Enlightenment. 2/3 There Will Be Blood. Andrew Graham-Dixon explores how art took a dramatic turn following the French Revolution. 3/3 This Is the Modern World. France's angry young artists re-invent how to paint. |
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British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley (2017) #977
DOCUMENTARY
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3x1 hour. BBC. Lucy Worsley explores how British history is a concoction of fibs and stories manipulated by whoever was in power at the time. 1/3 The Wars of the Roses. Lucy debunks the foundation myth of one of our favourite royal dynasties, the Tudors. 2/3 The Glorious Revolution. Debunking the Glorious Revolution, when William of Orange stole the throne from James II. 3/3 The Jewel in the Crown. Lucy debunks the fibs that surround India, the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire. |
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Britain in Focus: A Photographic History (2017) #993
DOCUMENTARY
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3x1 hour. BBC. Series in which Eamonn McCabe celebrates Britain's greatest photographers, sees how science allowed their art to develop, and explores how they have captured our changing lives and country. 1/3 Exploring how the new art of photography developed in 19th-century Britain. 2/3 Eamonn traces the emergence of photojournalism in the early 20th century. 3/3 How the colour boom and digital revolution have shaped modern British photography. [Including Peter Mitchell's 'Planet Yorkshire' at Impressions Gallery Bradford.] |
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Buddy Holly: Rave On (2017) #999
DOCUMENTARY
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1 hour. BBC. He was lanky, he wore glasses and he sang as if permanently battling hiccups. Aesthetically, Buddy Holly might have been the most unlikely looking rock 'n' roll star of the 1950s. But he was, after Elvis Presley, unquestionably the most influential. It was an all-too-brief career that lasted barely 18 months from That'll Be The Day topping the Billboard charts to the plane crash in February 1959 in Iowa that took Holly's life. That day was immortalised in Don McLean's 1971 song American Pie, and has become known as 'the day the music died'. This film tells the story of Buddy Holly's tragically short life and career through interviews with those who knew him and worked with him. This combined with contributions from music fans paints a picture of an artist who changed music. Rock 'n' roll started with Elvis, but pop music started with Buddy Holly and The Crickets. In an age of solo stars, Holly also led the first recognisable 'pop' group, The Crickets, who in name alone inspired The Beatles. As a songwriter, he revolutionised rock 'n' roll by introducing dynamic new rhythms and unpredictable melodies beyond its traditional blues roots. In his songs, written and recorded in the late 50s, we can already hear the beat group sound of the 1960s and beyond. Buddy Holly's story remains one of the most dramatic tales in rock 'n' roll, one which nearly 60 years after his breakthrough hit That'll Be The Day, deserves to be told again for a new generation. His life was tragically short. His legacy is triumphantly infinite. |
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Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall (2017) #1004
DOCUMENTARY-MUSIC
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1 hour. BBC. Fifty years ago this week, on 1 June, 1967, an album was released that changed music history - The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In this film, composer Howard Goodall explores just why this album is still seen as so innovative, so revolutionary and so influential. With the help of outtakes and studio conversations between the band, never heard before outside of Abbey Road, Howard gets under the bonnet of Sgt Pepper. He takes the music apart and reassembles it, to show us how it works - and makes surprising connections with the music of the last 1,000 years to do so. Sgt Pepper came about as a result of a watershed in The Beatles' career. In August 1966, sick of the screaming mayhem of live shows, they'd taken what was then seen as the career-ending decision to stop touring altogether. Instead, beginning that December, they immersed themselves in Abbey Road with their creative partner, producer George Martin, for an unprecedented five months. What they produced didn't need to be recreated live on stage. The Beatles took full advantage of this freedom, turning the studio from a place where a band went to capture its live sound, as quickly as possible, into an audio laboratory, a creative launch-pad. As Howard shows, they and George Martin and his team constructed the album sound by sound, layer by layer - a formula that became the norm for just about every rock act who followed. In June 1967, after what amounted to a press blackout about what they'd been up to, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. It was a sensation, immediately becoming the soundtrack to the Summer of Love - and one of the best-selling, most critically lauded albums of all time. It confirmed that a 'pop music' album could be an art form, not just a collection of three-minute singles. It's regularly been voted one of the most important and influential records ever released. In this film, Howard Goodall shows that it is the sheer ambition of Sgt Pepper - in its conception, composition, arrangements and innovative recording techniques - that sets it apart. Made with unprecedented access to The Beatles' pictorial archive, this is an in-depth exploration, in sound and vision, of one of the most important and far-reaching moments in recent music history. |
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Russia 1917: Countdown to Revolution (2017) #1039
DOCUMENTARY
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1 hour. BBC. The Russian Revolution of 1917 is one of the most controversial events of the 20th century. Three men - Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin - emerged from obscurity to forge an entirely new political system. In the space of six months, they turned the largest country on earth into the first Communist state. Was this a triumph of people power or a political coup d'etat that led to blood-soaked totalitarianism? A hundred years later, the Revolution still sparks ferocious debate. This film dramatizes the 245 days that brought these men to supreme power. As the history unfolds, a stellar cast of writers and historians, including Martin Amis, Orlando Figes, Helen Rappaport, Simon Sebag-Montefiore and China Mieville, battle over the meaning of the Russian Revolution and explore how it shaped the world we live in today. |
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Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (2017) #1040
DOCUMENTARY
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3x1 hour. BBC. Suzy Klein explores music's crucial role in the most turbulent years of the 20th century. 1/3 Revolution. Suzy Klein explores the politics of music following the Russian Revolution and WW1. 2/3 Dictatorship. Suzy Klein investigates how Hitler and Stalin used and abused music for ideological ends. 3/3 World War. Suzy Klein explores the fascinating use, abuse and manipulation of music in World War II. |
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The Vietnam War (2017) #1043
DOCUMENTARY
Special
BBC plus. 10x1 hour. 1/10 Deja Vu (1858-1961). Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh end French colonial occupation. 2/10 Riding the Tiger (1961-1963). President Kennedy and his advisors wrestle with how far to get involved in South Vietnam. 3/10 Hell Come to Earth (January 1964-December 1965). With South Vietnam in chaos, Hanoi hardliners seize the initiative and send combat troops. 4/10 Doubt (January 1966-June 1967). Defying American airpower, North Vietnamese troops stream down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 5/10 This Is What We Do (July 1967-December 1967). American casualties and enemy body counts mount as marines face North Vietnamese ambushes. 6/10 Things Fall Apart (January 1968-June 1968). North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launch surprise attacks on cities and bases. 7/10 Chasing Ghosts (June 1968-May 1969). Public support for the war declines. American men of draft age face difficult decisions. 8/10 A Sea of Fire (April 1969-May 1970). With morale plummeting in Vietnam, President Nixon begins withdrawing American troops. 9/10 Fratricide (May 1970-March 1973). South Vietnamese forces fighting on their own in Laos suffer a terrible defeat. 10/10 The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward). While Watergate forces Nixon to resign, the Vietnamese savage one another in a civil war. |
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Revolution: New Art for a New World (2017) #1047
DOCUMENTARY
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80mins. BBC. Directed by acclaimed film-maker Margy Kinmonth, this bold and exciting feature documentary encapsulates a momentous period in the history of Russia and the Russian avant-garde. Drawing on the collections of major Russian institutions, contributions from contemporary artists, curators and performers, and personal testimony from the descendants of those involved, the film brings the artists of the Russian avant-garde to life. It tells the stories of artists like Chagall, Kandinsky, Malevich and others - pioneers who flourished in response to the utopian challenge of building a new art for a new world, only to be broken by implacable authority after 15 short years. Stalin's rise to power marked the close of this momentous period, consigning the avant-garde to obscurity. Yet the Russian avant-garde continues to exert a lasting influence over art movements up to the present day. The film confirms this, exploring the fascination that these colourful paintings, inventive sculptures and propaganda posters retain over the modern consciousness 100 years on. It was filmed entirely on location in Moscow, St Petersburg and London, with access to the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Hermitage Museum and in co-operation with the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The film features paintings previously banned and unseen for decades, and masterpieces which rarely leave Russia. Contributors include museum directors Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky and Zelfira Tregulova, and film director Andrei Konchalovsky. The film also features the voices of Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Hollander, James Fleet, Eleanor Tomlinson and Daisy Bevan. |
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The Farthest: Voyager's Interstellar Journey (2017) #1056
DOCUMENTARY
Main
90mins. BBC. Twelve billion miles away a tiny spaceship is leaving our solar system and entering the void of deep space. It is the first human-made object ever to do so. Slowly dying within its heart is a plutonium generator that will beat for perhaps another decade before the lights on Voyager finally go out. But this little craft will travel on for millions of years, carrying a Golden Record bearing recordings and images of life on Earth. The story of Voyager is an epic of human achievement, personal drama and almost miraculous success. Launched 16 days apart in 1977, the twin Voyager space probes have defied all the odds, survived countless near misses and almost 40 years later continue to beam revolutionary information across unimaginable distances. With less computing power than a modern hearing aid, they have unlocked the stunning secrets of our solar system. This film tells the story of these magnificent machines, the men and women who built them and the vision that propelled them farther than anyone could ever have hoped. |
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The Real Doctor Zhivago (2017) #1215
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Dr Zhivago is one of the best-known love stories of the 20th century, but the setting of the book also made it famous. It is a tale of passion and fear, set against a backdrop of revolution and violence. The film is what most people remember, but the story of the writing of the book has more twists, intrigue and bravery than many a Hollywood blockbuster. In this documentary, Stephen Smith traces the revolutionary beginnings of this bestseller to it becoming a pawn of the CIA at the height of the Cold War. The writer of the novel, Boris Pasternak, in the words of his family, willingly committed acts of literary suicide in being true to the Russia he loved, but being honest about the Soviet regime he hated and despised. Under Stalin, writers and artists just disappeared if they did not support the party line. Many were murdered. Writing his book for over 20 tumultuous years, Boris Pasternak knew it could result in his death. It did result in his mistress being sent to the gulag twice, but he had to have his say. This is the story of the writing of perhaps the bravest book ever published. It is the story before the film won Oscars and its author, the Nobel Prize. It is the untold story of the real Dr Zhivago - Boris Pasternak. |
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Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley (2016) #895
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Lucy Worsley travels to Russia to tell the extraordinary story of the dynasty that ruled the country for more than three centuries - the Romanovs. 1/3 Reinventing Russia. A look at the early Romanovs, from 16-year-old Mikhail in 1613 to Peter the Great. 2/3 Age of Extremes. Lucy examines the reign of Catherine the Great and the conflict with Napoleonic France. 3/3 The Road to Revolution. Lucy investigates how the family's grip on Russia unravelled in the years 1825-1918. |