The Amber Time Machine
★ 7.5 · 2004 · 48m · Documentary
David Attenborough searches for the identities of preserved creatures inside a piece of Baltic amber that was given to him by his adoptive sister when he was twelve years old.
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The Pink Egg
2017
Luis Buñuel’s observation – “You can find all of Shakespeare and de Sade in the lives of insects” – was the inspiration for this experimental horror movie, in which human actors wordlessly enact the life-cycles of wasps and bees. Its purpose is to depict with emotion, humor and unnerving specificity an alternative society that really exists and has nothing to do with human beings. A highly stylized depiction of nature in all her deceitful glory.
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Ants - Nature's Secret Power
2004 · ★ 8
UNIVERSUM cameraman Wolfgang Thaler and Bert Hoelldobler, a leading authority on ants, bring us face-to-face with the mysterious world of these social insects.
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Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
2009 · ★ 7.7
Darwin's great insight – that life has evolved over millions of years by natural selection – has been the cornerstone of all David Attenborough’s natural history series. In this documentary, he takes us on a deeply personal journey which reflects his own life and the way he came to understand Darwin’s theory.
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The Hellstrom Chronicle
1971 · ★ 6.5
A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.
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Microcosmos
1996 · ★ 7.6
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
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2013
A story about survival, belief in the physical memory of things, as if still-life was always part of the scientific possibility or of the nightmare of extinction.
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Hatching by Cirque du Soleil
2013
A Documentary on the Creation of OVO, by Cirque du Soleil
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The Bones
2024 · ★ 7.8
Following the journey of fossils from their discovery in remote corners of the earth to laboratories, museums, auction houses and collectors’ living rooms, the film weaves together interlocking stories of eccentric characters caught between the demands of commerce and the basic human drive to unlock the most profound mysteries of life. THE BONES takes us deep into the Gobi, Sahara, and North American badlands, and through laboratories, museums, high-end auction houses, and grungy hotel rooms at the Tucson gem show. Wrapped in elusive questions about the origins of life on earth, and its potential future demise, THE BONES unearths the deep passions at the heart of the dinosaur world.
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Discovery of the Century — The Great Dinosaur of Japan
2018
It's considered the discovery of the century in Japan -- the unearthing of a complete fossilized skeleton of an 8-meter long dinosaur. It was dubbed Mukawaryu based on the name of the town in Hokkaido where it was uncovered. The find opened up a new world of dinosaur research in Japan. But it also created another mystery because this land dinosaur was discovered in a location that, eons ago, would have been in the ocean. How did the fossil get there? The amazing answer is revealed in this documentary, using CGI to re-create how dinosaurs lived 72 million years ago.
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Dinosaurs on Ice
2008
Deep inside the arctic, scientists are experimenting with extreme palaeontology methods to unlock the secrets of polar dinosaurs, and perhaps the key to our own survival on Earth. On Alaska's north slope there are dinosaur bones, lots of them. But they're trapped in an icy tomb - an impenetrable wall of permafrost. Dinosaurs on Ice follows the journey of two scientists, Dr Tom Rich and Dr Tony Fiorillo, who undertake separate expeditions to the Colville River in Alaska's far north to uncover the dinosaurs' bones and break the ice on a prehistoric world that until now has been unreachable. But the task is not easy. The weather is extreme, the location remote.
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Secrets of the Neanderthals
2024 · ★ 6.6
This documentary delves into the mysteries surrounding the Neanderthals and what their fossil record tells us about their lives and disappearance.
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